Executive elections and selection procedures are generally regarded as free and fair. Executive power is vested in a prime minister, typically the leader of the majority party in the Lok Sabha (House of the People), and a cabinet of ministers nominated by the prime minister. They are appointed by the president and responsible to the Lok Sabha. Narendra Modi secured a third term as prime minister after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition he heads won a majority of seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The president, who plays a largely symbolic role, is chosen for a five-year term by state and national lawmakers. In July 2022, lawmakers elected Droupadi Murmu, the BJP–backed candidate and former governor of Jharkhand, president. Murmu, who took office later that month, was the first member of one of India’s marginalized tribal communities to hold the position.

Members of the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, are directly elected in single-member constituencies for five-year terms. Most members of the less powerful 245-seat upper house, the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), are elected by state legislatures using a proportional-representation system to serve staggered six-year terms; up to 12 members are appointed by the president.

In the most recent Lok Sabha elections in 2024, the ruling BJP secured 240 seats, leading its NDA coalition to a total of 293 seats. The Indian National Congress (INC, or Congress) placed second with 99 seats, contributing to a total of 234 seats for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). Smaller parties and independents took the remainder. Voter turnout was 66 percent, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The elections were considered generally free and fair, though some violations of campaign rules were reported.

Voters took part in two contests to decide state assemblies in 2025. The BJP achieved a significant victory in February polls in Delhi, ousting the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party to return to power in the region after 27 years. In November, the NDA secured a decisive win at the polls in Bihar, taking 202 of 243 seats in the assembly. Opposition leaders accused the BJP and the ECI of manipulating the polls in Bihar by introducing unduly burdensome identity verification requirements for voters ahead of the election, disenfranchising voters.

Elections for the central and state governments are overseen by the ECI. The commission is generally respected and had been thought to function without undue political interference. In recent years, however, its impartiality has been called into question. In 2023, Parliament passed legislation that granted the prime minister greater power in selecting the ECI’s leadership. The ECI’s three commissioners are now chosen by a committee including the prime minister, another minister selected by the premier, and the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha. Commissioners serve one six-year term. Current commissioners were chosen a month before 2024 elections began.

Opposition leaders accused the BJP and ECI of engaging in large-scale voter roll manipulation in favor of the ruling party ahead of the 2024 general election and in Bihar in 2025. These concerns intensified in 2025 as the government expanded its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list, as carried out in Bihar, to 12 other states and territories. Among other things, the opposition has alleged that the ECI has unfairly deleted large numbers of voters from the rolls and prevented eligible voters from registering by introducing excessive verification requirements. Political analysts and opposition leaders have expressed concern that the SIR suppresses the opposition vote and disenfranchises Muslim and other minority voters. Government officials have rejected allegations of voter roll manipulation. The SIR remained underway at year’s end.

Political parties are generally able to form without interference, and a wide variety of parties representing a range of views and interests compete in practice. However, the ruling BJP has used various tools to limit campaigning by opposition parties.

The opaque financing of political parties has been a source of serious concern. A system of electoral bonds, introduced in 2017, allowed donor identities to be known to the State Bank of India but obscured from the public. It contributed to major fundraising advantages for the BJP. In 2024, the Supreme Court of India ruled the scheme unconstitutional, citing its violation of citizens’ right to information and its impact on transparency in political funding. Opaque financing remains a problem, however, as donors have since turned to electoral trusts, which disclose donor identities to the ECI rather than through easily accessible public reporting.

The government, through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED), has selectively pursued anticorruption investigations against opposition politicians while overlooking allegations against political allies. (The ED is tasked with investigating financial crimes.)

Different parties regularly succeed one another in government at the state and national levels.

The persistent practice of “resort politics” in India, where leaders from across the political spectrum coerce or isolate lawmakers in order to sway legislative or other political outcomes, has raised serious concerns about democratic integrity. In March 2025, at least 38 municipal-level opposition politicians in Andhra Pradesh were moved out of the state by their party’s leadership ahead of a no-confidence motion to prevent defections to the NDA. Previous reports have also described instances where dozens of lawmakers were transported to luxury hotels, where they remained as relevant legislative or other meetings took place elsewhere. Such practices have been reported across parties and states, involving both ruling and opposition parties in different periods.

