New Delhi: Believe it or not, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center has found that over two-thirds of Indians support autocratic or military rule and that support for these forms of government was found to be the highest in India among the 24 countries surveyed.
The survey report published on 28 February, 2024, took into account responses sought from 30,861 individuals across 24 countries between 20 February, 2023, and 22 May, 2023. The idea was to collate the opinions of the general public towards democracy and political representation.
Support for rule by a “strong leader” without any judicial or legislative interference was found to have increased in India by 12 percentage points between 2017 and 2023, the survey found.
In 2017, 55 percent of Indian respondents preferred a “strong leader” governing the country. In 2023, this number was found to be 67 percent. Among the countries surveyed, support for autocratic leadership was the strongest in India.
Over half of the Indonesian respondents also supported autocratic rule, along with about half of the Mexican and Kenyan respondents. In a similar vein, support for rule by the military was the highest in Indonesia after India.
As many as 72 percent of Indians polled by Pew supported rule by the military. Among them, 43 percent said they believed it is a very good form of governance, while 29 percent said they believed it is somewhat good.
This story was originally published in theprint.in. Read the full story here.