Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Tells Us About Modern India.

Data tells all.
Rukmini S’ debut book painstakingly seeks to prove that India is more than a sum of its proposed statistical parts.

Title: Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Tells Us About Modern India.
Author: Rukmini S
Publisher: Context
Pages: 324; Price: Rs 699

A few pages into “Whole Numbers and Half Truth,” the reader is already forced to unlearn any prior presumption they may have had about the country they live in. Chapter after chapter it becomes increasingly obvious that while little data is insufficient, misrepresented and wilfully obfuscated data is plain harmful and a rote pathway into propaganda. With an establishment in power that peddles in that particular brand of administration, we have an almost numerically sanctioned recipe for disaster. Data helps understand the workings of our country and its institutions. It can illustrate voter behaviour and ideological leanings, paint a vivid description of a nation’s workforce and healthcare systems, explain the severity of rising crime as well as throw light on the diets and relationship preferences of a people. Rukmini S. successfully navigates through what can only be assumed as piles of records, reports and surveys to explicate the importance that numbers have to the functioning of any country.

In the first chapter (“How India tangles with Cops and Courts”) itself the author forewarns the danger of relying on media reports and police statistics to understand the nature of crime in India. We learn how much opacity there is to the methodology the NCRB uses to disseminate its reports which are fervently cited by news channels and anxious op-ed pieces. The organisation follows the ‘principal offence rule’ whereby instead of focusing on all the possible Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections involved in an alleged crime, the NCRB highlights only the ‘most heinous’ crime from each FIR in their statistics. This renders the 2012 Delhi Rape case as a murder case statistically because murder carries the maximum penalty. Moreover, an increase in crime reporting does not always indicate a crime-wave but a possibility that individuals feel more empowered to take refuge in the justice system.

Another feat the book masterfully manages to do is subvert existing myths around India and Indians. Chapter 2 (“What India Feels, Thinks and Believes”) debunks the notion that most of our fellow countrymen are ‘liberal’, as a 2019 poll shows that the share of Indians who believed that it was ‘very important that people could say what they want without government censorship’ was the lowest in the world. The same report also found India to be well below the median of countries that believed it is essential for human rights organisations to operate freely without State interference. One need just look at current news reports whereby several NGOs and organisations like Oxfam and Amnesty International, are facing a non- renewal of their FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) registrations, to corroborate this claim.

However, it is interesting to note that these numbers aren’t emanating from the so-called illiterate, rural class but mostly from the urbanised, educated, well-to-do elite. Data also shows that Dalit’s and Muslims are most likely to be disbarred from renting or purchasing property. This ‘ghettoization’ is a real-time occurrence as the author notes. Caste and religious intolerance are no more relics of the past but have become the locus of even more partisan discussions and perspectives. Another puzzling statistic reveals men are slightly more likely to believe that they have suffered discrimination on the basis of gender than women (28 per cent as against 26 per cent). Herein data reveals the sentiment between the lines and it is one of self- imposed victimhood especially by upper caste, majority religions who wish to practice the politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and whose viewpoint is only emboldened by the current political leadership.

Another myth that is addressed is that of the ‘model Indian voter’; one who is unbiased and votes for development alone. The author explains how post poll readings are often taken at face-value and severely undermine the affinities and ideological leanings of voters. Caste and Religious ties still bind voters, both urban and rural, to their party of choice. The myth of India being a largely vegetarian country is exposed to be false as only about one-quarter to one-third of the populace is actually vegetarian. However, as Rukmini notes, this number is most definitely subject to the fact that certain castes and groups feel the pressure to withhold their meat-eating habits for fear of ostracization.

The Indian middle class has often been seen as the majority economic class but a 2014 survey cited by the author finds that over half the people who are rich self-identify as middle class while over 40 per cent of the poor also identify as middle class. So, whose status is it anyway? Subject to in-state differences, a per capita expenditure of approximately Rs. 6000 per month, would place the spender in the 80–90th percentile of urban Indians, “among the 20 per cent richest urban Indians.” This doesn’t mean that poverty has been eradicated as many Indians still lead a hand to mouth existence. Only the top 2% Indians earn upwards of 8 lakhs. Thus, while inequality has increased severely, data collection methods seem ill-equipped to bridge the divergence between rural and urban sample sizes.

Government schemes are often touted as incredibly successful in meeting their demarcated goals but these policies are actually breeding ground for manipulated data. The ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ apparently enabled 99 percent rural households to have access to an exclusive toilet but later reports prove nearly 30 percent of rural households in most villages did not have access to a single toilet. The mishandling of the second COVID wave, as well as the underestimation of the number of migrant workers in the wake of the 2020 migrant worker crisis, are also given centre stage. The gross misrepresentation of death figures combined with an ill-equipped healthcare system and uninformed government machinery, meant that several deaths were under-reported while the undercounted migrant workers who were returning home were questioned on their motives by media pundits who couldn’t quite grasp why they were violating lockdown rules. The unwarranted backlash to the mass migration, as well as avoidable death tolls, could have been prevented had statistical researchers in India kept some room for correcting their mistakes.

The book further deconstructs the behemoth fear of ‘overpopulation’ as dated and inaccurate, a fact backed by falling fertility rates and the 2021 NFHS survey. Other revelations include bringing to light the concentrated and dedicated efforts to warp survey report findings by the present establishment which has detrimentally resulted in quite a few data collecting organisations losing their autonomy. Gandhi had said India lives in the villages. While the viewpoint remains statistically correct, such a blanket statement cannot be made about the intricacies, aspirations and specificities of the average Indian.

For far too long, data collection has attempted to generalise and reduce to binaries, the wills of 1.3 billion people and for any newer method to work, it must make a calculated effort to incorporate the myriad identities the country represents. In this context, the pitfalls and lack of integrity of research methodology in India remain self-evident. Statisticians and intellectuals have effectively reduced citizens of the world’s biggest democracy to tropes and this purposeful misreading of data fails to include the nuances and oddities of every Indian. That these numbers help gauge the pulse of the nation is correct however they must be made accessible and bipartisan. The book is described as a “toolkit to critically engage with data” and hence may never be picked up by the section of the population that rejects both toolkits or any line of rational reasoning. To the remaining few, this book is an approachable primer to data records and necessary reading to understand the various intersectionalities India has to offer. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Ayanika Das
Intern (Asia in Global Affairs)

The opinions expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Asia in Global Affairs.