## Colophon tags:: url:: https://thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics date:: [[]] %% title:: An Era of Darkness: How No Data Helps BJP’s Politics type:: [[clipped-note]] author:: [[@thewire.in]] %% ## Notes > An Era of Darkness: How No Data Helps BJP’s Politics — [view in context](https://hyp.is/gJ8nOOhHEe-5CO8RTzI-wg/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) <p> date:: [[2025-02-11]] </p> > In at least four arenas, the absence of data is helping run a particular kind of politics. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/keys_uhHEe-8ORePWf2Usg/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) <p> 1. Population 2. Ration 3. Poverty 4. COVID-19 deaths </p> > More so, the fall in the TFR is levelling off across communities and this trend has been at play since 2001. The steepest fall in fertility is indicated across Muslim communities in India and the figures out so far have made clear that fertility has very little to do with religion. But if facts like these emerge and authoritatively so through a Census, then where would hateful propaganda like asking Hindu families to “have three children” and sustaining falsehoods about rapidly increasing Muslim numbers go? Feeding a fear of the Muslim demographic being out of control is an essential part of Hindutva politics. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/m_qpqOhHEe-nNWOaCfGKJA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > The Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, told the Supreme Court in December 2024, that the NFSA had 81.35 crore eligible beneficiaries. But this could be a serious under-estimation. Lawyers arguing for the Right to Food campaign say that there could be as many as 10 crore eligible (i.e. hungry) Indians being left out. Activists cited COVID-19 as a tipping point that may have left many unable to meet their daily needs as losing out. The government list not having been updated due to no Census has real world consequences. The Global Hunger Index 2024 testifies to the Indian situation as worrisome and worse-off from before. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vcx1XOhHEe-AJJdpTpQW-g/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > India, as it has done consistently with data and facts that are inconvenient to its political rhetoric, has dissed the Global Hunger Index data, calling it “a ploy to derail Viksit Bharat.” — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vqYAfuhHEe-80-dg6Gs9bQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > India is after all boasting about heading towards becoming the “fourth largest” economy in the world. It is bad enough that it is one with the lowest median income (approximately $ 2480 per annum) amongst large economies. That would only get underlined if the extent of deprivation and poverty is actually surveyed, updated and owned up to. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/81-PfOhJEe-6maMQzFjOyQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > At the start of 2024, the NITI Aayog projected that “India is all set to reach single-digit poverty levels during 2024.” A few months on, the NITI Aayog CEO, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said the poverty levels “could be closer to 5% or less”. He also asserted that rural deprivation “has almost disappeared” going by levels of consumption expenditure. But instead of undertaking a proper revised study, either taking the Tendulkar Committee’s recommendations as the basis, the method termed the Rangarajan method or guidelines proposed by the Arjun Sengupta Committee, the “5% poor” claim was made simply by adjusting the last 2011–12 poverty line for inflation using the Consumer Price Index and applying it to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data from 2022–23. In addition, there are many questionable assumptions about ‘welfare schemes’ working for the poor which render these numbers incomparable. A study by C.A. Sethu, L.T. Abhinav Surya and C.A. Ruthu, using the Rangarajan Method (which accounts for nutritional needs being met, not just expenditure) and the same 2022-2023 Household Consumption data, concluded that 26.4% of Indians are below the poverty line. This makes it a difference of more than 21 percentage points from government’s claims. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/-OualOhJEe-f8-_VkuvIow/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) <p> 😐 </p>> A reluctance to face up to the deaths in India during COVID may well be among the reasons for the missing Census of 2021. The WHO estimates suggest a ten-fold discrepancy between the number of Covid dead in India and the ones recorded. India has denied any underestimation and says only about 4,81,000 have died, but WHO puts the number of the dead in India at 4.7 million, the highest in the world. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/pG4nquhLEe-iy7caRc_GRA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > No national census for 14 years, a first in 150 years and a pattern by the government to debunk unflattering estimates put out by global agencies has resulted in the lack of crucial information on the most populous nation in the world. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vqYmaOhLEe-Hu79Q8QbtbQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > The absence of data is not about academics and researchers losing out. It is actively helping the ruling party carry on with its politics without any roadblocks and preventing basic questions being asked of it. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/l_jzRuhMEe-7_EM7Fha1WA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984 says, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” But that freedom is premised on the knowledge of 2 and 2. If basic and critical data points are missing from the discourse, and instead, the citizen finds herself in a position of transparency inverted, where she is expected to share her data with the state, but the state being under no obligation to transparently and honestly share information with her, Winston would be unable to even find the 2 and 2, let alone add it up and arrive at 4. