New York: Increasing influence of religion under the Modi premiership, has damaged the political fabric of the country while the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 continued to fuel riots in 2020, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said in a report.
The EIU while releasing "2020 Democracy Index's Global Ranking" also said that Narendra Modi goverment's policies have fomented anti-Muslim feeling and religious strife.
The report also cited the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 enactment of which had led to a large scale protest in India and abroad.
"The increasing influence of religion under the Modi premiership, whose policies have fomented anti-Muslim feeling and religious strife, has damaged the political fabric of the country while the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 continued to fuel riots in 2020", the report said.
The EIU also downgraded India's ranking in the Democracy Index from the existing 51st position in 2019 to 53rd.
India's overall score fell from 6.9 in 2019 to 6.61 in the Index that provides a snapshot of the current state of democracy worldwide for 167 countries.
"With mounting pressure on India’s democratic norms, India’s score fell from a peak of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020 and its global ranking slipped from 27th (in 2014) to 53rd as a result of democratic backsliding under the current regime", the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said.
"The authorities’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic led to a further erosion of civil liberties in 2020," the report said.
The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Based on its scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: "full democracy", "flawed democracy", "hybrid regime" or "authoritarian regime".
The biggest winner in this year's Democracy Index, measured by the change in both its score and rank, is Taiwan, which was upgraded from a "flawed democracy" to a "full democracy", after rising 20 places in the global ranking from 31st place to 11th.
In western Europe, France and Portugal moved from the "full democracy" category to the "flawed democracy" one, with only three countries -- Italy, Turkey and the UK - improving their scores in 2020.
Norway retained the top spot in the 2020 Index while North Korea remained at the bottom.
About the other countries in South Asia, the report said Bangladesh made a 'marginal' improvement in terms of upholding democratic norms which pushed its overall score up to 5.99 to rank 76th on Democracy Index 2020, from 80th place with a score of 5.88 a year ago.
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