Democracy for sale.

The Freedom House and the Happiness Report have globally disgraced India over the past few weeks.

India has been recently declared as a "Partly Free" country. Originally India was deemed by the Freedom House to be "Free", however, the status downgrade is an outcome of recent changes in the political environment of the subcontinent.

Anyhow, India's ranking on the World Happiness Report has improved from 144 to 139. But still failing.

Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, and most Indian neighbouring countries have been awarded much "happier" positions. While Finland secures the first rank on the Happiness Report.

Getting to the Freedom House deceleration later, to understand the Happiness Report first:

The Happiness Report is formed by understanding the quality of human interaction, the quality of life, the prospect of growing out of a given societal structure, and the country's overall morale.

There are many misconceptions about India, people have increasingly started believing that the country is progressing and there is a sense of positivity that is floating across the nation. However, that is an outcome of a tunnel vision - where people believe that the rise in GDP and the concept of well spoken speeches bind the country together and showcase prosperity and unity.

However, the case actually is truly the opposite. Good orators are not always good people, surely, some people in power are able to speak their hearts out in a manner that they are able to dent and manipulate the hearts of the listeners, but that is not always progress. Moreover, let's truly look at the the idea that India's GDP will be greater than majority of global leaders in the future. We will realise that celebrating this feat is stupidity.

GDP is Gross Domestic Product, something which just looks at the value of goods sold and produced. Now you will have a great GDP when a country goes through hyperinflation, so just because India's GDP is rising does not account for the idea that there are positive impacts. The GDP of India is rising, and if we will believe in economic concepts such as GDP, then we should also look at another economic concept called the Gini Co-efficient.

The Gini Co-efficient is a statistical measure that numerically talks about economic and human development of a country. It basically on a scale from zero to one, through calculations and census across time, measures the level of equality/equity in a nation in term's of earnings and salaries. Getting zero on the globally renowned and used Gini Co-efficient is the goal, while getting one on the scale means that one person in the entire court holds the whole of the nation's wealth.

India, unfortunately, is closer to one than it is to zero.

Thus, without scrutinising more and agreeing to the United Nation's decision to rank India 30-40 countries lower than Pakistan and Bangladesh, we can realise that the reasoning for Indians to not be happy just based on its looks is valid.

Now getting to the "Partially Free".

India's democracy has always been shaky, something we will discuss in an upcoming post. However, on the face of it, India has been named Partially Free purely because of the turmoil in the political environment. The reasoning/quotes are as follows:

“State and central governments have repeatedly suspended mobile and internet service to curb protests in recent years, including in 2020. Peaceful demonstrations take place regularly in practice, although the pandemic led to fewer such events being held in 2020…,” - Freedom House.

“The national government and some state governments used assembly bans, internet blackouts, and live ammunition between December 2019 and March 2020 to quell widespread protests against the CAA and proposals to roll out a citizens’ registration process across the country.” - Freedom House.

However, the National Government responded and rightfully stated that these small discomforts were felt with the overarching goal of maintaining law and order. Nonetheless, even though the CAA riots' intentions, Kashmir and Farmer Protests (allegedly) pure - this comes off of large hypocrisy and lack of seriousness towards the rules.

The National Government has been regularly abusing its power and banning internet for 15 discrete in Andhra Pradesh for preventing "cheating" in exams. The states do not follow the guidelines, rules, and procedures set in the past to allow these communication bans. None of the bans reported by the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) followed the required procedure. Therefore, the Centre Government plays a book right out of Batman - protecting law and order by breaking law and order.

But moving to more pressing matters, which are subjective, as hard proof to call India "Partly Free" will never surface. The Freedom House also was highly pushed by the unjustified arrests and captures of journalist and activists. The Freedom House also concluded how Modi Government has the means of suppressing certain mass media outlets controlled and allegedly run by Hindu-extremists, yet they chose not to.

The Freedom House also noted that the Citizenship Amendment Act's implementation was a method to “disenfranchise Muslim voters by effectively classifying them as illegal immigrants”. Moreover, many reports showcased how "cow vigilantism" propagated by Hindus was not effectively countered as unlawful cases against Muslims were created for facilitating prosecution.

Moreover, the basic concept of Freedom of Expression has been countered. Recently two professors have left Ashoka University due to their seniors receiving pressurised communications from government bodies, as the professors actively spoke against the Centre. On a larger scale, the Supreme Court questioned the Election Commission's selective implementation of the Model Code of Conduct, to effectively push the BJP opposition's media attention chances down.

Other than all of these facts, there is a lot of thought given to the feelings. Learned individuals fear speaking out. People online actively yet correctly make RSS jokes. Even though memes remain hysterical, the ones talking about the overpowering Narendra Modi and Amit Shah duo do give a hint into what the citizens feel regarding their leaders.

Therefore, I do believe that India has lost its privilege of being called free and being considered a happy free correctly. There are actions and consequences, these are the consequences of voting, supporting, and remaining silent.