Military rule suits India better, feels majority of Indians: Study

More than four-fifths of Indian citizens trust their government, but a majority of Indians also support military rule and autocracy, which they feel more suit Indians, says the latest Pew survey.

Like majority Indians supporting military rule (53 per cent), roughly half (52 per cent) of South Africans who hold a similar democratic equation in Africa like India in Asia, also feel military rule would be a good thing for their country.

However, older people (those aged 50 and above) in both countries who are aware of the bad effects of autocracy and the struggle to establish democratic rule, are not in support of the army running the country, Pew said.

Pew recently conducted a survey on governance and trust among key countries across the world, the findings of which were released on Monday.

''In India, where the economy has grown on average by 6.9 percent since 2012, 85 per cent (of people) trust their national government," Pew Research said in its latest report.

Seven decades of parliamentary democracy has only brought bitter memories for the common man in India and this perhaps may explain why Indian support autocracy despite all its evils.

According to the Pew study, a majority (55 per cent) of its people surveyed support autocracy in one way or the other, while,more than one-fourth (27 per cent) of them want a strong leader.

Nearly half of Russians (48 per cent) back governance by a strong leader, but rule by a strong leader is generally unpopular, it said.

Globally, however, only 26 per cent think a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts would be a better option, while about 71 per cent (7 out of 10) say it would be a bad type of governance.

India is one of the three countries in the Asia Pacific region where people support technocracy. "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)," it said.

Australians are wary of technocracy as 57 per cent say it would be a bad way to govern, and only 41 per cent support governance by experts, says the report.

Only one in 10 in Europe back military rule. 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.

There, however, is a common pro-democracy trait in all countries, although at varying degrees, despite an openness to non-democratic forms of governance, including rule by experts, a strong leader, or the military.