 "Reimagining democracy: Why India's call for transparent rankings rattles the West")
Over the years, democracy has come to mean many things, often abstract and distorted, especially used to invoke a necessary “value” of the global order. Such a “value” has depended upon a few aspects: economic and military hard power and alignment with Western interests. As India finally announced its democracy rankings, nations that depend on using inaccurate “expert opinions” to subvert data raised a hue and cry. Domestically, there is a cohort that disagrees with the idea of such rankings and argues one of two ideas:
That the collective West has more expertise in deciding such rankings and must be unchallenged;
That India and other nations can eschew Western validation and need not care about the rankings and other indices.
The first is a group that believes in Western supremacy and has formed the ideological collaborator class of any foreign group that has sought to “govern” as a euphemism for colonisation by other means. This is reflected in their calling directly for foreign interference regarding India’s domestic policy setting and makes no bones about their preference for externalised decision-making. This is not a group with the interests of Indian citizens at heart, seeking only to maintain their position as an intellectual and social elite, watching self-righteously from atop a high horse made of colonial dreams. As such, malintent entails that their ideas cannot pertain significantly to the will of the people of the country.
The second group is made of those with well-intentioned naivete. A little knowledge would go a long way in explaining an economic, and otherwise, interconnected world. The fact that interests and debt ceilings on investments and loans are dependent on credit ratings and indices such as these need us to be concerned about them. Moreover, they create a legacy for judgment by other nations we interact with. At its peak of wealth, knowledge and value creation, Bharat stood as a beacon, inviting engagement, not insularity, and not content in hubris. That is a later doing, a subject of an era of turmoil preventing recognition of a national conscience underlying its diversity.
For an endeavour such as a democracy index to fill a void in data and not in propaganda, the rankings need to take into consideration several true indicators of the values that define self-governance. To prevent further distortions, though, it is necessary to reiterate what democracy means – governance by the representatives of all citizens. The universal adult franchise is the most inclusive indicator of true democracy and a basic pre-requisite. Other parameters aid in measuring the refinement of processes that allow for universal franchises to be executed during elections. The below parameters offer a relevant set of data that measures people’s participation in governance and are significant in calculating the functioning of democracy in a nation:
Women voting percentage: Women form a major part of the population, and yet, across the world, have been kept away from the ballot system for socio-cultural reasons. Their participation determines the freedom of a notable part of the population to implement universal franchises.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsVoter percentage: A clear determinant of a population’s participation in the democratic exercise, voter turnout in percentage terms is a necessary parameter for inclusion in such an index.
Electoral malpractices (such as poll-related violence, ballot stuffing, coercion regarding voting choice etc.): The prevention of exercising individual freedom of choice in electing one’s representative through safe and secret exercise of ballot options is a hindrance towards an exercise in democracy.
Judicial freedom and access: The judiciary maintains the functioning of a democracy by upholding the laws of the land. Its co-option by powers within the legislature, or by powers inimical to the nation, through institutionalized corruption or systemic exclusion causes the citizenry to be unable to access recourse under national law.
Legislative freedom: Once elected, the representatives must have the freedom to enact a policy they determine. The lack of political will causes a weakened democracy unable to then articulate a people’s will. This does not mean the passing of merely popular and populist policies such as hyperinflationary welfare, but of policies that ensure long-term citizen well-being.
Number of parties participating in an electoral contest: A thriving democracy offers the freedom of choice to its individual. A smaller number of parties can easily be co-opted by vested interests such as corporates or powerful individuals, rendering them puppets rather than true democracies. For example, the de-facto win of a single party in Singapore renders the country a single-party dictatorship, unarguably a benign one.
Barriers to entry for new parties and independent candidates: To affect change within a populace outside of existing frameworks, representatives must have the option of functioning outside of them. A lack of barriers to creating political parties that represent citizens at all levels, local, regional and national, is necessary to ensure that democracy is an ongoing and dynamic process and not an unsustainable system that can collapse with the downfall of a few entities.
Campaigning by representatives: Robust campaigning by leaders who represent their constituents is a sign of their entrenchment in the political system not being guaranteed through unfair means such as through electoral malpractices. Moreover, it ensures that citizens are aware of their representatives and their election promises.
Constituents’ knowledge of representatives and election promises: Campaigning is one of the ways to enhance citizen knowledge about candidates. Digital messaging, use of media and surveys to determine knowledge of party manifestos determine if the people understand who they are being represented by and if they wish to see the manifesto promises fulfilled. Without such knowledge, the citizenry can vote for candidates under misguided premises and such an exercise can derail a functioning democracy for at least a single election cycle, or even longer.
Citizen participation in governance at the grassroots: Governance is not merely top-down, much like representation. The participation of the people in their localities and communities determines their participation at local levels. A more organised decentralization functioning within national consciousness and constitutional mandates is necessary.
Public understanding of policy via their government publicization: In a democracy, citizens often participate by seeking legal recourse as well as accountability from representatives. This is only possible if the laws and policies applicable in the country are available and understood by citizens.
Feedback mechanism from citizens: No democracy is representative without accountability from its representatives and an electorate does not stop functioning once voting is over. Once in governance, citizen feedback on policy and law must be considered via means of messaging and not merely through a longer election voting cycle.
Leader popularity: A democratic leader must represent a majority of his or her people. A barely popular leader raises questions on the legitimacy of representation and a lack of faith in being a true representative of the people’s will.
Nationalism: Citizens must care enough about their country to participate in a democracy, making national spirit a prerequisite for an exercise in democracy.
Law and order: Without a per capita measure of crime and law and order, it is easy to miss that strongmen and criminal leaders can run a pretend democracy by creating fiefdoms where constituents are beholden to their closest gang leader and keep electing him to secure basic freedom of life and opportunity.
Monopoly on violence by the state: A point that aligns with the former, without the monopoly of violence by the state, various interest groups can hold leaders to ransom and demand changes in policy by threat or force of violence and subvert the will of the electorates. This does not impinge on the individual freedom to own and practice weaponry, but, only their use in violence against state and people.
Lack of minoritarianism: The tyranny of the minority imposes itself on democracy as a matter of freedom. However, as long as individual freedoms guaranteed in a national Constitution are guaranteed to minorities, demands that impose upon the freedoms of practice of yet another minority, or of the majority itself must be avoided. Democracy is a majoritarian exercise often, and minoritarianism destabilises it.
Belief in election legitimacy: A nation can hardly be believed to be democratic if its participants do not believe in the outcome of the election results.
It must be understood that in no way does this index indicate that non-democracies are inferior in other human indices: This report should be treated as a study of the democratic process in nations that have chosen to abide by it and have a Constitution that supports it. The parameters presented here offer a starting point in a study of democracies. Democracy is an ideal that offers the hope of maximum opportunity for an individual in that the most socially challenged individual can aspire to lead a nation. As a value, such moral calling appeals to a large part of the moral world, yet indices that decide its presence and work are considered to lack credibility due to opaque models and reliance on an elite cohort of individuals to offer opinions instead of data or algorithms.
It is a necessary study that offers geopolitical benefits and a deeper dive into many of these parameters will level the playing field for the Global South that is less considered and bears the economic and social brunt of being less represented. After all, as famed economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell says, “In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.” As India takes up this cause, perhaps some of these degrees introduce a modicum of credibility to the process, through clear and reliable data gathering and modelling.
The author is a columnist at several Indian publications such as NDTV, FirstPost and CNN-News18, and hosts a podcast on geopolitics and culture. She writes about international relations, public policy and history, and posts on X on her handle @sagorika_s. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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