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/ogmj5OhMEe-7pB-mulD0Yw/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > An Era of Darkness: How No Data Helps BJP’s Politics — [view in context](https://hyp.is/gJ8nOOhHEe-5CO8RTzI-wg/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) - Annotation: date:: [[2025-02-11]]pu> In at least four arenas, the absence of data is helping run a particular kind of politics. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/keys_uhHEe-8ORePWf2Usg/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) - Annotation: 1. Population 2. Ration 3. Poverty 4. COVID-19 deaths> More so, the fall in the TFR is levelling off across communities and this trend has been at play since 2001. The steepest fall in fertility is indicated across Muslim communities in India and the figures out so far have made clear that fertility has very little to do with religion. But if facts like these emerge and authoritatively so through a Census, then where would hateful propaganda like asking Hindu families to “have three children” and sustaining falsehoods about rapidly increasing Muslim numbers go? Feeding a fear of the Muslim demographic being out of control is an essential part of Hindutva politics. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/m_qpqOhHEe-nNWOaCfGKJA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > The Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, told the Supreme Court in December 2024, that the NFSA had 81.35 crore eligible beneficiaries. But this could be a serious under-estimation. Lawyers arguing for the Right to Food campaign say that there could be as many as 10 crore eligible (i.e. hungry) Indians being left out. Activists cited COVID-19 as a tipping point that may have left many unable to meet their daily needs as losing out. The government list not having been updated due to no Census has real world consequences. The Global Hunger Index 2024 testifies to the Indian situation as worrisome and worse-off from before. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vcx1XOhHEe-AJJdpTpQW-g/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > India, as it has done consistently with data and facts that are inconvenient to its political rhetoric, has dissed the Global Hunger Index data, calling it “a ploy to derail Viksit Bharat.” — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vqYAfuhHEe-80-dg6Gs9bQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > India is after all boasting about heading towards becoming the “fourth largest” economy in the world. It is bad enough that it is one with the lowest median income (approximately $ 2480 per annum) amongst large economies. That would only get underlined if the extent of deprivation and poverty is actually surveyed, updated and owned up to. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/81-PfOhJEe-6maMQzFjOyQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > At the start of 2024, the NITI Aayog projected that “India is all set to reach single-digit poverty levels during 2024.” A few months on, the NITI Aayog CEO, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said the poverty levels “could be closer to 5% or less”. He also asserted that rural deprivation “has almost disappeared” going by levels of consumption expenditure. But instead of undertaking a proper revised study, either taking the Tendulkar Committee’s recommendations as the basis, the method termed the Rangarajan method or guidelines proposed by the Arjun Sengupta Committee, the “5% poor” claim was made simply by adjusting the last 2011–12 poverty line for inflation using the Consumer Price Index and applying it to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data from 2022–23. In addition, there are many questionable assumptions about ‘welfare schemes’ working for the poor which render these numbers incomparable. A study by C.A. Sethu, L.T. Abhinav Surya and C.A. Ruthu, using the Rangarajan Method (which accounts for nutritional needs being met, not just expenditure) and the same 2022-2023 Household Consumption data, concluded that 26.4% of Indians are below the poverty line. This makes it a difference of more than 21 percentage points from government’s claims. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/-OualOhJEe-f8-_VkuvIow/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) - Annotation: 😐> A reluctance to face up to the deaths in India during COVID may well be among the reasons for the missing Census of 2021. The WHO estimates suggest a ten-fold discrepancy between the number of Covid dead in India and the ones recorded. India has denied any underestimation and says only about 4,81,000 have died, but WHO puts the number of the dead in India at 4.7 million, the highest in the world. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/pG4nquhLEe-iy7caRc_GRA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > No national census for 14 years, a first in 150 years and a pattern by the government to debunk unflattering estimates put out by global agencies has resulted in the lack of crucial information on the most populous nation in the world. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/vqYmaOhLEe-Hu79Q8QbtbQ/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > The absence of data is not about academics and researchers losing out. It is actively helping the ruling party carry on with its politics without any roadblocks and preventing basic questions being asked of it. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/l_jzRuhMEe-7_EM7Fha1WA/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics) > Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984 says, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” But that freedom is premised on the knowledge of 2 and 2. If basic and critical data points are missing from the discourse, and instead, the citizen finds herself in a position of transparency inverted, where she is expected to share her data with the state, but the state being under no obligation to transparently and honestly share information with her, Winston would be unable to even find the 2 and 2, let alone add it up and arrive at 4. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/ogmj5OhMEe-7pB-mulD0Yw/thewire.in/government/an-era-of-darkness-how-no-data-helps-bjps-politics)