India celebrates 79 years of independence on August 15, 2026 and on the occasion, the present government has plenty to boast about. The economy is growing faster than almost any other big country, extreme poverty has fallen sharply over the past decade, and India now sits among the world’s largest economies. These are not just party talking points – the World Bank, the IMF, and independent economists broadly agree that living standards have genuinely improved for a large share of Indians since 1991, and especially in the last ten years. However, growth is only one measure of a nation’s health. The other is whether its democracy is getting stronger or weaker. Here, the picture is far less flattering – and far more contested. International bodies that track democracy, such as the V-Dem Institute in Sweden and Freedom House in the United States, have both downgraded India in recent years. They now describe India as an “electoral autocracy” rather than a full liberal democracy- a country that still holds elections, but where the space for dissent, a free press, and independent institutions has been steadily narrowing since around 2014. Freedom House downgraded India from “Free” to “Partly Free” in 2021 and has continued to flag concerns about press freedom and treatment of minorities. The Indian government rejects these reports outright, calling them biased and accusing Western institutions of applying a double standard to the world’s largest democracy. That pushback deserves to be heard too -these indices rely on expert judgment, not hard numbers, and they can carry their own assumptions. What makes the debate harder to dismiss, though, is what is happening inside Parliament itself – a place no outside index needs to interpret for us. Since 2019, MP suspensions have roughly quadrupled compared to the previous decade. In one dramatic episode in 2023, 141 opposition MPs were suspended at once. The Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, has had his microphone cut off mid-speech and portions of his remarks struck from the official record – including a fiery 2024 speech and later comments linking the Prime Minister to a leading industrialist. The Speaker’s own impartiality became so contentious that, in early 2026, the opposition took the rare step of moving a no-confidence motion against him – only the third time this has happened in Parliament’s history. The government’s defenders have a fair counterpoint- opposition MPs have also disrupted proceedings, entered the well of the House, and broken rules that exist regardless of who is in power. Indian Parliaments have suspended and silenced opposition members long before 2014. The deeper problem, as nonpartisan researchers point out, may be that Parliament gives MPs too few real channels to raise urgent issues – pushing both sides toward theatrics and confrontation. The honest conclusion is that both stories are true at once. India has lifted millions out of poverty and built real economic momentum. At the same time, the everyday functioning of its democracy -especially the treatment of opposition voices in the very Parliament meant to hold power accountable- has visibly narrowed. A nation can be getting richer and less democratic in the same decade. India, right now, looks like it is doing both.
Saturday, August 15, 2026