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NEW YORK: India’s status as a free country has been downgraded to “partly-free” by a US government-funded think-tank Freedom House in its latest report — Freedom in the World 2021.
The annual report discusses the effect of the lethal pandemic and the resulting economic and physical insecurity that ultimately led to democracy suffering losses and the balance shifting in the favour of authoritarianism.
The report noted that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and allies “encouraged the scapegoating of Muslims, who were disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus and faced attacks by vigilante mobs”.
“Political rights and civil liberties in the country have deteriorated since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, with increased pressure on human rights organisations, rising intimidation of academics and journalists, and a spate of bigoted attacks, including lynchings, aimed at Muslims,” the report added.
According to the report, “Last year, the government intensified its crackdown on protesters opposed to a discriminatory citizenship law and arrested dozens of journalists who aired criticism of the official pandemic response.”
It further underscored that in December, Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, approved a law that prohibits forced religious conversion through interfaith marriage, which critics fear will effectively restrict interfaith marriage in general.
“Amid the pandemic, the government imposed an abrupt COVID-19 lockdown in the spring, which left millions of migrant workers in cities without work or basic resources,” the report stated.
It regrets that Modi and his party, instead of leading the fight against democracy and “serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence” in the world, are “tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism”.