Political participation, while generally free, is hampered by insurgent violence in certain areas. Separately, some political actors have sought to inflame communal tensions with the goal of energizing their own supporters while potentially intimidating opponents.

Women and members of religious and ethnic minorities vote in large numbers and have opportunities to gain political representation. Droupadi Murmu became India’s second-ever woman president in 2022. The 2024 general election saw robust turnout by women voters, with women’s participation surpassing that of men in 19 out of 36 states and Union Territories. Women’s representation in the Lok Sabha, however, remains low; women secured 74 seats (14 percent of the total), four seats lower than the number won by women in 2019. Existing quotas ensure that 84 and 47 Lok Sabha seats are reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, respectively. State assemblies and local bodies feature similar quotas for these historically disadvantaged groups, as well as for women representatives.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Muslim candidates secured 24 seats (down from 27 in 2019), constituting approximately 4 percent of the lower house’s seats. Muslims made up some 14.2 percent of the population according to the 2011 census.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 grants special access to Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants and refugees from neighboring Muslim-majority states. In 2024, the Indian government notified the rules for the CAA, initiating its formal implementation. The government has expressed its intention to move forward with plans for the creation of a national register of citizens, which some observers believe is meant to disenfranchise Muslim voters by effectively classifying them as illegal immigrants; Muslims disproportionately lack documentation attesting to their place of birth. Undocumented non-Muslims, meanwhile, are eligible for citizenship through a fast-track process under the CAA.

The citizenship status of 1.9 million residents of Assam, which is home to a significant Muslim population, remains in doubt after a citizens’ register was finalized in 2019.

India’s elected leaders have the authority to set government policies, draft and enact legislation, and govern the country’s territory in practice.

Large-scale political corruption scandals have repeatedly exposed bribery and other malfeasance, but a great deal of corruption is thought to go unreported and unpunished, and the authorities have been accused of selective, partisan enforcement. In April 2024, investigative reporting revealed that corporations had used India’s electoral bonds scheme to channel large quantities of funds to political parties, in some cases followed by policy or other changes in the companies’ favor.

Among the 121 political leaders investigated by the Enforcement Directorate between 2014 and 2024, 115 belonged to opposition parties. Twenty-three out of the 25 opposition leaders accused of corruption who later joined the ruling BJP saw their cases dropped or resolved in their favor. In May 2025, the government revealed that of 193 Enforcement Directorate cases against politicians in the preceding decade, only two ended in convictions.

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act of 2013 created independent national and state bodies tasked with receiving complaints of corruption against public servants or politicians, investigating claims, and pursuing convictions through the courts. However, state-level Lokayuktas frequently operate with few staff members, key vacancies go unfilled for long periods, and Lokayuktas hear few complaints.

The public has some access to information about government activity, but the legal framework meant to ensure transparency has been eroded in recent years.

Millions of requests are made annually under the 2005 Right to Information (RTI) Act, and responses have been used to improve transparency and expose corrupt activities. However, most requesters do not receive the information sought, including those seeking information about core government policies, and noncompliant officials generally go unpunished. Dozens of right-to-information users and activists have been murdered since the RTI Act’s introduction, and hundreds have been assaulted or harassed. In 2023, the government exempted the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team from complying with the RTI Act, reducing transparency in cybersecurity-related matters. In September 2025, the Delhi High Court ruled that the Securities and Exchange Board of India was not required to disclose details of its insider-trading probes under the RTI Act, which experts say establishes a precedent that will allow regulators to withhold significant information in the name of confidentiality.

National and state-level information commissions are hampered by staff vacancies. The 2014 Whistleblowers Protection Act was regarded as limited in scope.

Segments of private media remain vigorous and diverse, featuring investigations and scrutiny of politicians. However, attacks on press freedom have escalated dramatically under the Modi government, and reporting has become significantly less ambitious in recent years. Hindu nationalist campaigns aimed at discouraging forms of expression deemed “antinational” have exacerbated self-censorship. Online disinformation from inauthentic sources is ubiquitous ahead of elections. Separately, revelations of close relationships between politicians, business executives, and lobbyists on one hand, and leading media personalities and owners of media outlets on the other, have dented public confidence in the press.

