What makes PM Modi unceasingly target human rights activists?
…. India’s record on human rights was far from ideal much before Modi came to power in 2014. But India’s position in the world on many parameters has been nosediving ever since. In March this year, Sweden-based organisation, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, in its report which measures democracy, classified India as a “electoral autocracy”. Last year, India was classified as highly uncertain.
Recently, Freedom House, which is a US-based non-profit organisation, in its annual report on global political rights and liberties downgraded India from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy”. And according to the Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, India is a “flawed democracy”. In 2020, 109 of the total 155 internet shutdowns in the world were reported from India.
Most of these surveys are based on how the country is treating civil and human rights activists as well as journalists. While in India, Modi’s BJP has managed to leverage media and social media too to project an image that he’s an effective leader, the civil rights movement has managed to attract the attention of international media to the violation of human rights in the country….
