[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Pew research also says that while 27 per cent Indians want a strong leader, 46 per cent trust the government will do what is right
At a time when the Narendra Modi-led government is under attack from several quarters for its poor handling of the country’s economy, a study by American think-tank – Pew Research Center – may bring in some cheer for the ruling BJP.
The Pew research, which is based on the think-tank’s survey on governance and the electorate’s trust in the respective governments of some key countries of the world, claims that four-fifths or nearly 85 per cent of Indians “trust” their federal government. However, the report also claims that as many as 55 per cent of Indians also endorse “military rule and autocracy” in one way or another.
“In India, where the economy has grown on average by 6.9 per cent since 2012, 85 per cent (of people) trust their national government,” the Pew Research said, while adding that 46 per cent of the relatively miniscule sample size of 2464 Indian respondents also “somewhat” trusted the central government “to do what was right”.
The report also claims that more than one-fourth of the respondents or 27 per cent of the sample size of respondents want “a strong leader”.
The face-to-face survey by Pew by reportedly carried out in eight languages and involved adult respondents from “Delhi and 15 of the 17 most populous states”. The fieldwork was done between February 21 and March 10.
On a global perspective, the research claimed that nearly half of Russians (48 per cent of the sample size surveyed) back governance by a strong leader but also admit that rule by a strong leader is generally unpopular.
The research notes that a global median of 26 per cent of respondents say a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts would be a good way of governing while nearly 71 per cent respondents believed that this would be “a bad type of governance.”
India is one of the three countries in the Asia Pacific region where people support technocracy, the report added, saying: “Asian-Pacific publics generally back rule by experts, particularly people in Vietnam (67 per cent), India (65 per cent) and the Philippines (62 per cent).”
According to the survey, roughly half of both Indians (53 per cent) and South Africans (52 per cent), who live in nations that often hold themselves up as democratic exemplars for their regions, say military rule would be a good thing for their countries.
“But in these societies, older people (those ages 50 and older) are the least supportive of the army running the country, and they are the ones who either personally experienced the struggle to establish democratic rule or are the immediate descendants of those democratic pioneers,” the report added.
Pew said more than half in each of the 38 nations polled consider representative democracy a very or somewhat good way to govern their country. Yet, in all countries, pro-democracy attitudes coexist, to varying degrees, with openness to non-democratic forms of governance, including rule by experts, a strong leader, or the military.
(With inputs from PTI)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]