India a flawed democracy, says EIU report

While India never tires of trumpeting itself as 'the world's largest democracy', an authoritative survey has classified it as a ''flawed democracy''. The Economist Intelligence Unit, a global research organisation, has given the country this dubious distinction even as it prepares the general election, which the EIU itself has acknowledged as "the world's largest democratic exercise".

The EIU's 2008 Democracy index ranks India 35th out of 167 countries, putting it among the 50 countries considered "flawed democracies". The list of ''full democracies'' is topped by the usual suspects - the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc), Switzerland, and New Zealand, and Mauritius, which are among the 30 countries that qualify as 'full democracies' along with Australia, Japan, the USA, and others.

Lower down in the rankings, 36 countries have been labelled 'hybrid regimes' while another 56 are 'authoritarian regimes'.

The ranking is based on 60 indicators which measure electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. India is among the 'flawed democracies' along with nearby countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as another of the so-called BRIC emerging market giants-Brazil.

However, India is well placed within this category, ranking above all of these nations. With an overall score of 7.8 out of 10, it is just shy of the score needed to be categorised as a full democracy.

''While India's democracy, in technical terms, is flawed, the country is very close to joining the elite club of full democracies. India's young citizenry needs to engage with politics more actively and constructively in order to create a favourable democratic culture in the country,'' says Manoj Vohra, director of research with the EIU. ''India is already well ahead of most emerging economies.''

India's relatively strong position owes much to its high scores in the electoral process and pluralism and civil liberties categories; its status as the world's largest democracy, and the country's free press and pluralistic society. In these areas India outscores even some long-established "full democracies", including the US and the UK.

Poor political culture
However, India fares much worse in the political participation and political culture categories. The existence of the "argumentative Indian" may facilitate public debate, but this does not necessarily translate into a high level of political participation. Voter turnout in the last general election was 58 per cent, but this figure masks extremely wide interstate variations, ranging from 35 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir to 92 per cent in the small north-eastern state of Nagaland, says the study.

Within political culture, the increasing reliance on unwieldy and sometimes uncooperative coalitions often hinders rather than advances economic reforms, and this works against the country's overall score. India's government functioning score is relatively strong, but it is brought down by lingering issues about corruption and government accountability.

The economic downturn will have a negligible impact on democracy

While India is feeling the effects of the global economic slowdown, it is much less affected than most other countries, and democratic functioning is therefore less likely to be impacted, says Vohra.

Given that large swathes of the population, mostly in rural areas, derived relatively little benefit from the economic boom of the past few years, they are now also unlikely to feel much pain as a result of the downturn. ''Other issues, such as consumer price inflation and national security, would have been far more likely to prompt an increase in social unrest than a broad-based cyclical economic downturn,'' Vohra adds.