Social Justice: Washington-based think tank, Freedom House, demoted India’s freedom status from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’. The country’s score decreased from 71 to 67 in the Global Freedom Watchdog report; where a score of 100 refers to the most free country. India’s rank also fell from 83 to 88 out of 211 countries.
The report pointed out that rights and civil liberties “have been eroding since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014”, referring to the attacks on Muslims, use of the country’s sedition law, and the government’s response to COVID-19 which “included a ham-fisted lockdown that resulted in the dangerous and unplanned displacement of millions of internal migrant workers.”
India’s score of 67 puts it on a par with Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Freedom House noted that the change in India’s status from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ was significant because, “less than 20 percent of the world’s people now live in a free country—the smallest proportion since 1995″.
Finland, Norway, and Sweden are the most free countries in the world with a score of 100, while the least free with a score of one, are Tibet and Syria.
The Freedom House report again listed ‘Indian Kashmir’ separately, and retained its status as ‘not free’ (the first time it had done so), with its score falling from 28 to 27. Between 2013 and 2019, ‘Indian Kashmir’ was labelled as ‘partly free’. “Disputed territories are sometimes assessed separately if they meet certain criteria, including boundaries that are sufficiently stable to allow year-on-year comparisons,” the report said.
India’s Internet Freedom Score has stayed at 51. However, the report highlighted that internet freedom in India had declined significantly for the third year in a row. It cited internet shutdowns, blocked content, misinformation spread by political leaders, online harassment, amendments to the Foreign Direct Investment Policy, coordinated spyware campaigns, and digital monitoring.
India slips two places in the 2020 Democracy Index. Read this to know more.
