The Democratic Quality Index is at the low of its series

DQI combines the V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index, Freedom House, the RSF rank and the V-Dem Core Civil Society Index through a geometric mean, so weakness in any single dimension pulls the composite down. It has fallen from 0.49 (2014) to 0.28 (2026), against a UPA-decade average of 0.57. The largest single-year fall came between 2022 and 2023.

What follows. The composite fell in 8 of the 12 years after 2014, and each of its four published inputs was worse in 2025 than in 2014.

The data behind this reading

Democratic Quality Index, 0 to 1

2004-2013 average 0.57; 2014-2026 average 0.37; latest 0.28 in 2026. Source, method and every year.

One of 37 readings of the dataset, rebuilt whenever the data are refreshed. Data vintage 2026-10-10. Cite as Raman, V.S., Some Perspective: India's Political Economy, 2004-2026, someperspective.info, CC BY 4.0.

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