India’s Academic Freedom Lowest Since 1900—Worse than During the Emergency
Soumya Pillai | 04 August, 2026 | The Print
New Delhi: Academic and research freedom in Indian educational institutes and universities is at its lowest since 1900, even below the Emergency years between 1975 and 1977, an international ranking has highlighted. India ranked among the bottom 10-20 per cent of countries globally in academic freedom, according to the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracies) Academic 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 countries that outperformed India included Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Czech Republic topped the index, followed by Estonia, Belgium, Jamaica and Slovenia.
The index evaluated countries on five parameters—freedom to research and teach, institutional autonomy, academic exchange and dissemination, campus integrity, and academic and cultural expression.