As the Indian republic turns 72 next week, many say its democratic values have been severely affected over the years. A new YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial survey shows that while critics may blame the party in power, the public itself could be no less complacent. The survey shows that urban Indians hold great appeal for authoritarian tendencies across all party affiliations, possibly due to increasingly polarized attitudes in society.
More than half of urban Indians (58%), led by older, highly educated and wealthy men, demonstrated a strong or moderately partisan attitude towards their preferred party. Such respondents were far more likely than others to have supported an authoritarian regime by a powerful leader and displayed impatience with democratic processes such as elections. This attitude was spread equally among the supporters of different parties.
The findings use a “biased index” derived from responses to a set of four questions in the latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey, conducted in November-December 2021. The respondents were asked about their feelings towards their favorite party, their relationship with their partner. supporters, and how they felt when others criticized or praised the party.
The survey covered 12,900 respondents in 206 cities. Organized jointly by global market research firm YouGov, Mint and the Indian arm of the Delhi-based Center for Policy Research (CPR), it was the seventh of a series of bi-annual surveys examining India’s aspirations, concerns and outlook . digital natives. Roughly 45% of the sample were Millennials, one-third post-Millennials (ages 18–24), and the rest pre-Millennials (40+).
jai ho my party
The survey revealed interesting undercurrents to party affiliation. Of those who identified with the party, about 41% supported it to the extent that they “always” referred to it as “my party”, and 47% “always” felt good on hearing praise for the party. There was relative immunity to criticism: only 27% always found it to be a personal insult.
Based on these responses, we classified 37% of the respondents as strong parties, 21% as moderates and 42% as weak parties. The final set also includes those who did not identify with any party.
Men were significantly more likely to be strong biased (42% versus 31%) for women. The youngest respondents seemed remotely the least biased. The most educated showed greater favoritism, but there was no clear relationship to the lower qualification levels.
Supporters of the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties had an almost equal level of political attachment – more than half of their supporters counted as strong supporters.
challenge of democracy
The survey found that a majority (51%) favor authoritarianism over democracy and accept the idea of abolishing parliament and elections in favor of a stronger leader or technocrat. An equal section of the people also advocated military rule.
The survey data also shows that there is no partisan association for holding such views. The reaction of supporters of Congress, BJP and regional parties is surprisingly similar. In any case, the support of military rule and a strong leader is slightly weaker among BJP supporters than among supporters of Congress or other parties.
The survey includes only urban Indians, and may not reflect the opinion of the majority of Indians living in rural areas. However, given the high influence of the urban population on political discourse, such an opinion could have far-reaching implications for the general political climate and democratic consensus in the country.
the cost of favoritism
The unpopularity of democratic principles comes from those who strongly associate with a particular party. Of such strong parties, two-thirds favor authoritarian rule, military rule, or a country without elections. The share of vulnerable parties was one third. This suggests that party identity is important to highly partisan citizens: they would be comfortable being governed by someone who shares their ideological worldview rather than an adversary, even if it eschew some democratic values.
High partisanship makes society more polarized, which is generally seen as detrimental to democratic values, and survey data supports this. Unless concerted efforts are made by the political and social elite to reach across party lines, these approaches can lead to a rapid democratic decline.
Rahul Verma is with CPR and Ankita Barthwal is a PhD researcher at the University of Oslo.
This is the third of a five-part data journalism series based on the biennial YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey. First Last year was focused on the big churn in the job market, and second Saw an increasing trend of investment among young Indians.
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