The Questionable Global Indices on Freedom, Democracy, etc.

Several international organizations create ‘international/universal standards’, construct composite indicators, and then publish ‘World reports’ composed of numerical ratings. The process to arrive at such ratings is claimed to be “using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources” as Freedom House, which publishes the Freedom in the World Report, which has acceptance as authentic in tracking global trends in political rights and civil liberties. It publishes an annual ‘Freedom on the Net’ report featuring a ranked, country-by-country assessment of “online freedom”!

Those of us who live in India will be shocked by our country’s rank in their Freedom in the World Report- it is 161 Out Of 180 Countries in 2023! Following “initiatives to close the digital divide” in the nation, India's internet freedom score increased by two points to 51 over the last 4 years!

Those who sponsor the above onerous job of judging other people are Google, Inc., The Hurford Foundation, Jyllands-Posten Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., the Merrill Family Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy, and also the US Government! The NED, for example, has been termed as the US government’s “white glove” serving US strategic interests! So generally it could be said that all have been manipulating and directing NGOs around the world to conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage, and incite so-called “democratic movements” in target countries and regions, that is largely, exporting ‘American Values’ as we know them!

The second important organization that has taken upon itself the responsibility to study democratic governments in the world and rank them in accordance with various democracy indices based on data accessed by it, is The V-Dem Institute (Varieties of Democracy) an ‘independent’ research institute founded by Professor Staffan I. Lindberg, a political scientist in the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014.· The ‘Democracy Indices’ by V-Dem is a dataset that describes the qualities of different governments published by V-Dem Institute.   The contributors of funds to the institute range from the US Government, the Canadian International Development Agency,  the World Bank Group, the Open Society Foundation of the self-proclaimed philanthropist George Soros, the University of Gothenburg · Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, European Research Council. and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

V-DEM Institute repeatedly denigrates India, and to know its vitriolic prejudice one must glance at its annual report in 2023 which dreadfully classifies India as an “electoral autocracy” alongside Hungary and Turkey and ranks it 108, only two points above Pakistan, describing it further as “one of the worst democracies in the last 10 years”!. If this is not cant, hypocrisy, and sanctimonious humbug, what is it? A country that has too many elections, and by-elections to Assemblies, Local self-government bodies, and the Parliament serially in its 28 states and 9 Union territories that development projects have to be delayed fearing sanctions from Election Commission, and therefore conducting Parliamentary and State elections simultaneously is being contemplated, and 2500 political parties participate in these elections and the ruling party at the Centre has no representation in assemblies and parliament from some of the states, the country is alleged having “electoral autocracy” because the ruling party has 303 seats, and the Opposition is unable to get together! Congress party had ruled this country for 6 decades all by itself and had even declared an Emergency in 1975, extended the Union Government’s term by more than a year and a half, the Constitutional rights of the people were suspended, the media was censored, and Opposition politicians were jailed. Rajiv Gandhi of the Congress came to power after his mother’s tragic death with 411 seats out of 542, in a “sympathy wave” and ruled as he pleased!

The Chatham House, also known as ‘The Royal Institute of International Affairs’ which claims to be a “world-leading policy institute” and “think-tank” (demonstrated this kind of thinking by inviting recently the most un-thinking person on the planet to address it on Indian democracy!) is headquartered in London. Its stated mission is to help governments and societies “build a sustainably secure, prosperous, and just world”.

Their experts on India warn against getting “fixated” on India’s economic success story, and to lay stress on the emerging “social tensions” between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. Their scholarship shows the example of the ‘Nirbhaya case’, and Narendra Modi’s re-election as Chief Minister of Gujarat show-casing “how urban middle-class opinion is often at odds with the political leadership”. Both incidents taking place in 2012, leads to the far-fetched observation of a morbidly prejudiced mind to connect both to ‘social tensions’ due to wealth creation and expansion of middle class! The Prime Minister of India who led his party to victory in two elections and has emerged as a world leader is described as “clearly illiberal (in politics)by most measures.”

Chatham House scholarship (Dr.Gareth Price) observes that while the Indian constitution is secular it does not specifically separate church and state in the fashion of the United States constitution! One has to thank Dr.Price for realizing however, that neither Indira Gandhi nor her husband were related to Mahatma Gandhi, though in the next breath, he insinuates that Narendra Modi-led BJP was elected to power despite India growing “relatively stronger during the Dr.Manmohan Sing-led UPA rule”, due to “the sense that a more authoritarian form of government might deliver more, particularly among the urban middle class”! Under the circumstances, I was not astonished when in April 2022, Russia designated Chatham House as an "undesirable organization"!

The latest in the series is the ESG report- a report mandated to be published by a company or organization about the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts of their activities. ESG reporting is said to be an invaluable tool for organizations to track sustainability, identify risks, and report on their performance. But like the Democracy Report, Freedom on the Net (India ranked on a scale of 0-100, at 51 Partly Free because during sensitive operations against terrorists, or in times of inflammable communal situations, the government chose to jam the Internet!) the Freedom of Press report, etc, this also is a confounded piece of frame-up giving a Tobacco Company a score of 180 while Tesla is at 48!

Such nasty reports and ratings are not merely worthless political innuendos. In the present scheme of things, they do affect the Sovereign Ratings as the funding agencies of the erring NGOs often being national Governments directly or their agencies, international financial institutions, or organizations like the World Bank Group automatically co-opt these reports and rankings in their data sets and that would have ramifications across the board in various international bodies and eventually affect Foreign Investment, Foreign collaborations, joint ventures, etc. Theoretically, ESG scores allow potential investors to gauge the company's intentions, and actions, from how they treat their employees to how the board decisions are made or if environmental issues are being prioritized. Higher ESG scores are likely to persuade investors to engage, either because the company's values align with their own or because the company is sufficiently protected from future risks associated with issues like pollution or poor governance. Poor ESG scare may turn off the investor’s interest. Imagine the situation when the ESG scores are faulty!

Some of these ratings are used to judge a country’s creditworthiness, and suitability to put money into and operate a business activity from. Sanjeev Sanyal and Aakanksha Arora of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister had in a working paper challenged India's consistent downgrading by top global indices which the duo argued, were based on a subjective, perception-based methodology. The working paper examines 1) the Freedom in the World Index, 2) Economist Intelligence Unit, and 3) Democracy Index (V-DEM) indices - happiness, democracy, and freedom- which are inputs into the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators that, have approximately 18-20 percent weightage in sovereign ratings! The paper notes, "They can’t be completely ignored and will become even more important in the future as Environmental, Social, and Governance indices are introduced into global business/investment decisions." A capital-hungry cannot afford to take these oblique attacks lying down!

It is worth noting that during the Covid years, India used its fiscal and monetary resources very carefully and most of it was directed towards infrastructure building, micro- and macro-managing the pandemic, with vaccines and othe health inputs, and bringing in 80 percent of the huge population under food security. The country went for its own supply chains, technology, and other transformation in opening up new sectors all in preparation for the post-COVID period.

As a result, India has survived the COVID pandemic with the least damage; the Indian Economy is growing at a faster pace than any other in the world. We are now the 5^th largest economy, and surging forward to be the 3^rd. There is a lot to be happy about for Indians. So to hell their global indices! AND THREE CHEERS FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY!