India Rises to 151 in 2025 Press Freedom Index: Progress or Perception?

India has moved up eight positions in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, now ranking 151st with a score of 32.96, per the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report. While this slight improvement from last year’s 159th place might appear encouraging on the surface, it is far from a moment of celebration.

This question becomes especially pertinent when we juxtapose global rankings with domestic data. As India builds expressways, digitises governance, expands welfare, and elevates millions from poverty, international indices often paint a picture of regression, ranking the country lower year after year on press freedom, hunger, democracy, and happiness.

Are these contradictions merely coincidental? Or do they stem from entrenched biases, funded narratives, and perception-based models that fail to capture India’s scale, diversity, and democratic resilience?

A Dramatic Decline: India's Global Rankings, 2014–2024

Across six prominent international indices, India’s rankings have dropped notably in the past ten years:

These declines occurred despite major developmental strides. For instance, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reveals a decline in infant mortality (from 49 to 35.2 per 1,000 live births), a fertility rate of 2.0, and an increase in institutional births to 88.6%. Over 81 crore citizens now receive free foodgrains under welfare schemes, and female labour force participation has grown from 23.3% in 2017–18 to 41.7% in 2023–24.

What explains the growing divergence between India’s internal progress and its external rankings? A key factor lies in how these indices are constructed. Many rely not on objective, verifiable data, but on perception-based surveys involving few experts, often unnamed and unaccountable.

For instance, Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World” report assesses countries through 25 subjective questions answered by a panel of anonymous analysts. India is currently ranked “Partly Free” with a score of 63, despite holding the world’s largest elections, which saw a 67% turnout, and boasting one of the most vibrant civil societies globally.

Even more troubling, the report audaciously treats a sovereign part of India, Jammu and Kashmir, as a separate entity, effectively portraying it as an independent state. By ranking it independently as “partly free,” with a score of 27 out of 100 in the Freedom in the World index, Freedom House not only undermines India’s territorial integrity but also appears to echo a distorted geopolitical narrative that challenges the nation’s sovereignty.

The Press Freedom Index by RSF is similarly opaque. It bases its country rankings on feedback from fewer than 25 individuals per country. India ranked 159th in 2024, behind countries like Qatar, Rwanda, and Palestine—nations where the media is either state-controlled or where journalists face arrest for dissent.

In the 2025 World Press Freedom Index by RSF, India moved slightly up to 151st place from 159th last year, scoring 32.96 out of 100. While this 8-place rise may appear encouraging, it comes in a year when global press freedom has sharply declined, with RSF describing the situation worldwide as “difficult” for the first time.

Financial instability, editorial interference, and concentration of media ownership are now seen as major threats, even in countries like Canada and France. India, however, continues to rank lower than nations with overt state control or media suppression, such as Qatar, Rwanda, and Palestine, raising questions about the metrics and standards being applied.

RSF’s major funders include the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for Democracy, organisations with ideological leanings that have previously taken anti-India positions. Despite having over 400 TV news channels, over 100,000 registered publications, and a highly critical media landscape, India’s low ranking appears to ignore the country’s sheer media diversity and intensity of discourse.

This suggests a widening gap between ground realities and global perception indices, shaped increasingly by opaque methods and external ideological influence.

The Hunger Paradox

The Global Hunger Index, published by European NGOs Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, is another outlier. Its methodology uses four metrics: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and under-five mortality. None of these directly measure hunger.

According to NFHS-5 data, stunting in children under five has declined from 38.4% to 35.5%, and under-five mortality has improved from 49 to 41 per 1,000 live births.

India's Global Hunger Index (GHI) score improved from 35.2 in 2008 to 27.3 in 2024; however, its ranking declined from 66th to 105th. This raises concerns about the index's neutrality, as despite improvements in hunger levels, the ranking has worsened significantly under the Modi Government.

Opaque Metrics, Omitted Context

India’s datasets are often robust and internationally accepted. Yet these sources are routinely ignored or sidelined by global rankings. Instead, indices usually rely on inputs from NGOs or perception surveys.

For example, the Rule of Law Index by the World Justice Project (WJP) uses data from just 3,500 “legal experts” globally, without disclosing their identity or regional expertise.

The role of funding is crucial in understanding the ideological bias embedded in many global rankings. Take Freedom House, one of the most influential institutions shaping narratives about democratic health worldwide. It receives nearly 90% of its funding from U.S. government entities, including USAID and the State Department.

This close financial alignment with American foreign policy interests raises questions about the neutrality of its assessments, especially when it comes to countries pursuing governance models that diverge from Western liberal templates.

RSF and Welthungerhilfe, funded by Western donors such as OSF and the Ford Foundation, claim objectivity but often reflect the ideological leanings of their funders. This duality, presenting advocacy as neutral analysis, also appears in the World Justice Project, whose Western legal lens may misjudge countries like India, which are undergoing complex, context-driven reforms.

The Echo Chamber Effect

This influence is further amplified through a media and research echo chamber. In India, platforms such as The Wire, The Caravan, and AltNews, frequently cited in international reports and indices, are financially backed by the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF).

IPSMF itself is funded by a constellation of Western-aligned donors, some of whom also support the same organisations producing the rankings. This creates a closed feedback loop: funders support organisations that shape media narratives, influence expert opinion, and then channel that opinion into indices which are subsequently cited to validate global critiques.

Moreover, this ecosystem does not operate in isolation. Academic institutions, think tanks, and NGOs often receive grants from the same donor networks. For instance, training institutes like the Sambhaavnaa Institute and international partners such as Internews (which trains Indian journalists) operate under similar funding umbrellas, further embedding external ideological influence into India’s information ecosystem.

While funding alone does not invalidate the work of these organisations, it casts a long shadow on claims of neutrality, especially when rankings show persistent negative bias and rely heavily on selective sources, perception surveys, and Western-centric benchmarks.

In the absence of balanced representation or contextual sensitivity, such rankings risk becoming tools of soft power, shaping not only how India is perceived globally but also how it is pressured to govern itself.

Reclaiming Narrative Sovereignty

The impact of these rankings extends beyond reputational. Poor rankings can affect investor confidence, influence diplomatic relationships, and even shape domestic policy.

Suppose India is continually grouped with authoritarian regimes based on flawed metrics. In that case, it risks being judged not for its actual governance but for failing to conform to a specific Western model.

Global indices play a vital role in holding governments accountable, but their credibility hinges on transparency, methodological rigour, and cultural neutrality.

Many of these rankings reflect a convergence of ideology, funding, and narrative bias rather than an objective measure of national performance. For a country like India, with its scale, complexity, and democratic depth, these misrepresentations are not just inaccurate; they potentially damage its global image and policy autonomy.

The real question is, as India rises, should it continue to accept global benchmarks that may be flawed? Who holds those setting these standards accountable, and who benefits from using soft power to restrain emerging powers like India?