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Last year Sweden’s V-Dem Institute downgraded India to an “electoral autocracy,” and the Washington-based Freedom House lowered it to “partly free.” The demotion of India, with its 1.3 billion people, tipped the global balance of freedom firmly in favor of tyranny, Freedom House said, with less than 20 percent of the world’s population now living in “free” countries.
Though India’s descent toward tyranny has accelerated under Mr. Modi, it would be unfair to put all the blame on him. Weak government institutions and social inequality — problems that have festered since India’s early years — have sapped its democracy and provided fertile ground for the politics of Hindu supremacy to take root.
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