Indian Subcontinent Survey: To Trust Institutions or Not, What Do Indians Think?

Besides trust factor, safety remains to be one of the key concerns of Indian citizens in India, Pak & Bangladesh.

(This is Part Six of a series that analyses the results of an ambitious survey conducted across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to try and find out what citizens of the three independent sovereign republics think about each other, about the state of democracy in their country; about gender, religious and ethnic freedom; achievements and failures and about institutions among others.)

In recent times, the so-called four pillars of Indian democracy have been involved or rather, embroiled in a seemingly unseemly war of words. The Supreme Court delivered a verdict whereby the executive will no longer have the sole prerogative of appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and two more election commissioners. Many have criticised the verdict as an unwarranted intrusion by the court into other domains.

In any democracy, debates and even disagreements between key institutions are not always unwarranted as long as these institutions continue to retain public faith in them. How much trust do Indians have in key institutions of our democracy? Some startling answers have been provided by Indian citizens during an exclusive survey conducted by CVoter Foundation & the Centre For Policy Research in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. There are quite a few wake-up calls too.

More than 15,000 respondents from across three countries were asked a set of questions related to attitudes towards partition, neighbours, trust in other countries and domestic institutions, the economy, society, politics, and gender equality among other things. In this column that focuses solely on responses from India, trust in institutions remains fairly robust though it is a definitive wake-up call for some.

How Safe Do Communities in India Feel in Crisis Situations?

Answers to why there are persistent charges of cronyism can also be seen in the responses with a lot of Indians singling out Big Business as the one entity whose influence on Indian politics has grown in recent years. More predictable and expected responses of Indians when it comes to the relative safety of different ethnic and religious groups, with upper caste Hindus feeling the safest and some Muslims feeling considerably less safe.

Before we move into details of the levels of trust Indians have in various institutions, it would be instructive to understand the hot-button issues that citizens identify as problem areas. Corruption, poverty, dynasty politics, religious intolerance, and the possibility of military dictatorship are the biggest concerns that worry Indians, in descending order.

https://www.thequint.com/opinion/indian-muslims-divided-the-elitist-agenda-of-convenience-compromises-secularismAs the chart above shows, close to three in five Indians single out corruption as a very serious issue, followed by poverty and dynasty politics. But do ground realities in terms of electoral outcomes and political support this contention?

Hardly anyone will dispute the contention that 56% of Indians identify poverty as a very serious issue. While there is no doubt that India has made giant strides since 1991, particularly since 2001 in lifting hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty. But it took one Covid pandemic to brutally expose the fault lines below the success in reducing poverty.

Quite simply, there was a real danger of millions of Indians starving as they lost jobs and walked thousands of kilometres back to their villages. It was only the free food grains scheme promised and delivered to 800 million Indians between April 2020 and December 2022 that prevented a humanitarian disaster. The experience shows that while hundreds of millions have escaped poverty, a majority remain vulnerable and could slip back into abject poverty with one crisis.

Concerns Against Corruption

To that extent, it is understandable for so many Indians to remain worried about poverty. But what about the two other areas of concern that worry a lot of Indians? For decades, numerous surveys have shown corruption as a serious issue that engages and angers Indians. In fact, in April 2011 which is 12 years ago, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare virtually sounded the death knell of the UPA regime by launching a fast unto death. By then, the government was already hit by the alleged CWG and 2G scams.

Perhaps, that was the last time one saw large-scale public anger against corruption. Yet, analysts and commentators remain divided over what caused the massive electoral defeat of the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Was it anger against corruption as some idealists would like to believe; or was it the perceived “anti-Hindu” stance of the party as spelt out by senior party leader AK Anthony.

Even otherwise, there is no data to support the claim that voters punish leaders who are perceived to be corrupt during elections. The late Jayalalitha, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and B S Yediyurappa have been “perceived” to be corrupt. But it would be a stretch to say that voters have punished them.

The same perhaps holds good for perceptions about dynasty politics. Many analysts and scholars have been arguing since 2014 that growing distaste for dynasty politics is an important reason for the political rise of Narendra Modi and the BJP. Yet again, there is no reliable data available to confirm this hypothesis. In fact, a significantly large number of BJP MPs and MLAs happen to be dynasts in their own right. Perhaps the only difference is that these dynasts have not managed to reach the “top”.

One example is Pankaja Munde, daughter of the late Gopinath Munde who had actually nursed ambitions of becoming Maharashtra chief minister after the 2014 assembly elections. In non-BJP parties, dynasts indeed become Supreme leaders. But again, there is no data or evidence to suggest that “growing distaster" for dynasty politics has hampered their electoral prospects. A dynast like Udhav Thackeray did become chief minister of Maharashtra; he might do so again in 2024. Another dynast Tejasvi Yadav is almost certain to become the Bihar chief minister. Dynasts like Naveen Patnaik, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, and M K Stalin are chief ministers. So Indians may not like dynasty politics, but their voting behaviour doesn’t often reflect that.

Does Indians’ Institutional Trust Get Dwindled by Systemic Issues?

