Not so vibrant.

"Of the 4,001 legislators in state legislatures across the country, 44% face criminal charges. The picture at the central level is not much better - 43% of Lok Sabha MPs elected in 2019 have criminal charges against them, compared with 34% in 2014. It's not just criminal charges that MPs have racked up - the assets of 71 MPs reelected to the Lok Sabha between 2009 and 2019 ballooned close to 300% on average." We know all this because of the non-profit Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) set up 25 years ago by Prof Trilochan Sastry and some of his colleagues at IIM-Ahmedabad. Recently another professor, Sabyasachi Das at Ashoka University has written a paper "Democratic Backsliding in the World's Largest Democracy" in which he analyses huge amounts of data to find indications of manipulation in favor of the BJP in he 2019 general election. "The paper says that this manipulation resulted in the party (BJP) winning a disproportionate share of closely contested constituencies in the 2019 Lok Sabha election." The Wire. "While the figure is much less than the BJP's required half-way mark of 272 to form a government on its own, the author alarmingly concludes through data analysis that electoral fraud even in a single constituency would imply that such manipulations by incumbent parties are possible." "The Ashoka University came out with a statement distancing itself from the research, as the paper attracted criticism from the section supporting the ruling BJP," DH. This is not the first time that Ashoka University has caved into threats from the BJP. In 2021, Prof Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigned his post at the university as, "After a meeting with Founders it has become abundantly clear to me that my association with the University may be considered a political liability. My public writing in support of a politics that tries to honor constitutional values of freedom and equal respect for all citizens, is perceived to carry risks for the university." "Two days after political commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigned from the Ashoka University, his colleague Arvind Subramanian, put in his papers...and faculty members wrote to the vice-chancellor expressing their deep anguish." ET. What makes suspicion of manipulation credible is that "the Union government is yet to provide a reply for the last four years after it promised parliament that it would obtain information from the Election Commission about possible discrepancies between the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) tallies during the 2019 elections." The Wire. Maybe it can't. Because the answer is embarrassing. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey tweeted "how can someone in the name of half-baked research discredit India's vibrant poll process?" Firstly, the paper does not discredit the "vibrant poll process", but manipulation in favor of the BJP. Second, Dubey does not provide any statistical analysis of his own but labels the research "half-baked". This is clear mudslinging and he should be prosecuted for criminal defamation, which only India seems to practice (The Wire). Criminals in control. And they are passing laws. What a democracy! Anything but vibrant.