The organs of India’s democracy are decaying

IN THE NEXT four weeks some 175m Indians will vote in elections across five states with a combined population approaching 300m. Their legislatures will determine the make-up of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, and thus the selection of the president. The outcome in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, could well shake Narendra Modi, India’s most domineering prime minister in decades. As an advertisement for democracy, India’s periodic mobilisation of millions of polling officers to provide a say for hundreds of millions of voters is difficult to beat.

But while the face of Indian democracy, in the form of elections, looks healthy, the rest of the body is not. From courts and police to politicians and parties to campaign finance and the mechanics of legislation, the bones, sinews and organs of Indian democracy look alarmingly unwell. According to the Democracy Index produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company, over the past decade India has slipped or stayed still on every measure except political participation (see chart 1).