In comparison, a lot of Indians still repose trust in institutions that are vital for a healthy democracy. As subsequent columns in this series will show, the numbers are strikingly different from both in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

For instance, only one-third of the respondents in the survey stated that they trust the police a lot. That pales in comparison to the 87% of Indians who have a lot of trust in the Army. Yet, given the disturbing reports that often emerge about the quality of policing and law enforcement in the country, the number is not something to be sneezed at.

While 37% express a lot of trust in the Parliament, the figure for the judiciary is higher at 44%. The bureaucracy comes in at the bottom (21% trust it a lot) followed by the media (28%). The Election Commission of India is near the top, just behind the judiciary with 43% affirming they have a lot of trust in it.

The surprising result coming out of the survey is that more Indians have a lot of trust in the police than in the media. Overall though, the trust levels display a comfort level with democracy; at least at the surface level. Yet, there are loud alarms and warning bells as the chart below reveals.

As many as 22% of the respondents indicated clearly that they do not have any trust at all in news & media outlets. It is a wake-up call for leaders in Indian media and the results do suggest a need for introspection.

What should worry even more is the fact that Indians have virtually put the media in the category of institutions like the police and the bureaucracy that are usually trusted the least. Normally, the judiciary and the media should inspire far more trust because they are supposed to be independent and somewhat above the fray while the executive and the legislature often behave in a partisan manner. Clearly, a lot of Indians don’t seem convinced that the judiciary and the media are independent and above the fray.

Can Indians Repose Faith in Voting Establishments?

There are other interesting details that pop up when one digs deeper. Take the case of the Election Commission of India (ECI). The younger Indians appear cynical while the older Indians (with more experience in elections and voting) have much more trust in the ECI.

As the chart above indicates, there is a very big difference between the perception of young first-time voters and those who have voted in multiple elections in the past few decades. A 23% difference in perceptions between the very young and the aging, does raise intriguing questions. It is beyond the remit of the authors and this column to suggest answers.

In some previous columns, responses to other important questions have already been featured. They were related to an improvement/deterioration in democracy, the overall performance of the country over the last 75 years, expectations about family well-being in the future, and the track record of the Indian economy, among other things.

Responses to all these questions suggest that Indians are, by and large, satisfied with the state of Indian democracy though they have increasing doubts about the ability of some institutions to deliver what they should. Yet, satisfied as they are, Indians also have very clear ideas and perceptions about the weak spots in our political system. The survey asked the following question: Thinking about the past few years, do you think interference by the following in the politics of our country has increased or decreased? The responses reveal a lot.

As the chart above indicates, a lot of Indians appear convinced that cronyism is a serious issue that cannot be brushed under the carpet. Close to 50% of respondents in the survey stated that they think interference by Big Business in politics in the country has increased a lot. For a number of years, opposition parties have accused the Narendra Modi regime of encouraging "crony capitalism” and favouring a select list of tycoons and corporate entities. Rahul Gandhi, in particular, has been unsparing and unrelenting in his critique with frequent jibes like "suit-boot ki sarkaar" and “Ambani-Adani ki Sarkar”. So far, electoral outcomes of Lok Sabha and many assembly elections do not provide any data to suggest that these allegations have impacted voter behaviour. Yet, Indians are aware that cronyism is a reality in India.

On Military Intervention

An inexplicably large proportion of Indians seem to think that interference by the military has increased a lot in the last few years. Since the Armed Forces remain completely subservient to the civilian establishment, it would be worthwhile trying to find reasons for this perception.

One reason could be that an increasing number of retired Armed Forces personnel have started making politically and ideologically loaded comments on social media. Maybe it is a "physician heal thyself” moment in Indian democracy, or maybe, it is the result of polarised ideological warfare on social media. But it definitely warrants some introspection.

That brings us to the last of the important questions related to the health of Indian democracy and its institutions. Overall, 31% of Indians think that the status of minorities and underprivileged in the country in the last 75 years has been way better than expectations while 18% feel it has been way lower than expectations. But there are troubling differences in perceptions across different groups and communities.

Different Perceptions of Community Welfare

As the chart above indicates, more Indians who actually belong to minority and underprivileged groups think that their status has been below expectations compared to upper-caste Hindus. While about 18% of upper-caste Hindus think it has been below expectations, 36% of Muslims and 47.5% of Christians feel the same.

Yet again, call it cynicism or pessimism, but the very young differ a lot from the aged. While 22% of those above 55 years think the status of minorities and underprivileged have been below expectations, 37% of those in the age 18 to 24 category feel the same.

One more outlier that emerges from these responses is the difference in perceptions between east and south India. While 22% of Indians living in the east feel the status of minorities and the underprivileged has been below expectations, more than 36% of Indians living in the south feel the same. This is intriguing because both the minorities and the traditionally marginalised communities in the south enjoy superior income and human development levels than those in the east. Once again, the answers to this are beyond the remit of the authors and this column.

This concludes the analysis of responses from India to important questions. From the next column onwards, we will dive into a comparative analysis of perceptions in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The answers are sometimes predictable, and often startling.

Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.

(Yashwant Deshmukh & Sutanu Guru work with CVoter Foundation and Rahul Verma is Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

(Yashwant Deshmukh & Sutanu Guru work with CVoter Foundation and Rahul Verma is Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)