Journalists risk harassment, death threats, and physical violence in the course of their work. Such attacks are rarely punished, and some have taken place with the complicity or active participation of police. Authorities have used security, defamation, sedition, hate-speech laws, and contempt-of-court charges to quiet critical voices in the media.

While Hindus make up about 80 percent of the population, the Indian state is formally secular, and freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed. However, a number of Hindu nationalist organizations and some media outlets promote anti-Muslim views, a practice that the Modi government has been accused of encouraging. Attacks against Muslims and others in connection with the alleged slaughter or mistreatment of cows, which are held to be sacred by Hindus, continued in 2025. The BJP has faced criticism for failing to mount an adequate response to cow-related violence.

Violent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims occurred during 2025. Dozens of people were injured in Hindu-Muslim clashes in the city of Nagpur in March that began when Hindu nationalists groups staged a protest demanding the removal of a former Muslim ruler’s tomb. More than 60 people were arrested in connection with the violence and authorities imposed a six-day curfew on the city. Members of Muslim communities reported facing harassment, eviction, and threats in several cities after a terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir in April. According to data collected by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), there was a 97 percent increase in the number of anti-Muslim hate speech events documented between 2023 and 2025.

Members of the predominantly Hindu Meitei and largely Christian Kuki communities continued to clash in Manipur throughout 2025, following violence that began in 2023 over a court order granting scheduled-tribe status to the Meitei. As many as 70,000 people were internally displaced as of May 2025. The conflict remains ongoing despite the resignation of Manipur’s chief minister and the subsequent imposition of President’s Rule, which brought the state under direct control of the federal government, in February 2025.

Legislation in several states criminalizes religious conversions that take place as a result of “force” or “allurement,” which can be broadly interpreted to prosecute proselytizers. Some states require government permission for conversion.

Academic freedom has significantly weakened in recent years, as professors, students, and institutions have faced intimidation over political and religious issues. Members of the student wing of the National Volunteer Association—a Hindu nationalist organization from which the ruling BJP is widely regarded to have grown—have engaged in violence on campuses across the country, including attacks on students and professors. University administrators and faculty have been investigated, disciplined, or compelled to step down owing to their perceived political views. Academics are pressured to avoid topics deemed sensitive by the BJP government, particularly India’s relations with Pakistan and conditions in Indian Kashmir. The heads of prestigious academic institutions are increasingly selected for their loyalty to the ruling party.

In May 2025, an Ashoka University professor was arrested for sharing social media posts in which he called for an end to the military conflict between India and Pakistan and criticized the BJP. The charges against him were reportedly for “endangering the country’s sovereignty and integrity” and “inciting hatred between two communities.” Numerous students and faculty at the university denounced his arrest as a violation of academic freedom.

Personal expression and private discussion in India are constrained. The government’s new criminal laws, which took effect in July 2024, replaced a colonial-era sedition law. However, the new laws contain similarly broad provisions criminalizing speech deemed “antinational” or likely to “endanger sovereignty;” the vague wording of these offenses grants the government expanded power to define what constitutes criminal speech. Rights groups warn that the updated criminal laws continue to be used to silence dissent rather than to protect security.

Online “troll armies” associated with the BJP routinely harass individuals—notably Muslims—and organizations for voicing criticism of the government and for engaging in behavior that supposedly deviates from Hindu orthodoxy.

The government has imposed rules that increase social media companies’ liability for material posted on their platforms and effectively encourage aggressive content restrictions. In 2023, Parliament passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), which regulates the collection and storage of individuals’ personal data, allows the government to more easily engage in surveillance, and gives broad latitude to the state in terms of implementation. Detailed rules for the law, which provided enforcement mechanisms and laid out an 18-month implementation timeline, were issued in November 2025. Critics have expressed concern that the rules give the government wide-ranging powers to access personal information and weaken existing right-to-information legislation.

