Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: Where does India stand on freedom?

August is a holy month for Indians. It was on the night of 14th and 15th August 1947, the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru declared: “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to new when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation long suppressed, finds utterance”.

We are back in that holy month and the present government has decided to celebrate the 75th year of independence as ‘Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ with the theme of ‘Har-Ghar Tiranga’ to promote the hoisting of the national flag on every rooftop. It’s a good time to take stock of our achievements and failures in the 75th year of our independence. The Preamble to the Constitution is a good place to start. ‘We the People’ resolved to give ourselves a new social contract, a constitution drafted by some of the finest minds; men of great honour and integrity moved by the spirit of selfless sacrifice. They enshrined in the very preamble a clear vision for the new nation and the mission objectives for which every government should strive.

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How much have we progressed or regressed in securing to our citizens the promises made in the preamble: “JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY, of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, EQUALITY of status and opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation.”

Let us now look at the achievements or failures in these key areas from an independent and impartial assessment by outside agencies, not from the viewpoint of either Congress or the BJP.

On the issue of Justice, let us turn to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. It monitors the criminal and civil justice system, fundamental rights, constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, transparent government, order and security and regulatory enforcement. Its methodology included 1,30,000 household surveys and 4,000 expert surveys. India’s 2014 ranking – is 66. India’s 2020 ranking – is 69. India fell three places because it fared poorly on the absence of corruption (81st), order and security (114th), fundamental rights (84th) and criminal justice system (78th).

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On the issue of Liberty or Freedom, there are several reports that have made their assessments. Firstly, the Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report monitors the Rule of Law, political pluralism and elections, functioning of government, civil liberties, freedom of expression, association and organisations, individual rights etc. India’s 2014 rating: 77 (free), India’s 2021 rating: 67 (partly free). Jammu and Kashmir’s 2014 rating: was 49 (partly free), and J&K’s 2021 rating: 27 (not free). It cited the following reasons: ‘Political and civil liberties deteriorated after 2014; increased pressure on human rights organisations; the pattern of pro-government decisions by the Supreme Court; rising intimidation of academics and journalists; a spate of bigoted attacks, including the lynching of Muslims etc.’ It further noted that “rather than serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence from countries such as China, (the ruling party) is tragically driving India itself towards authoritarianism; the fall of India from the upper ranks of free nations could have a particularly damaging impact on global democratic standards.”

The Cato Human Freedom Index, which monitors the Rule of Law, religious freedom, civil liberties, freedom of speech and assembly, legal system and property rights etc., listed India’s 2015 ranking at 75, while its 2020 ranking was at 111. India fell by 36 places.

The Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty World Index of Moral Freedom which monitors religious, family and gender, sexual, drugs, and bioethical freedoms found India’s 2016 ranking at 41, while India’s 2020 ranking was at 70. India fell 29 places. India scored poorly on gender and religious freedom indicators.

Another important finding came from the University of Gothenburg Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Index. It monitors levels of institutional democracy and trends towards autocracy. Its methodology involved assessments by 3500 scholars and country experts looking at over 400 parameters. India’s 2013 ranking: 0.57, India’s 2021 ranking: 0.34. India fell by 0.23 points, ‘one of the most dramatic shifts among all countries in the world over the past 10 years.’ India lost its status as a democracy and was classified as an ‘electoral autocracy’ joining nations like Hungary and Turkey. On freedom of expression, media and civil society, India was ‘as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than both Bangladesh and Nepal’. India had introduced ‘discrimination by religion’ though its citizenship laws’, the report said.

There are no agencies that directly evaluate the levels of equality and inequality. One agency that comes closest to the subject is the World Economic Forum Human Capital Index that monitors literacy & numeracy, labour force participation rate, employment, gender gap, share of high-skilled employment. It listed India’s 2013 ranking at 78, while India’s ranking 2017 (latest available) was at 103. India fell by 25 points behind Sri Lanka (70) and Nepal (98).

On the final promise of the Preamble, i.e., Fraternity, suffice it to say that not a single Muslim finds representation in the BJP that claims to be ‘the largest political party in the world’. From July 7, 2022, the BJP did not have a single MP in either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha nor a single MLA in any of the 31 assemblies of the States and Union Territories. The BJP wears this exclusionary politics as a badge of honour brazenly declaring that it’s a party of the Hindus, by the Hindus and for the Hindus.

Either by legislative acts or by acts of vigilante groups supported by the State police, the social, economic, political and religious freedoms, and rights of privacy and dignity of the Muslim community are being ruthlessly suppressed. They live in fear of either being attacked or mocked for their dress, food, culture and customs. Their plight in social media is much worse than in the physical space. They dare not assert their rights, nor protest, for fear of instant justice being meted out by the bulldozer that has replaced the rule of law in some states. Journalists, artists, movie-stars and stand-up comedians of the Muslim community constantly face threats from the Police or boycott by the vigilante groups of the majority community. The two essential promises that the Constitution made to the minorities – Secularism and Fraternity have ceased to exist in the 75th year of our independence.

(The writer is a former Cabinet
Secretariat official)