What makes elections in india democratic

Populist leaders often polarise society and delegitimise the political opposition, often presenting them as enemies of the state or people. What follows is often violation of electoral integrity itself and outright fraud," says Prof Morse. Paul Staniland, associate professor of political science at University of Chicago, has examined V-Dem's measurement of India since Independence in in its democracy index.

He found India's ranking was lower during the Emergency in the mids when Indira Gandhi, the former prime minister belonging to the Congress party, suspended civil liberties. The s show up as more democratic than the ss, a decade which was politically dominated by the Congress party.

There is no major decline in ranking during the BJP-led coalition government between and Indeed, there's a very slight drop [in rankings] from to under the Congress-led UPA government. V-Dem is not a huge fan of Indira Gandhi's rule in s or early s. There are important alternative approaches to measuring these things and lots of important caveats about how precise they can be. But there are a lot of reasons to think they capture important big-picture dynamics and trends," says Prof Staniland.

Rohan Mukherjee, an assistant professor of political science, at Yale-NUS College, says these rankings are useful for research and identifying very broad trends that academics are interested in. Some of this also gets to the heart of how we define democracy and who gets to define democracy.

Prof Mukherjee says most non-academics would be incredulous that a handful of research assistants and country experts get to decide that a country is an "electoral autocracy" while hundreds of millions of that country's citizens would disagree.

The operational concepts across the two domains are very different. Democracy in the V-Dem dataset, says Prof Mukherjee, has a precise and multi-faceted definition, many aspects of which the vast majority of Indians do not keep in their heads as they go about their lives and think about the political system in which they live. Image source, Getty Images. Mr Modi's government has been accused of targeting minorities.

So what's going on? Image source, AFP. How has India's government reacted? Why journalists in India are under attack The jailed Indian activist linked to Greta Thunberg Jailed and 'tortured' for trying to report a rape. Image source, Hindustan Times.

The freedom report criticised the government's response to protests against a controversial citizenship bill. How reliable are these rankings? Signup with Email. Gender Male Female.

Create Account. Already Have an Account? Question :-what makes elections in India democratic? Class 9 Question. Answer to Question. Jai Bawlia Nov 13, Election Commission. An independent and powerful commission appointed by the President of India to conduct free and fair election is called Election Commission. The commission has three members and once they are appointed, they are not answerable to the President or the government. EC takes decisions on every aspect of conduct and control of elections from the announcement of elections to the declaration of results.

During the election period, the EC can order the government to follow some guidelines, to prevent use and misuse of governmental power to enhance its chances to win elections, or to transfer some government officials.

When on election duty, government officers work under the control of the EC and not the government. Turnout indicates the percent of eligible voters who actually cast their vote.

In India the turnout has either remained stable or actually gone up. In India the poor, illiterate and underprivileged people vote in larger proportion as compared to the rich and privileged sections.

Common people in India attach a lot of importance to elections. The Election Commission also has the function of controling the work of government officials on election duty. The Election Commission has the power to order a re-poll in case it finds evidence of unfair practices during polling. Summary During the election process, many political parties adopt unfair practices to get votes. Summary Videos References.