Narendra Modi govt gets approval of 85% Indians; 55% support autocracy, shows new Pew Research survey

Washington: More than four-fifths of Indian citizens trust the government, but, interestingly, the majority also support military rule and autocracy, a new survey by the Pew Research Center said on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_4150887” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PTI[/caption] “In India, where the economy has grown on average by 6.9 percent since 2012, 85 percent (of people) trust their national government”, Pew Research said in a report based on its survey on governance and trust among key countries. According to the survey, 55 percent of Indians support autocracy in one way or the other. In fact, more than one-fourth (27 percent) want a “strong leader”. Nearly half of the Russians (48 percent) back governance by a strong leader, but the prospect is generally unpopular, the report said. A global median of 26 percent say a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without “interference from parliament or the courts” would be a “good way of governing”. Roughly seven in 10 (71 percent) say it would be a bad type of governance. India is one of the three countries in the Asia Pacific where people support technocracy (a government comprising an elite of technical experts). “Asian-Pacific public’s generally back rule by experts, particularly people in Vietnam (67 percent), India (65 percent) and the Philippines (62 percent)”, it said. Only Australians are notably wary, as 57 percent say it would be a bad way to govern. According to the survey, roughly half of both Indians (53 percent) and South Africans (52 percent) say military rule would be a good thing for their countries. But in these societies, older people (those aged 50 and above) are least supportive of the idea, and they are the ones who either experienced the struggle to establish democratic rule or are the immediate descendants of those democratic pioneers, Pew said.