Countries including Brazil, India, USA and Turkey are being affected by autocratization, Democracy Report 2020 published by V-Dem Institute observed. The proportion of people living in autocratic countries hugely increased from 6 per cent in 2009 to 34 per cent in 2019.
"With the democracy report 2020, we issue an Autocratization alert. The "third wave of Autocratisation" is accelerating and deepening" the report cautioned.
India under Prime Minister Modi is marked on the verge of losing its status as a Democracy due to severe restrictions on media, civil society and opposition and the country substantially slipped down in the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI). India is placed under the category of main Autocratising countries along with Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Serbia and Brazi.
"Dive in press freedom along with increasing repression of civil society in India associated with the current Hindu-nationalist regime of Prime minister Narendra Modi." report concluded and analysis shows a clear decline in free and fair elections after 2018 in India.
The severity of the situation got intensified by attacks on freedom of expression and media across the globe. V-Dem data shows that pro-democracy mobilization was at an all-time high in 2019, which is observed as a ray of hope in the time of an unprecedented level of Autocratisation of democracies. Even though the report highlighted the alarming condition where these civil liberties are curtailed in order to defy resistance, for the first time since 2001, autocracies are marked to be controlling 92 countries globally, comprising 54 per cent of the world population. Besides press freedom and fair elections, academic freedom is also seen as experiencing a difficult times with a conspicuous average decline of 13 per cent in autocratising countries over the last 10 years.