Centre for the Study of Developing Societies: Survey on Democracy

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies: Survey on Democracy

Question: Democracy will never die in India. Discuss.

- A national survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies has shown in 2013 under half the country without any deviation preferred democracy as the best form of governance

- Proportion of those believing in authoritarian rule increased, but remained a minority at 11%

- It is considerably lower than the estimates in Pakistan

- Among poor, ST and ST, there was indifference to the type of government

- Study also found that satisfaction in the manner in which the Indian democracy was functioning was low among people in India

- Preference for authoritarian rule was higher in people with more media exposure , metro living, ruche and college educated

- Strong leadership was in high demand as there is frustration with a system that does not deliver

- Among the top characteristics of democracy rated by respondents of the survey was the freedom to take part in protests and right to dissent.

- Welfarist ideals such as closing the chasm between rich and poor, job creation and provision of basic necessities formed the next core of democracy in Indian public perception

- Welfarist democracy that delivers was the desirable aim for a majority of survey respondents

- As in the past a majority were indifferent to the form of government or had no opinion (43%) while the number which believed in authoritarianism rose by 6% from 2005

- Proportion of Indians preferring democracy was much lower than Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, but much higher than Pakistan

- Nearly 40 percent of all people approved of the statement that India should not have a parliament or elections and instead have a strong leader to make decisions while 35 percent disagreed and the remaining had no opinion on the matter

- Many people agreed that experts(nearly 40 percent) should take decisions for people as against 33% who disagreed

- Nearly 46% of people agreed that the Army should not govern the country as against those(30 percent) who believed they should

- 23 percent of people did not support rule against democracy

- Civil service was perceived as most corrupt and so were local and state as well as Union governments

- Political parties were the least trusted political entities

Facts and Stats

- The survey was entitled Democracy in India: A Citizen’s Perspective

- It covered 6000 respondents in 22 states

- Sample collected was representative of gender, caste, class and religion