New Delhi: In February 2020, the Cabinet Secretary issued a directive to the Union Legislative Department: fix the government’s tarnished reputation on global indices. Under the watchful eyes of the Prime Minister’s Office, officials reluctantly began their damage-control mission.

The culprits were clear. One index accused India of becoming less democratic under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime, while another highlighted a troubling indifference to the rule of law. 

The publishers – one, a US-based non-profit, and the other, an organisation linked to The Economist magazine – had failed to appreciate the government’s achievements.

The first two parts of our Ministry of Truth investigative series uncovered key aspects of the government’s image whitewash machinery: lobbying with publishers of the Global Hunger Index and creating its own Poverty Index. Both were part of a grand perception-management project, known as Global Indices for Reform and Growth or GIRG, under which 19 Union ministries were mobilised, tasked to monitor and review more than 30 global ranking indices.

On the Ministry of Law and Justice’s Legislative Department hit list were the Rule of Law Index and Democracy Index. It had to dissect and poke holes in methodologies, question credentials, and, if possible, conjure up friendly homegrown alternatives.

The mission was simple. Convince the publishers to rewrite their rulebook or discredit their findings while presenting better-looking alternatives. 

But at the Ministry of Law and Justice, the campaign hit an inconvenient bump.

After scrutinising the methodologies of the offending indices, the ministry’s experts did the unthinkable: they agreed with the conclusions of these indices. Official briefing papers not only endorsed the grim findings but went a step further, outlining just how democracy had withered and the rule of law faltered under Modi’s watch.

For the first time, The Reporters’ Collective brings these damning internal assessments to light – a saga where the Ministry of Law and Justice becomes the unwilling bearer of truths no one wanted to hear.

The assessment, in one part, bluntly concludes: “India’s investigating agencies have become politicised.” 

This marked perhaps the first internal acknowledgement by the government of the sharp criticism it has faced from opposition parties and civil society organisations, which have long accused agencies like the Enforcement Directorate of being weaponised against them.

One of the official briefing papers, on the Democracy Index, noted, “It may not be out of the context to refer two issues which are (sic) in recent past attracted judicial interventions and need reforms are (i) Criminalisation of politics and (ii) Expenditure on polls.”

On the criminalisation of politics, the ministry observed, “The major problem is that the law-breakers become law-makers, this affects the efficacy of the democratic process in delivering good governance.”

For anyone interested in reading, the ministry-appointed authors of the briefing papers laid it bare: “Despite having so many good laws, there are still so many crimes happening in our society.” They even suggested “a post review of the laws… [that] can help in removing all the flaws in the laws.”

The files do not reveal which officials wrote this scathing indictment of the government. 

The briefing paper, however, did offer a curious piece of advice. It suggested the government should work on moulding the opinions of dissenting citizens. 

Then, the official paper veered into the absurd. It claimed that B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India’s Constitution, was concerned about global indices as well.

It cited him saying, “The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depends are the people and political parties, they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and politics. Only when this objective is fulfilled, in letter and spirit, can we expect to really move up indices and proudly flaunt yet having achieved ‘sabka nyaya’.” 

The problem? It was only partly correct. Ambedkar never said the last line. 

The Collective found that the authors of the briefing paper had lifted portions of a Bar and Bench column, conflating the author’s views with Ambedkar’s. 

The farce didn’t end there. These missteps continued in other forms to hobble the government’s efforts to discredit the two indices that rated it poorly. 

A Kafkaesque question now loomed before the government. Who is actually in charge of upholding the rule of law and ensuring the country’s democratic credentials?

“Flaws in the Laws”

The World Justice Report has been publishing the Rule of Law Index every year since at least 2015. This index evaluates countries on several parameters: Are laws clear? Are governments and other actors accountable? Do citizens enjoy fundamental rights? Is there order and security? Is the civil and criminal justice system effective and accessible?

India’s performance has steadily worsened, with its ranking slipping from 62 in 2017 to 69 in 2020. The Legislative Department, tasked with monitoring the index, got to work.

The government identified declines in “constraints on government”, “absence of corruption,” and “fundamental rights” as key reasons for this slide. The Collective found that India’s steepest decline was in the area of fundamental rights.

In response, the government briefing note listed two laws aimed at combating corruption. The catch, however, was that one of these laws was the Whistle Blowers Protection Act – designed to safeguard whistleblowers – which has not been implemented in over a decade. The note acknowledged that investigative agencies should “be strengthened” and “more protection” be given to whistleblowers.

With corruption taken care of, the note shifted focus to the implementation of laws. Despite India “having wonderful legislations in each and every factor related to Rule of Law,” the briefing blamed state governments for poor implementation.

This poor implementation, the note said, was also responsible for “crimes in society.”

The Legislative Department had little to say on the Rule of Law Index, The Collective found. In fact, it seemed eager to offload responsibility for the index altogether. 

