V-Dem's Democracy Report 2026 places India's electoral democracy at its lowest since the Emergency of 1975. Critically examine the institutional factors contributing to this assessment.

V-Dem's Democracy Report 2026 retains India's classification as an "electoral autocracy", ranking it 105 of 179 on the Liberal Democracy Index and placing its Electoral Democracy Index at a 50-year low [1][5]. The assessment points to institutional erosion, though its 1975 analogy warrants scrutiny.

Weakening autonomy of the election machinery

• V-Dem records Election Management Body (EMB) autonomy and impartial administration by public officials at their lowest in five decades [5].
• Anoop Baranwal (2023) sought to insulate appointments through a PM–Leader of Opposition–CJI panel; the CEC and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023 substituted a Union Minister for the CJI, retaining an executive majority [4].
• The UN CERD, reviewing India in August 2026 for the first time since 2007, flagged exclusion of voters — particularly Muslims — during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls [2].

Accountability and oversight deficits

• Sub-indices on judicial accountability and control of corruption are likewise at 50-year lows, alongside shrinking academic and cultural expression [5].
• V-Dem frames the trend as incremental autocratisation since 2009 — legal, gradual erosion rather than a single constitutional rupture [1].

The counter-view: limits of the assessment

• Unlike 1975, there is no proclamation under Article 352, no suspension of fundamental rights, and no formal censorship; the comparison is therefore analytical, not literal.
• The ECI conducts SIR in phases with statutory safeguards — draft publication, claims and objections, and appeals under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 [3].
• Such indices rest on aggregated expert perception; competitive state elections, frequent alternation of power and an active judiciary remain uncaptured.

India's democratic core endures, but the warning is credible where it concerns institutional insulation. Restoring a genuinely plural appointment panel for the ECI, ensuring transparent, appealable roll revision, and strengthening parliamentary oversight would align practice with Article 324 and the constitutional promise of universal adult franchise under Article 326.