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Do Political Stories Change How People See Things?
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Political Narratives in Elections
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716546
Abstract
In 2025, India's democracy, which was once regarded to be the greatest and most active in the world, is at a very vital and perilous stage. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) report considers the country a "electoral autocracy" since it has lost many democratic liberties during the past ten years. Some of the most essential democratic rights that have gotten worse are freedom of speech, media independence, civil liberties, and institutional autonomy. This is like what happened in the past when there were authoritarian trends, such the Emergency era of the 1970s. The 2025 Bihar elections brought these issues to light, with many people blaming "vote chori" (vote fraud) and manipulating voter records to target weak groups. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of India (ECI) both firmly deny that there is any political division or lack of trust, even though they have made technological changes to make things more open. People in different sections of the country have extremely varied political experiences. People in Haryana trust the democratic process and the government is quite stable. In Punjab, on the other hand, there is still social unrest and worries about the validity of elections. Democratization is further impeded by the proliferation of religion and social differences, institutional constraints on judicial and media entities, and the repression of dissent. Economic inequality and populist majoritarianism make democratic problems worse.
Keywords
Autocracy, Democracy, Liberties, Institutions, Majoritarianism
How to cite this paper
@article{1716546,
author = {Aman},
title = {Do Political Stories Change How People See Things?},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2026},
volume = {9},
number = {10},
pages = {2024-2030},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1716546.pdf},
abstract = {In 2025, India's democracy, which was once regarded to be the greatest and most active in the world, is at a very vital and perilous stage. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) report considers the country a "electoral autocracy" since it has lost many democratic liberties during the past ten years. Some of the most essential democratic rights that have gotten worse are freedom of speech, media independence, civil liberties, and institutional autonomy. This is like what happened in the past when there were authoritarian trends, such the Emergency era of the 1970s. The 2025 Bihar elections brought these issues to light, with many people blaming "vote chori" (vote fraud) and manipulating voter records to target weak groups. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of India (ECI) both firmly deny that there is any political division or lack of trust, even though they have made technological changes to make things more open. People in different sections of the country have extremely varied political experiences. People in Haryana trust the democratic process and the government is quite stable. In Punjab, on the other hand, there is still social unrest and worries about the validity of elections. Democratization is further impeded by the proliferation of religion and social differences, institutional constraints on judicial and media entities, and the repression of dissent. Economic inequality and populist majoritarianism make democratic problems worse.},
keywords = {Autocracy, Democracy, Liberties, Institutions, Majoritarianism},
month = {April},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716546}
}