Criticism of the government should not be considered as insulting the country..

Recently, Congress Party leader Shri Rahul Gandhi, has made speeches at London, wherein he has stated that democracy in India is under attack. In reply to this, the ruling BJP is making a hue and cry. They accuse that, Rahul Gandhi has insulted our country, on a foreign soil. On this issue, World reputed economist, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar has written an article in yesterday’s Times of India. We are re-producing excerpts from this article. 

• Forget what Rahul or the BJP says abroad or at home. India’s prestige depends on performance, not political claims and counter-claims.
• Alas, several international indices measuring democratic performance, show India in poor light. The most prestigious global media deplore India’s deterioration. That determines India’s image and prestige. 
• Revoking the licences of Oxfam and Amnesty for foreign funding worsens India’s prestige. So does banning a recent BBC documentary, followed by tax ‘surveys’.
• Freedom House, measuring political and civil liberties across the world, has downgraded India from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’.
• The Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit shows India falling from 27th position in 2014 to 46th.
• India is now categorised as ‘flawed democracy’: it was once ‘full democracy’.
• The Cato Human Freedom Index shows India falling from 75th position in 2015 to 111th in 2020. 
• Sweden’s V-Dem measure of liberal democracy now places India at only 108th position in freedom. 
• The World Press Freedom Index puts India at a dismal 150th position, though it was as bad as 140 even during Congress rule.
• Dissent is under threat in India. The Supreme Court has bemoaned the use of “process as punishment”. It complains that, by harassing targeted victims through arrests and raids, life is being made a nightmare for those targeted even if they are ultimately proved innocent.
• The court has strongly regretted the misuse of laws on sedition and unlawful activities. One does not have to look at international indices to see the problem.

In no true democracy is criticism of the government called “insulting” the country. Those trotting out this line are damaging, not protecting India’s democratic prestige.