Some PerspectiveAnalysis

Democracy

India's V-Dem score has fallen further than any major democracy's

V-Dem Liberal Democracy: India 0.71 (2014) → 0.26 (2026), a 63% decline. Brazil 0.85 → 0.69 (-19%). Turkey 0.52 → 0.18 (-65%). Hungary 0.63 → 0.41 (-35%). South Africa 0.75 → 0.70 (-7%). India's slide ranks with Turkey's as the steepest in the cohort.

On the most-cited cross-country democracy index, India has erased four decades of liberalisation in one.

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About this reading

This is one of 36 standing analyses drawn from the Some Perspective dataset. It is not dated commentary: it describes a relationship in the data that holds across the series, and it is regenerated whenever the underlying dataset is refreshed. The figures quoted here reflect the 2026-08-15 data vintage.

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Raman, V.S. Some Perspective: India's Economic Transformation. someperspective.info · CC BY 4.0 · data vintage 2026-08-15. Cite & download · All analyses