• Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, a public opinion survey in 12 states has found that political parties are the most distrusted political institutions in India. It also found that one in five of those surveyed felt that unemployment is the single biggest issue facing the country today.
• The survey, Politics and Society between Elections 2019, found that political parties had a negative net trust rate of -55% (calculated as the percentage of respondent who trust them minus the percentage who do not). They are the only institutions with a negative net rate. On the other end of the scale, the Army is the
• most trusted institution in the country, with an effective trust rate of 88%, while the judiciary including the Supreme Court, High Courts and district court – enjoys an effective trust rate of more than 60%.

People’s perspective

• Apart from measuring institutional trust, the survey attempts to provide a glimpse into people’s views on governance, sexuality, gender, nationalism, populism, caste and religious identities. Other issues cited include development, growth and poverty (15%) and law, governance and corruption (13%).
• Indians across the country seem to have a deep distrust of elites, with a majority of respondents feeling that elites are a bigger hurdle to progress than minorities or migrants.