Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 22: Former Union Minister and veteran Kashmiri leader, Prof Saifuddin Soz has claimed that US watchdog agency has rated India as `less free’ democracy.
“It is not for nothing that Freedom House (US based watchdog on democracy) has categorically stated that India has fallen from “Free to Less Free Status” in the world. Earlier, the Henley Passport Index 2020 Report ranked India at 84th position along with Senegal. This does not augur well for the Modi Govt,” Soz said.
“The resignations of SK Sinha, (Principal Advisor in the PMO), Pratap Bhanu Mehta, (Noted columnist and political commentator – Senior Professor Ashoka University) and Arvind Subramanian (World famous Economist – Professor Ashoka University) in recent days, should be seen in this very context.
Dr Subramanian said in a statement that, ”his support of politics that tries to honour constitutional values of freedom and equal respect to all citizens, was seen as a risk to the system in which I worked. So, I resigned.”
These resignations have shown the Modi Govt in poor light and the world has become largely aware that dissent is not acceptable in India, any more.
The greatest ailment of India’s polity today is that India no longer functions as a democracy and the Centre of the Command is just one person and all the public institutions have the direction that these have to go by the command.
The common assessment, the world over, is that India is growing fast into a full-fledged `elected autocratic regime’, Soz remarked.
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