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There are many books by consultants of various shades that purport to explain Modern India, all of them free of any rigorous empirical bases. The assertions and anecdotes flow freely, and wild generalisations from personal experiences follow in the wake. Of course, there are academic works as well – but mostly rigorously incomprehensible.
This book is probably the first one to talk of ‘Modern India’ that is predicated on empirical data. The author, Rukmini S, is an experienced journalist. She writes engagingly and in a tone that is quite neutral. Her feet are clearly and firmly on the ground, even as her head is in the data cloud as it were. There is an amazing range of sources marshalled to build the argument – there are some 350-plus end notes across the ten chapters. The rigour of the argument, the attention to detail, transparency in the data sources … makes this one a great book.
The big picture first. There are two perspectives that are interleaved in this book. One in which India is viewed ‘through a Data Lens’. It examines the data on the Indian polity from different themes: crime, elections and voting, urbanisation, healthcare and so on. There are ten themes, with one chapter each. The book uses government statistics in the main, although there are a number of surveys mentioned whose data is also examined and the arguments woven in. (The extensive end notes document these sources as well).
Every chapter is chock-full of insights and excellent reportage, weaving the data with human interest stories. The charts are well done and are thoughtfully designed to tell their story in Black & White – an important factor in comprehending them in a B & W book, and often overlooked.
The second perspective is one where the author looks at ‘Data through an India Lens’ as it were. This is a sort of a due diligence report on what exactly is going on behind the scenes in the data apparatus and so a reckoning on the provenance of the data itself.
Myriad failure points
So, whether it’s the Central Statistical Organisation, or the various entities that put out health statistics, or the NPR and the census machinery- there is a fascinating discussion on the myriad failure points in the data gathering apparatus in the Government, both Central and State.
Here the author brings to bear her extensive experience dealing with events from the frontline. So, for instance, she has spent time on a crime beat and at various police stations at the point of generation of the FIR. This experience, and others like it in other parts of the data apparatus of the Government, is clearly an important setter of the author’s perspective and tone.
The thematic reports will change as new data come in. But, what of the quality and the veracity of that data itself? The discussion of this is spread over all the ten chapters, appropriate to the data set under discussion. This is the more important part in my view, given the message that we receive from the book. There is new news on this front and it’s not good.
Short version: The data part of governance are all under concerted attack in the present BJP dispensation – the infrastructure for collection, the processes for verification, the parameters for rigorous analysis, and most importantly the transparency in sharing all of these with the public …. All are in various stages of atrophy. Her thesis is that they don’t lie or just make up the data. But totally ignore the data points that don’t suit the narrative; and neglect the data ecosystem more generally.
We should note that this apathy is in sharp contrast to the way the different political parties handle data and analytics for their own political purposes. It’s no secret that all the parties , big and small, carry out large scale voter surveys at high granularity; and that a lot of data mining goes on of social media data. There have even been reports of political parties being associated with the infamous Cambridge Analytica; and reports of very intrusive data tracking by apps such as the Arogya Setu. So, the inescapable hypothesis is that data compels accountability – which is scary; and maybe more likely … they really don’t care?!
Systemic problems
Some of the problems are systemic. For instance, the death counts are an underestimate – for all deaths. The states vary widely. One rural survey had found, for instance, that the informal healthcare providers in Tamil Nadu had higher medical knowledge than fully-trained medical doctors in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
But, what about this lapse in data collection at the height of the pandemic? “For nearly three months since vaccinations began, the Covid – 19 tests, used by both government and private laboratories, did not check if those being tested had been vaccinated.” Even after the form was changed …. “Most government web sites, hospital web sites and labs continued to use the old form. “This is hugely disquieting. It’s not as though they had a large number of pre-printed forms that they could not afford to waste. These are web sites! All it needed was for someone to rewrite a few lines of code.
Every chapter has lots of data-derived insights, and details on the state of affairs on the data itself: So, we see how the largest share of urban household expenditure has changed from Cereals to Milk and Milk Products ( in 2011 – 12) and then to “Beverages, Refreshments, Processed food, Eating out’ ( in 2017-18). And, the controversy where the government held back the release of data ostensibly because the unemployment metrics were poor. Urbanisation, Food habits, population growth rates … each of the ten themes gets a detailed look.
Although the author is clearly dealing with the latest available data, the dataset in most cases is at least three or four years old, and often even older. I didn’t see the author specifically drawing attention to this – but this has been a bane forever in the availability of Government data. So, the real problem is that even that delayed data is now facing atrophy, and possibly extinction!
Now for a couple of minor quibbles.
*I missed a discussion on media habits. This is one theme that surely belongs to this set. Of course, the main data sets are from private surveys such as the National Readership Survey ( NRS), Broadcast Audience Research Council ( BARC ) reports and so on. But my understanding is that the government does have its own panels tracking TV viewership, and presumably also other media.
* The book needs an Index. This is a problem partly as a side effect of success: the sheer high density of detail and nuances make it a unique book full of insights, it is empirically based and is totally readable. Maybe they can put out a pdf on the website?
It behoves every policy maker and all the bureaucrats and the various apparatchiks in the Central- and State Governments to read, learn and inwardly digest the book. And, hopefully, stand up to the bosses when they ask to suppress inconvenient truths.
( B. ‘Nary’ Narayanaswamy is a specialist in Consumer Behaviour and Strategy. He was successively President-, then Consultant in Data Science, at Ipsos Research, New Delhi. He is the founder of Myth + Math, an IP Lab and is a member of the board of TARA ( Technology and Action for Rural Advancement ) a part of the Development Alternatives Group.)
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