Majority Of Indians Opt Authoritarianism: Pew Survey (image-pixabay)
In a 2023 survey conducted by the PEW research center, 85% of respondents from India said that military rule or rule by an authoritarian leader would be good for the country.
The survey asked about two authoritarian models of government: a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts which is known as an authoritarian form and a system in which the military rules the country- the military rule.
The number of Indians who believed that representative democracy is a good way of governance declined considerably from 2017. As per the survey, the majority of Indians wanted an expert to rule the country rather than an elected official.
To collect the data, face-to-face interviews were conducted between March 25 and May 11, 2023, among the adults. The northeastern states of the country, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep Island were excluded from the survey. The sample collected proportionally represents Indians across gender, age, education, region and urbanity.
As per the conclusion drawn from Pew Research Center’s Spring 2023 Global Attitudes Survey, 85% of Indians show support for authoritarianism in contrast to 8% in Sweden. The survey shows that such support is more prevalent in middle-income countries than in wealthier ones. Similarly, countries from Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America expressed support for these models when compared to those from Europe and North America.
As per the trend shown by the survey, people with lower incomes tend to be more supportive of the authoritarian system than those with higher incomes. Another interesting aspect is that older and younger adults differ in their support for an authoritarian system. In America, 38% of the youth supported authoritarianism. And similar kind of pattern was visible in India and Australia.
While adults in countries like Greece, Japan, and South Korea are more supportive of the authoritarian system than the youth. India also had the third lowest share of people who considered the freedom of opposition parties crucial.
There is a huge decline in the support for representative democracy. By comparing the survey from 2017 onwards, in 11 of 22 countries, there is a significant decline in the share of the population who views representative democracy as an effective method of governance. The only countries, where not much significant change has occurred are Australia and US. This change in trend may be partly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the people in Israel have called for a leadership change. These non-supporters have argued that democracy in Israel would be improved if they prevented Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes, from being elected as the prime minister or to any other public position.