By September 2020, the Cabinet Secretary reassigned the index to the Department of Justice. Yet, regardless of this shift, India continued to perform poorly on the index. The country’s rank had slipped further to 79 in 2024 – a drop of 10 spots in just four years.

While the Legislative Department managed to rid itself of the Rule of Law Index, another contentious index remained a bone of contention for it.

Who Ensures Democracy?

Each year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) – the research arm of London-based The Economist Group which publishes the Economist magazine – publishes the Democracy Index.

The index evaluates countries across five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, political participation, functioning of government, and political culture. These broad parameters include metrics like “security of voters,” “capability of civil servants to implement policies” or “influence of foreign powers on government.”

The EIU also classifies countries into four categories based on their scores: “full democracies,” “flawed democracies,” “hybrid regimes,” and “authoritarian regimes”. India has been labelled a “flawed democracy” since at least 2012.

Its ranking has fallen sharply – from 27th in 2014, when the BJP swept to power on an anti-corruption wave, to 53rd in 2020.

In 2020, the government assigned the Legislative Department to monitor the Democracy Index as part of its GIRG initiative. 

The Department worked on a briefing note similar to the one prepared for the Rule of Law Index, for the Democracy Index, The Collective found. It identified two critical areas for reform: the criminalisation of politics and election expenditure.

“The major problem is that the law breakers become law makers, this affects the efficacy of the democratic process in delivering good governance,” it said bluntly. It further linked the criminalisation of politics to the issue of “circulation of black money during and after elections” and the “culture of violence in society” which, it warned, “sets a bad precedent for the youth.” 

“These unhealthy tendencies in the democratic system reflect a poor image of the nature of India’s state institutions and the quality of its elected representatives,” it added.

Despite its own admissions, the note dismissed the Democracy Index as having “low direct value” since it was a “perception-based survey”. 

The government, meanwhile, began looking for ways to discredit the Democracy Index. 

‍ The Criticism Within

As a first step, the government tasked the Indian High Commission in London with making ‘discreet inquiries’ with EIU officials, as reported earlier by Hindustan Times. The Collective additionally found that the government tracked down seven India-based researchers who had contributed to the index, naming them in government files.

Meanwhile, all the other ministries identified as stakeholders on Democracy Index parameters were asked to share their inputs. 

The Election Commission responded with a 14-page report, highlighting the scale of India’s elections, especially the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which it called Desh ka Maha Tyohaar (Mega Festival of Indian Democracy).

The Commission also reiterated longstanding recommendations for fairer elections, including suggestions like extending poll expenditure limits to political parties, not just candidates. Successive governments, including the current one, ignored these suggestions.

One of the Commission’s stark warnings was on the electoral bonds scheme – a tool introduced by the Modi government that enabled anonymous political donations. It flagged the scheme as a conduit for black money in electoral politics. The government summarily ignored its warnings. The scheme continued until the Supreme Court struck it down in March 2024, declaring it unconstitutional.

Apart from the Commission, other ministries showed little interest in the Democracy Index. Multiple departments expressed their unhappiness with the parameters assigned to them. 

The Department of School Education and Literacy, for instance, initially expressed confusion over statistics on “adult literacy.” But, after calling it “subjective”, it later asked for the parameter to be dropped altogether, show documents.

A meeting in June 2021 ended with minimal discussion because most officials failed to attend.  

Frustrated, the Legislative Department sought to relinquish its responsibility for the index, warning that it “could not proceed further in monitoring progress of the Democracy Index.” Yet, records show, that no other ministry was willing to bear the burden of the task of assessing if India was doing well as a democracy.

With no takers, however, it remained saddled with the index. 

In a last-ditch effort, a senior Law Ministry official even asked ministries to propose their own metrics like “GDP growth” that better reflect India’s progress. 

In the same meeting, an official from the Department of Personnel and Training noted that they had hired a “Professional Private Agency/Think Tank” who compiled data “relevant to our country” “in a focused and holistic manner”. 

In a separate meeting, show documents, an official of the Legislative Department proposed outsourcing the task of evaluating India’s democracy. He suggested that an external agency or a retired professional handle the work.

A report by Al Jazeera has previously reported, citing anonymous government officials, that the Modi government tasked the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a non-profit think tank associated with the Reliance Group, with creating an indigenous democracy index.

The Collective, however, could not verify this independently. While the ORF is yet to publish such an index, it did not respond to queries by Al Jazeera at the time.

In response to detailed queries by The Collective, the Legislative Department said it had no comments on the Democracy Index.

On the Rule of Law Index, it said, “The Department of Justice is the Nodal Department for “Rule of Law Index”, hence, any information in this regard may be available with the said Department.” It said so even though The Collective’s reportage on the index pertains to the period when the Legislative Department was in charge of it. 

The Department passed the buck once again. 

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This is the concluding part of the investigative series, The Ministry of Truth. You can read the previous two parts here and here.