BENGALURU: The proportion of people preferring dictatorship over democracy has seen a gradual increase and this trend is reflected in the ‘State of Democracy in South Asia’ report by Global Barometer Surveys, Lokniti and Jain University.
Based on the responses of 18,500 citizens in the region, the sample survey revealed that support has gone down for democracy in India. While support for democracy was at 70 per cent in the first edition of the report in 2005, this has fallen to 63 per cent eight years later.
The same trend, of a decline of faith in democracy over other forms of governance, is observed in Pakistan and Nepal.
With confidence among people in democracy is eroding, the report noted that though there was ‘high support’ for democracy, there was a “less enthusiastic satisfaction level” with the way it was functioning.
Historian Ramachandra Guha, speaking after releasing the report, said that there were ‘real worries’ about the issues raised in the report.
He said that linguistic and religious heterogeneity was intrinsic to South Asia, and attempts have been made to erase the heterogeneity.