With democracy under threat in Narendra Modi’s India, how free and fair will this year’s election be?

By Priya Chacko, University of Adelaide

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is favoured to win reelection when India’s 970 million voters start heading to the polls on April 19 in the country’s massive, six-week general election.

Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, has benefited from a divided opposition, glowing mainstream media coverage and high economic growth rates.

However, recent polling indicates significant voter discontent over inflation and unemployment. While 44% of respondents want the Modi government to return to power, a sizeable 39% do not want his Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to be reelected.

Moreover, Modi’s election campaign has been tainted by several events in recent weeks:

• the arrest of a major opposition leader in what his party says was a “conspiracy” by Modi’s government

• the freezing of the accounts of the major opposition Congress party over a tax dispute

• revelations of heavily skewed political financing favouring Modi’s party.

These incidents have raised concerns about how free and fair India’s election will actually be.

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India’s democratic decline

For much of its history as an independent state, India has been an electoral democracy, defying political sociologist Seymour Lipset’s theory that democratic institutions and cultures usually only thrive in affluent societies.

Barring a period of emergency rule in the 1970s when elections were suspended, India has met the threshold for free and fair elections throughout its history.

Voter turnout in elections has typically been high, at around 70%. A complex electoral structure has also been put in place to ensure electoral integrity, involving:

phased voting over a number of weeks

• a model code of conduct governing how parties and candidates must behave in elections

• travelling electoral and security officials to oversee the voting process and reach all voters

• the implementation of an electronic voting system

Since 2018, however, there has been a steep decline in the quality of India’s electoral democracy.

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