Sweden-based The V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute, known for its bizarre democracy reports, has come up with another such report. The George Soros funded group recently released a report on Academc Freedon, and according to them, India is behind Pakistan, Iraq and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in academic freedom.
V-Dem Institute released updates to its Academic Freedom Index, where they compared academic freedom scores in 2005 with those in 2021. The Swedish Institute placed India in the Botton 20% group out of 177 countries.
The report stated, “Populous countries such as Brazil, China, India, and Russia exhibit substantially less academic freedom today than in 2011.” According to the paper titled ‘Academic Freedom Index Update 2022,’ the fall in academic freedom is accompanied by an increasing and deepening wave of ‘autocratization.’
V-Dem Institute and the Academic Freedom Index
V-Dem stands for Varieties of Democracy, and the Institution was founded in 2014 as an independent research institution by Professor Staffan I. Lindberg. It promises to usher in a new way of thinking about and evaluating democracy. It offers a number of studies that rank countries on a variety of criteria.
The Academic Freedom Index (AFi) initiative was founded in 2019 by academics from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the V-Dem Institute, Scholars at Risk Network, and Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), according to their website. V-Dem and FAU are now working on the project with funding from the German Volkswagen Foundation.
Academic Freedom Index Update 2022
According to the V-Dem website, this year’s Academic Freedom Index update gives an overview of academic freedom in 177 nations and territories. It reveals two findings based on an examination of the de facto protection of academic freedom as of December 2021.
“First, the latest data reveal a substantial and statistically significant decline in academic freedom in 19 cases, with improvements registered in only two cases compared with 2011. Thirty-seven per cent of the world’s population live in these 19 countries and territories with major recent drops in academic freedom. Second, the decline in academic freedom accompanies an accelerating and deepening wave of autocratization,” the website notes.
It is in this update, India has been ranked in the Bottom 10-20% among 177 countries included in the study. Interesting to note is that the Indian ranking falls below Iraq, Pakistan, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq are placed in the Bottom 30-40% group. From the subcontinent, Nepal is ranked way above, in the top 20-30% group.
North American and European countries dominate the top rankings in the report, with the inclusion of several countries in Africa, like Senegal, Nigeria, Burkina Faso etc, which are ranked in the top 20-30% group.
The dubious method of ranking
It is vital to mention that these reports are based on the impressions or opinions of a small number of professionals. There are numerous significant flaws with the techniques used by organisations such as V-Dem, as stated in a working paper of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Notably, these indexes are mostly based on the views of a tiny handful of unidentified self-proclaimed experts.
The questions asked for surveys are subjective and structured in such a way that they are hard to answer objectively even for a single nation, let alone compare across countries. There are certain inquiries that should be asked but are not. Furthermore, several questions employed by these indexes do not provide an accurate estimate of the specified attributes across all nations.
Democracy Report 2022
In March this year, OpIndia reported how the V-Dem Institute ranked India in the top ten autocratic countries in the world. Continuing with baseless anti-India propaganda by western organisations, V-Dem also stated that the country’s democratic orientation would deteriorate. According to the research, India stood in the bottom 40% to 50% of countries on V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index (LDI).
As per the research, polarization is on the rise in India and the country was ranked 93rd on the Liberal Democracy Index. They also published a report last year in which they branded India as an electoral autocracy. According to V-Dem, India had ‘lost’ its status as an electoral democracy and had devolved into an electoral autocracy.
Who funds V-Dem Institute?
Though V-Dem institute is an independent research organization, they are funded by many other institutions and governments. The contributors of funds to the institute range from the Canadian International Development Agency to the World Bank Group.
Surprisingly, the Open Society Foundation, which is led by George Soros, also funds the institute. Soros is a self-proclaimed philanthropist and Hungarian-American investor who has sworn to ‘fight nationalists’ and conservative governments throughout the world, which he commonly refers to as ‘authoritarian governments.’
George Soros’ sponsorship of the V-Dem Institute reveals a lot about the organization’s intentions toward India. Soros has publicly expressed his hatred for India and has often denounced the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His support for an organization that ranks India as a dying democracy highlights the hollowness of the institute’s findings.
About Open Society Foundation and George Soros
In 1999, the Open Society Foundation began activities in India by providing scholarships and fellowships to pursue studies and research at Indian colleges. Through the OSF, George Soros made significant contributions towards the spread of instability in India.
By actively supporting anti-India groups operating within India, the left-wing international organization led by Soros stretched its claws across the country in the pretext of undertaking humanitarian initiatives. Since its inception in India, OSF has attempted to meddle in the country’s internal affairs through a wide and linked network of organizations sponsored by George Soros. These organizations play a critical role in distorting the actual narrative and using the judiciary and the media to obstruct the national interest.
George Soros has fostered a class of intellectuals that fight steadfastly against the Indian state, particularly the nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through his web of NGOs.
The Open Society Foundation has been a beneficiary to left-leaning intelligentsia who have regularly put forth false narratives against the present government, in addition to sponsoring media. Harsh Mander, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Indira Jaising, and Amartya Sen are among the most well-known among them. George Soros has repeatedly demonstrated his eagerness to wage war against India’s nationalist government over the last few decades.
The V-Dem Institute is generally known to be a puppet of individuals like George Soros, acting on their directions to destabilise growing economies like India. These reports may have been generated using a number of statistical sources, but the collection of data to achieve well-intentioned results is rather obvious in the endorsements and affiliations of the groups that make them.
The plethora of facts and links presented above demonstrate unequivocally how propagandistic reports published by organisations such as the V-Dem Institute exemplify how international powers and non-state actors intervene in the internal workings of other democracies in order to achieve their policy agenda.
