No method in the madness

A new critique of the V-Dem democracy rankings highlights where the problem lies

India is surely a “flawed” democracy. We need not have any doubts on that score, for almost no democracy is perfect. However, the Narendra Modi government has been unduly upset that many “independent” think-tanks, from Freedom House to the Economist Intelligence Unit, to the Swedish V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), have been consistently downgrading India’s rankings on the democracy indices for some years now.

Two points are worth making upfront. First, the government should not dismiss such reports merely because they are adverse, even if they are problematic. And, if we think the methodology is flawed, we should point out the flaws