Academic Freedom Index 2026 Calls India an Autocratizing Country
Roshna Arafa Ali | 6 August 2026 | Deccan Herald
More countries are witnessing declines in academic freedom than improvements, with universities increasingly facing political, ideological and administrative pressures, as per the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) released by V-Dem (Varieties of Democracies) Freedom Index project, a collaboration between researchers at Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, the Scholars at Risk Network, and the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi). The project assessed academic freedom across the world between 1900 and 2025.
The key takeaway of the report is regarding institutional autonomy is affected across the globe, affecting the freedom to research and teach. While the report devotes considerable attention to the rapid deterioration in the United States, India, along with Hungary and Turkey are also identified as “autocratizing countries” where university autonomy has steadily weakened over the past decade.
Across 179 countries, researchers found a Pearson correlation of 0.91 between institutional autonomy and the freedom to research and teach—an unusually strong relationship in social science research. Universities that can make independent decisions on appointments, curriculum, research priorities and governance tend to provide stronger protections for scholars than those subject to political or external control.