A ‘Make in India’ index

It’s time we junked western rankings and designed our own democracy index like North Korea

t is a matter of great pride that for the first time in its history, Indian democracy is getting its own democracy index. I’ve been saying for a long time that we should junk these western rankings. Have you noticed how they all rank the same four or five former colonial powers in the Top 10, while the Mother of Democracy is not even in the top 100?

India wouldn’t be the first nonwestern country to develop its own democracy index. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea already has one. As per the 2024 report released last week by Supreme Leader Always Very Excellent (SLAVE), a Pyongyangbased independent think tank, North Korea is the most democratic country in the world with 100 points, followed by China (99 points), while Russia and India are ranked joint third with 95 points each. The U.S., with 5 points, was ranked 180th out of 180 countries, making it the least democratic country on the planet. Isn’t it refreshing to finally see a democracy index that doesn’t recycle old western prejudices?

IInspiring methodologies

The other day I bumped into an excolleague who now works as a SubJunior Senior Fellow at a think tank — the same one tasked by the government to produce India’s indigenous democracy index. Imagine my surprise when this fellow, who I shall simply call Mr. Fellow, told me he was cochair of the committee designing the index.

I immediately told him he should copy the North Korean template.

“We are certainly inspired by it,” he admitted, taking a thoughtful puff on his cigar. “But we’ll use our own methodologies.”

“As in?”

“It all boils down to how much weightage you give to what,” he said. “Right to life, for example, is the most important element in a democracy.” “Absolutely,” I said.

“Hence the biggest metric in our index would be the safety of citizens from gun violence. As it happens, Indian democracy has the world’s lowest deaths per capita from gun violence.”

“Brilliant.”

“Also, what is democracy without women’s empowerment, eh? So the second highest weightage is for abortion rights, where India is again well ahead of the VDem toppers.” “Super!”

“The third aspect is immigration. Look at Europe’s brutality towards migrants, and look at our CAA, a whole new law to give citizenship to immigrants.”

“You’re a genius,” I said. “But what about crackdown on the Opposition? Will our index have credibility if it doesn’t acknowledge this aspect?”

“Who said we won’t acknowledge,” he said, annoyed by my presumption. “But we’ll do it with the correct statistical approach. If you take the number of false cases and arrests as a proportion of total population, our clampdown on dissent is negligible. Only 0.00000000000000001% of our Opposition leaders per capita have been raided or jailed or purchased. But look at America. The ruling party is brazenly prosecuting Trump — leader of their biggest Opposition party — just before Presidential elections. Still, America is ranked above India in every index prepared in the West!”

“I never thought of it that way,” I said.

“You’ve been brainwashed,” he said.

“But these indices also reflect public opinion.”

“Well, their sampling methodology is totally biased,” Mr. Fellow said. “To protect our index’s neutrality, we will have survey respondents selected by a threemember committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Cabinet Minister, and a retired High Court judge with a passion for electoral politics.”

“I see. And how big will the sample be?”

“Much bigger than what the West’s selfappointed custodians could manage. We will do a randomised, semicontrolled, doublestratified, polysystemic, metapurposive sampling that will draw on the vast databases of the IT cell.”

“The IT cell? Wouldn’t their database be filled with supporters of one particular party?”

“How is that relevant?” he snapped. “Any democracy has just one job to do: ensure that the people are ruled by the most popular leader. India deserves credit for ensuring this for the past 10 years, and so do North Korea, China and Russia.”

“But then —”

“Democracies,” said Mr. Fellow, raising a finger to silence me, “are living, breathing organisms that are constantly evolving. India is evolving from a multiparty democracy to a singleparty democracy. The West has no concept of oneparty democracy, or even oneking democracy. So they bandy about silly phrases like ‘democratic backsliding’. Sadly, it’s only a symptom of their own intellectual backsliding.”

“Well said, Mr. Fellow. So, when do we see the homegrown rankings?”

“Soon,” he said. “Before India’s last elections are over.”

“Last elections?”

“Sorry, did I say ‘last elections’? I meant last phase of general elections.” the author of this satire, is Social Affairs, The Hindu.