New ‘Smokescreen’ Report Warns of Democratic Erosion in India Through Managed Electoral Narratives

New ‘Smokescreen’ Report Warns of Democratic Erosion in India Through Managed Electoral Narratives

The release comes amid ongoing debates about electoral integrity in India, providing a comprehensive resource for those examining the intersection of power, media, and democracy.

By Rakesh Raman
New Delhi | January 24, 2026

A newly released independent research study titled “The Smokescreen: The Managed Illusion of Indian Democracy, Electronic Voting Machines, and Institutional Capture” has raised alarms about the state of democracy in India, highlighting how political narratives and institutional opacity have displaced genuine electoral scrutiny since 2014.

Authored by national award-winning journalist and social activist Rakesh Raman, the 60-page report, dubbed “Smokescreen,” delves into what it describes as a “narrative architecture” that sustains repeated electoral outcomes. This framework includes welfare messaging, nationalism, media amplification, opposition management, and controlled dissent, all of which divert public attention from transparency issues toward emotive, identity-driven, and survival-oriented themes.

The study argues that key institutions—such as constitutional bodies, grievance mechanisms, courts, media organizations, and cultural industries—play a role in normalizing contested election results while marginalizing calls for accountability. It points to patterns of leadership centralization, a politics of impunity, and the transformation of genuine dissent into merely performative or symbolic resistance.

[ द स्मोकस्क्रीन: भारतीय लोकतंत्र का प्रबंधित भ्रम: ऑडियो विश्लेषण ]

Rather than pushing specific conclusions or advocacy, the report’s primary objective is to document these patterns, structures, and lingering questions for use by journalists, researchers, legal experts, and democratic observers. Its methodology frames the electoral process not as isolated events but as part of a broader, layered political environment.

In its conclusions, “Smokescreen” underscores significant risks to Indian democracy, including institutional capture, fabricated narratives, widespread electoral manipulation—particularly involving electronic voting machines—and the masking of political dominance, with specific references to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Raman, who is also the founder of the RMN Foundation, has made the report freely available for download and archived it on Zenodo for global accessibility and traceability. An accompanying audio analysis in Hindi, titled “द स्मोकस्क्रीन: भारतीय लोकतंत्र का प्रबंधित भ्रम,” further explores these themes.

The release comes amid ongoing debates about electoral integrity in India, providing a comprehensive resource for those examining the intersection of power, media, and democracy.