Global rankings typically come embedded with bipolar effects. Either they are loved and endorsed or hated to be rejected.
Earlier this month, the Global Hunger Index ranked India at 107 out of 121 countries. It triggered political outrage. India is ranked behind war-torn Ukraine at 36, riot-hit Sri Lanka at 64, its neighbours – Nepal at 81, Bangladesh at 84, and Pakistan at 99. It trails even those countries which received food aid from India.
The index raises several questions, from the title to its construct. Three of the four parameters focus on the health of children. To be sure, malnutrition and its deleterious effects are visible in data released by the National Family Health Survey - 5. However, the state of child nutrition cannot be extrapolated to the entire population. The fourth parameter, the proportion of undernourished, is based on an opinion poll of 3000 folks for a populace of 1.4 billion. Unsurprisingly, the government trashed the rankings calling it “an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues”.
This is by no means the first face-off between India and institutions publishing global rankings. Nor will it be the last. The inevitability stems from data deficits afflicting state and central governments. Public response to rankings rests on confirmation bias, what is known, what remains unknown and the quagmire of known unknowns. The optic of poor rankings is worsened by systemic inadequacies troubling the crafting of a coherent counter-narrative.
Governance rests on Peter Drucker’s dictum, ‘What gets measured gets improved’. India was among the early adopters of data collection on the performance of its policies and the economy. Yet even after seven decades, the data landscape is pock-marked with faultlines. India, for instance, must be one of the rare large economies which used consumption as a proxy to derive a picture of the income of its people. In 2021, the combined GSDP of states was found to be higher than that of India. There is the question of what is measured and what is not. There is also the reality of how it is measured and how often.
Take the issue of hunger. India currently runs two food security programmes – the subsidised food grains scheme under the National Food Security Act and a free ration scheme, the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana – covering 75 per cent of the population or 800 million people. Are users claiming from both schemes? Has the offtake been mapped by geography, commodity and cost? Have users been surveyed? Assimilation of data at the granular level would inform Indians and the world. And yes, it could present a credible challenge to the claims of such rankings.
India justifiably prides itself on the fastest-growing economy. The revenue collections from GST averaging Rs 1.4 lakh crore is evidence of its buoyancy. Indisputably, the GST filings are rich with information. The GST data, if opened up for analysis, has the potential to inform India on the micro currents of output and consumption across income quintiles and geographies, the interconnect and split between services and goods, how MSMEs are faring and more. This is yet to be done.
The state of unemployment, rather the state of job creation, is a political hot potato – and within that one hot-button issue is India’s female workforce participation rate. The last NSS Employment Unemployment Survey was dated 2011-12. There is indeed a Periodic Labour Force Survey. The question is how comprehensive is the PLFS in its coverage and how well does it inform the economy and how much is unknown. The fact that the fifth-largest economy struggles to present a cogent picture of employment merits attention.
The deficit is worse when it comes to human indicators and is most visible in the gap in data collection and analysis by states. The state of affairs is illuminated in the registration of births and deaths. Overall, nearly 11 per cent of births are not registered, and in 10 states across India, nearly 25 per cent of births are not registered. As for deaths, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs, 86 per cent of deaths are registered, whereas the health survey states that 71 per cent of deaths are registered. Of the deaths registered as per the Census (Vital Statistics/CRS 2020) 54.6 per cent were medically certified!
The pandemic was a wake-up call on the state of health care. Ostensibly, there have been efforts to improve access. The latest rural health statistics report is dated March 2021. Children and teachers missed school for nearly two years. Already quality was daunted -- by teacher absenteeism and vacancies. The latest update from UDISE is dated 2020-21 and doesn’t inform about teacher vacancies or quality of education, for which one must refer to ASER by Pratham.
These vignettes represent the larger malaise of data deficits haunting India. The repeated encounters with deemed truths and disputed falsehoods necessitate a review of the presentation of India’s development narrative not only to global purveyors of perception but, more importantly, to its own citizenry. India needs to restructure the landscape of data collection to craft a credible and coherent chronicle of where it is and where it aims to be.
Shankkar Aiyar
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar:
A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit
Revolution, and Accidental India
shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com