Aakar Patel | Despite Govt Claims, Why India Not Even ‘Partly Free’

On March 5, 2021, the Press Information Bureau of the Indian government put out a statement headlined: “Rebuttal to Freedom House report on India’s declining status as a free country.”

It was in response to the finding by the US think tank, founded in 1941, that India was not really democratic and was only “partly free”. This was one of several similar findings by respected global institutions. We are focussing on this one because it elicited a response from the government.

The government’s statement opened with a defence of the electoral process and said: “Many states in India under its federal structure are ruled by parties other than the one at the national level, through an election process which is free and fair and which is conducted by an independent election body. This reflects the working of a vibrant democracy, which gives space to those who hold varying views.”

This was dishonest. The Freedom House report had two parts. The first, carrying 40 per cent weightage, concerned political rights. Here India got a score of 34/40 (falling to 33/40 in 2023), including full marks for free and fair elections, election commission impartiality, freedom to start political parties and opportunities for the Opposition to increase its power. In this part, India did not get full marks on whether voting was unhampered by violence and unaffected by communal tension. This is hardly arguable. In fact, the government even got 3/4 on transparency, which was probably overgenerous. The government response was, therefore, merely repeating what Freedom House had anyway said. Where India’s rating was hurt was in the other 60 per cent, for civil liberties, which are also a part of freedom.

Here it performed poorly (33/60). On the issues of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, academic freedom, freedom of assembly, freedom for NGOs to work (the report named the government’s attack on Amnesty International India specifically), rule of law, independence of judiciary and due process by police, India’s rating was poor. But the scores merely reflected the reality. The government appeared baffled by the results. It sought details from ministries of the parameters used by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its downgrading of India to a “flawed democracy” though the report itself clearly says that the “primary cause was an erosion of civil liberties” and introduction of religion into citizenship laws.

The scores have dropped further in 2026, which is based on the events of 2025. Political rights are now 31/40 and civil liberties at 31/60, the lowest score India has ever received and one suspects the events of the last few months will impact the score, and our image, negatively even more. Why do I say that?

India was a democratic state because its institutions were intact and seen widely as neutral, reasonably efficient and usually fair. As good and as bad as the democratic institutions of most real democracies. That is what the Freedom House score represents.

To the question: “Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?” Freedom House thought that “executive elections and selection procedures are generally regarded as free and fair” and gave us a score of 4/4.

On “were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?”, too, we got 4/4 with the observation that “elections were considered generally free and fair, though some violations of campaign rules were reported”.

A score of 3/4 came on the question of “are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies?”

Here is the critical paragraph, which says that the Opposition parties’ “concerns intensified in 2025 as the government expanded its special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list, as carried out in Bihar, to 12 other states and territories.

Among other things, the Opposition has alleged that the ECI has unfairly deleted large numbers of voters from the rolls and prevented eligible voters from registering by introducing excessive verification requirements. Political analysts and opposition leaders have expressed concern that the SIR suppresses the opposition vote and disenfranchises Muslim and other minority voters. Government officials have rejected allegations of voter roll manipulation. The SIR remained underway at year’s end.”

On the question of “do the people have the right to organise in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?” India scored 3/4.

On the question of whether the Opposition has a realistic opportunity to increase its support or gain power through elections, India again scored 3/4.

None of these scores make any sense now. They do not reflect our reality. The voter rolls have been mangled, the ECI is an arm of the government and hardly independent. Legislators are bought en masse and it doesn’t matter who loses elections because the House always wins, as they say about casinos. The beating that civil liberties have taken over the last few years showed immediately; the erosion of primary institutions has taken slightly longer to register with observers but it is now clear. The jackboot of the state is a more honest symbol of the Indian state today than the ballot box.

Aakar Patel is a senior journalist and columnist