73% urban Indians believe our system is broken: Ipsos Survey

74% want important political issues to be decided by people via referendums and not by elected officials
74% feel the political and economic elite do not care about hard working people
66% Indians want govt to increase spends on defense & national security; 66% want govt to increase spends in job creation

Circa 2024 is a landmark year for world politics and elections, when over 4 billion people will cast their vote in 70-plus countries. India, too, goes to the polls in April-May 2024. Populism, Anti-elitism and Nativism, a 28-country global advisor study shows at least 7 in 10 urban Indians polled (73%) believe our system is broken. Further, there is a sentiment of lack of level playing field, with at least 71% urban Indians feeling the economy is rigged to favour the rich and powerful. 54% Indians believe our society is broken. And 54% Indians also believe the country is in decline.

In fact, the common man seems quite excluded in the complete scheme of things – 72% say traditional parties and politicians do not care about them; while 73% feel experts in the country do not understand their lives and 74% believe political and economic elite don’t care about hardworking people. The grouse of the common man was with the lack of fairness, with 74% of the view that there was a glaring divide in society between the ordinary citizen and the political and economic elite. Similar view was held by citizens of Hungary (80%), South Africa (79%) and France (77%).

Solution? Panacea? 74% citizens believe we need a strong leader who is willing to break the rules, to fix the country and take the country back from the rich and powerful. Urban Indians also had strong views on political discourse with 74% of those polled being of the view that most important political issues in India should be decided directly by the people, through referendums and not by the elected officials. This view was most pronounced in India across all the 28 markets covered in the survey, and some of the other top markets emerging included Thailand (73%), Hungary (69%) and South Korea (69%).

Opinion about governments

Should government increase taxes to pay for any additional spending? While 40% agreed (highest globally), 32% disagreed, 15% were unsure and 13% neither agreed nor disagreed. Most markets disagreed with increase in taxes to provide government with additional funds for spending, especially in Hungary (74%), South Africa (72%) and Colombia (68%).

The survey also factored in views of citizens on what the government should increase their spends on: 63% Indians endorsed increase in spends by government on Infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail and air networks, water, electricity and broadband); 65% citizens want government to spend more on Education (schools, universities, job training); 65% citizens want the government to increase spends on Public Safety (law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services); 66% citizens want the government to increase spends on Defense and National Security (for example, military); 66% of urban Indians want the government to increase spends on Creating Jobs and 60% Indians want the government to increase spends for Reducing Poverty and Social Inequality.

Summarising on the findings of the survey, Parijat Chakraborty, Group Service Line Leader, Public Affairs, Corporate Reputation, CSR & ESG, said, "The common man believes the system is broken and society is broken. There is this accentuated feeling that power and privileges rest with the political and the elite and they get a short shrift. And they largely believe the society is divided between the common citizens and the politicians and the elite. For an emerging, growth-oriented market like India, citizens want the government to increase spends on infrastructure, education, public safety, defense and national security, job creation and reducing poverty and social inequality."

Methodology

These are the results of a 28-country survey conducted by Ipsos on its Global Advisor online platform and, in India, on its IndiaBus platform, between Friday, November 22 and Friday, December 6, 2023. For this survey, Ipsos interviewed a total of 20,630 adults aged 18 years and older in India, 18-74 in Canada, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States, 20-74 in Thailand, 21-74 in Indonesia and Singapore, and 16-74 in all other countries.