V-dem’s democracy index rates India at its lowest since 1975

Last week, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), said it was “gravely concerned” about “reports of large-scale violations perpetrated by law enforcement officials” in its first review of India since 2007. The committees’ observations included concerns over the exclusion of large number of voters, Muslims in particular, as part of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

UN CERD’s criticism seems to be in line with some of the observations in the latest democracy report by the University of Gothenburg-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, which uses a multidimensional approach to “conceptualising and measuring democracy.”