In its latest survey, Pew Research Centre has revealed that around 85% of Indians support an authoritarian system! The Washington DC-based nonpartisan think-tank conducted the survey among 30,861 people in 24 countries from February 20 to May 22, 2023.

72% Indians Support Military Rule
As per the survey, around 67% of Indians support a system where a strong leader can make decisions without interference from the Parliament or the Judiciary. Additionally, 72% of Indians support military rule in the country.

While ratings for democracy are generally negative across all surveyed countries, with 59% expressing dissatisfaction with how democracy is working in their country, India is an exception. Over 72% of Indians expressed satisfaction with the way democracy operates in the South Asian country.

Further, 79% of Indians believe that a democratic system with elected representatives is a good way of governing. Moreover, 80% of Indians support a direct democracy and 82% support a technocracy, believing that experts instead of elected officials should make decisions.

More Women Elected Officials Beneficial for Policy
According to the survey, most people believe that having more women, young adults or people from poor (economic) backgrounds in office would be beneficial. Almost seven in 10 Indians (over 68%) believe that policies in their country would improve, if more elected officials were women. India, the largest democracy in the world, recently reserved one-third of its parliamentary seats for women.

Additionally, 62% of Indians believe that policies would see an improvement if more officials elected were from poor backgrounds, while 64% are of the opinion that they would improve with more young adults in office, and 55% believe that they would get better with more businesspeople in office.

Meanwhile, 57% of Indians said that an increase in the number of labour union members in office would help improve policies. In comparison, 54% of Indian citizens said that electing religious politicians would help make better policies.

Finally, 54% of Indians feel that election officials do not care what people like them think, while 58% believe that at least one of the political parties represents their views.

Representative Democracy Still Popular
In the chapter on Attitudes toward different types of government systems, the Pew survey report suggested that despite the decreasing health of democracy in many nations, representative democracy remains popular among global citizens. However, strong support for representative democracy has declined since 2017.

Support for rule by a strong leader also saw an increase in eight surveyed countries, including India. As per the report, several middle-income countries see strong support for authoritarianism. India is followed by Indonesia, where 77% of people perceived rule by a strong leader or military to be a good way to govern their country. It is least supported in high-income countries, with Sweden last on the list, with just 8% of people in support.

Regarding political representation, four in 10 people believe that no political party represents their views in their country. At the same time, 74% said that elected officials did not care about what people like them think. Sweden was the only country, with a majority of 56% believing that their elected officials felt about them.

Statecraft published this article on February 29, 2024. Read the original article.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das