New Delhi: Global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024, a report by the US non-profit organisation Freedom House has said.
In 2021, Freedom House that claimed India’s status as a free country has declined to “partly free” – where it stands even now.
Sixty countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, and only 34 secured improvements. El Salvador, Haiti, Kuwait, and Tunisia were the countries with the largest score declines for the year, while India’s immediate neighbours Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka were among those that recorded the largest gains.
During an unprecedented year of elections, many contests were marred by violence and authoritarian efforts to restrict voters’ choices, the report noted. In over 40% of the countries and territories that held national elections in 2024, candidates were targeted with assassination attempts or assaults, polling places were attacked, or post-election protests were suppressed with disproportionate force. Elections in authoritarian countries were manipulated to prevent genuine opposition candidates from participating, the report also noted.
Despite the overall global decline in freedom, bright spots emerged around the world as a result of competitive elections or following the collapse of long-standing authoritarian regimes. “New governments will now face the difficult task of building and strengthening democratic institutions while also protecting individual rights,” it said.
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The report noted that the return of elections to Jammu and Kashmir – which Freedom House assesses separately – resulted in a status change from ‘Not Free’ to ‘Partly Free’. The long-delayed elections “did not fully undo the damage to rights” caused by the Indian government’s 2019 reading down of Article 370, it notes, “but they did restore some political representation for the local population, which had been under direct federal rule for over five years.”
The overview notes how the Narendra Modi government has sought to gain more influence over judicial appointments. In 2014, it tried to replace the Collegium system, whereby new judges are nominated by their colleagues, with a new commission that would include members of the government in addition to sitting judges, it state. “The Supreme Court struck down the law in 2015, but since then the Modi government has delayed appointments and rejected nominations made by the Collegium without explanation. Judicial vacancies have increased as a result, contributing to a backlog of cases at every level of the court system. The 34-seat Supreme Court, which hears cases in small panels, now has seven vacancies and over 70,000 pending cases,” the report observes.
Democratic solidarity will be crucial in the coming year, the report adds, saying that the global freedom faces serious challenges in 2025, including security threats from multiple armed conflicts, deepening repression in both entrenched and emerging autocracies, and democratically elected leaders who seek to advance their goals by overriding institutional checks on their power.
