Context:

The Pew Research Center’s Spring 2023 Global Attitudes Survey suggests a strong trend for authoritarianism in Indian political perspective.

Insights into Authoritarian Preferences: A Comprehensive Pew Survey of Indian Perspectives in 2024

• The Pew survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews method with the sample size representing  Indians across gender, age, education, region, and urbanity.
• Subject: The objective of the Pew survey is to gauge the preferences for two types of authoritarian governance,
  • By  a powerful leader who operates without the need for approval from legislative or judicial bodies (authoritarian leader) or 
  • Governed by the military (military governance).
• The last Pew survey was conducted in 2017.

Shifting Perspectives: A Deep Dive into India’s Evolving Views on Governance and Democracy

• Authoritarian Rule: 

  • India with 85% of respondents favoured either military rule or rule by an authoritarian leader for the country.
  • India’s share was the highest among the 24 countries surveyed  with 85% of  Indians in support in contrast to just 8% in Sweden.
  • Regional variations: The support for authoritarian regimes was more  prevalent in middle-income countries situated mainly in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America than wealthy countries of  Europe and North America. 

• Freedom for Opposition Parties:

  • India had the third lowest share of people who considered the freedom of Opposition parties crucial for ensuring accountability among the countries surveyed.

• Representative Democracy on a decline:

  • India: Only 36% of Indians believed representative democracy to be a very good approach in 2023 as compared to 44% in 2017
  • This declining trend of viewing  representative democracy as a highly effective method of governance is being witnessed in 11 out of the 22 countries since the last Pew survey conducted in 2017

• Selected experts v/s Elected representatives:

  • India witnessed an increased share of 82% people believing in the rule of experts  in 2023 as compared to 65% in 2017. 
  • The share who felt that this was a bad way of governance stayed put at around 15% in both these years.

News source: The Hindu