A nationwide Central Monitoring System is meant to enable authorities to intercept digital communications in real time without judicial oversight. In 2021, a collaborative investigation by news organizations revealed that the government had likely planted Pegasus spyware on the mobile devices of more than 300 prominent individuals.

There are legal restrictions on freedom of assembly, including a provision of the criminal procedure code that empowers authorities to restrict public gatherings and impose curfews whenever “immediate prevention or speedy remedy” is required.

While peaceful demonstrations regularly take place, the national government and some state governments are known to employ assembly bans, internet disruptions, and force to quell protests, and protesters have been denied access to legal counsel.

In April 2025, protests in West Bengal against a controversial legal amendment—which would give the government a greater say in the management of Muslim religious endowments—became violent. At least 3 people died in the clashes and more than 150 were arrested. Authorities responded to the violence by bringing in additional security forces, imposing curfews, and suspending internet services in the area.

A wide variety of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate, but some, particularly those involved in the investigation of human rights abuses, continue to face threats, legal harassment, excessive police force, and occasionally lethal violence.

Under certain circumstances, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) of 2010 permits the national government to deny NGOs access to foreign funding. Authorities have been accused of using this power selectively against perceived political opponents. In 2024, the Ministry of Home Affairs canceled the FCRA licenses of five prominent NGOs, citing improper use of foreign funding contributions. In May 2025, the government further tightened FCRA regulations, barring NGOs that publish or otherwise share news content from receiving foreign funding.

Although workers in the formal economy regularly exercise their rights to bargain collectively and strike, laws including the Essential Services Maintenance Act have enabled the government to ban certain strikes. Public employees have more limited organizing rights, and private employers are not legally obliged to recognize unions or engage in bargaining.

In July 2025, more than 250 million workers and farmers participated in a nationwide general strike to protest new labor codes, which they claimed would undermine worker protections and lengthen working hours, among other things.

The judiciary is formally independent of the political branches of government. Judges, particularly in the Supreme Court, have traditionally displayed autonomy. However, lower levels of the judiciary suffer from corruption, and the courts have shown signs of increasing politicization. The government has also made judicial appointments that observers consider political in nature.

Due process rights are not consistently upheld. Citizens face substantial obstacles in the pursuit of justice, including demands for bribes and difficulty getting the police to file a First Information Report, which is necessary to trigger an investigation of an alleged crime. Corruption within the police force remains a problem. The justice system is severely backlogged and understaffed, leading to lengthy pretrial detention for suspects, many of whom remain in jail longer than the duration of any sentence they might receive if convicted. A number of security laws allow detention without charge or based on vaguely defined offenses.

Controversial new criminal laws were enacted in July 2024, replacing colonial-era penal and criminal codes. By mid-2025, the laws had mostly been implemented across the country. The new laws contain numerous provisions that rights advocates say jeopardize individuals’ due process rights and could enable the detention and prosecution of government critics. Among other things, the controversial reforms increase the amount of time individuals can be detained by police without trial to up to 90 days, depending on the alleged offense, and allow for individuals accused of certain crimes to be tried in absentia. The laws also use vague language to describe offenses, which critics say gives the government undue power to define what constitutes criminal action.

In August 2025, the Modi government introduced a draft bill that would mandate that an elected official, if jailed for 30 consecutive days on charges that carry a minimum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment, be automatically removed from office, even if they had not yet been convicted of any crime.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to the implementation of new criminal codes that undermine due process rights.

Torture, abuse, and rape by law enforcement and security officials have been reported. Abuses by prison staff against people in custody, particularly those belonging to marginalized groups, are common.

Security forces battling regional insurgencies have been implicated in extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, kidnappings, and destruction of homes.

The Maoist insurgency in the east-central hills region of India continues. Among other abuses, the rebels have allegedly imposed illegal taxes, seized food and places of shelter, and engaged in abduction and forced recruitment of children and adults. Local civilians and journalists who are perceived to be progovernment have been attacked. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the violence and live in government-run camps.

Separately, in India’s seven northeastern states, more than 40 insurgent factions—seeking either greater autonomy or complete independence for their ethnic or tribal groups—continue to attack security forces and engage in intertribal violence. Such fighters have been implicated in bombings, killings, abductions, and rapes of civilians, and they operate extensive extortion networks.

In May 2025, the Indian military launched a series of strikes on “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir in retaliation for a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir the previous month; the Indian government had accused the Pakistani government of harboring the group that carried out the attack. Pakistani authorities reported a number of civilian casualties. The Pakistani military responded by launching counterstrikes into both India and Indian Kashmir, reportedly killing several civilians. The armed conflict continued for four days until a cease-fire was reached.

The constitution bars caste-based discrimination, and laws impose quotas in education and government jobs for historically underprivileged scheduled tribes, Dalits, and groups categorized by the government as “other backward classes” and “Economically Weaker Sections.” However, members of these populations face routine discrimination and violence, and the criminal justice system fails to provide equal protection to marginalized groups. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that assigning prisoners caste-based tasks was unconstitutional, and ordered that prisoners’ caste details be removed from prison registries. Implementation of this order remained under judicial monitoring during 2025, and many states lagged in compliance.

In parts of the country, particularly in rural areas, informal community councils issue edicts concerning social customs. Their decisions sometimes result in violence or persecution aimed at those perceived to have transgressed social norms, especially women and members of scheduled castes. Other forms of discrimination faced by women include workplace bias and sexual harassment. LGBT+ people face discrimination, and sometimes violence.

The constitution grants citizens the right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India. However, freedom of movement is hampered in some areas by insurgent violence or communal tensions.

The Indian government has used the revocation of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) status to target critics, including academics, journalists, and activists, for their dissenting views, effectively resulting in restrictions on their movement.

Although the legal framework generally supports the right to own property and engage in private business activity, property rights are somewhat tenuous for tribal groups and other marginalized communities. Members of these groups are often denied adequate resettlement opportunities and compensation when their lands are seized for development projects. Muslim personal-status laws and traditional Hindu practices discriminate against women in terms of property rights and inheritance.

In a significant ruling in 2024, the Supreme Court found the practice of targeted illegal demolitions—sometimes referred to as “bulldozer justice,” which has disproportionately affected Muslim and marginalized communities—to be unconstitutional. Despite the court ruling, authorities in several states continued to carry out such demolitions during 2025. In March, officials razed the homes of a number of Muslims accused of participating in violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Nagpur until a High Court order halted further demolitions.

Rape and other sexual abuse are serious problems, and scheduled-caste and tribal women are especially vulnerable. The criminal justice system and prominent politicians have been repeatedly faulted for their poor handling of such matters.

Though the practice is criminalized, dowry demands surrounding marriage persist, sometimes resulting in violence. A 2006 law banned dowry-related harassment, widened the definition of domestic violence to include emotional or verbal abuse, and criminalized spousal sexual violence, but enforcement is reportedly poor.

Same-sex marriage is not legal in India. In 2022, the Supreme Court expanded the official definition of the family to include same-sex parents and other households that had been deemed “atypical.”

Several states have passed or proposed laws meant to stem the alleged practice of “love jihad”—a baseless conspiracy theory according to which Muslims marry Hindu women with the goal of converting them to Islam. The legislation effectively created obstacles to interfaith marriages and raised the risk of legal penalties, harassment, and violence for interfaith couples.

Muslim personal-status laws and traditional Hindu practices feature gender discrimination on matters such as marriage, divorce, and child custody. The malign neglect of female children after birth remains a concern, as does the banned use of prenatal sex-determination tests to selectively abort female fetuses.

The constitution bans human trafficking, and bonded labor is illegal, but estimates of the number of workers still affected by the practice reach the tens of millions.

A 2016 law allows children below the age of 14 to engage in “home-based work,” as well as other occupations between the ages of 14 and 18. Children are not permitted to work in potentially hazardous industries, though the rule is routinely flouted. An investigation published in 2025 by the NGO Transparentem identified child labor, forced labor, and wage violations on cotton farms linked to several global clothing brands.

There have been reports of complicity by law enforcement officials in human trafficking.