Lies, damned lies and statistics
With election campaigning in full swing in the country, the phrase ‘Lies, damned lies, and Statistics’ keeps running through my mind. The master satirist, Mark Twain, popularised this phrase in the United States by using it in his autobiography. Twain, never known for his mathematical acumen, wrote about how figures beguiled him and mischievously fell back on the quote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics,” attributing the same to the British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Significantly, the phrase did not appear in any of Disraeli’s works and came to be used much after his death.
Even if the origin of the phrase is lost in hoary antiquity, it bears a great deal of significance for New India. The Niti Aayog, which replaced the Planning Commission, has every conceivable piece of data available on its website. To reinforce its effectiveness in an election year, it recently launched ‘Niti for States,’ a digital platform with the laudable intent of “strengthening cooperative federalism and empowering data-driven governance.”
An average citizen cannot help but be impressed unless s/he belongs to the non-BJP-ruled states of Karnataka, Kerala, or Tamil Nadu, among the highest contributors to the Union government’s coffers via GST and yet deprived of a fair share of it. The war of words over the GST share between the Union finance minister and these states culminated in the “chombu” election campaign in Karnataka and only reinforced Mark Twain’s notion.
This Union government is known for quoting statistics to showcase its success, yet it is also known to baulk at any data that shows it in a bad light.
April 28 this year makes it three years since the horror of Covid 19 raged through India, seeing the maximum number of lives lost. While peer-reviewed medical studies and an analysis by the Washington-based think tank Centre for Global Development estimated the total number of deaths from Covid during that period to be in the range of 3.4–4.7 million, the Indian government revealed its official figure to be 414,482 deaths.
While such a precise figure is impressive, one is puzzled that the international figures are 10 times higher. Needless to say, these international figures prompted huge protests from people in high positions in the Union government, and all these statistics were debunked.
And yet the same government asserted in Parliament that it had no data on migrant deaths during the Covid lockdown called suddenly by the prime minister. While admitting that more than 1 crore migrants made their way back to their home states, it was categorical in stating that, in the absence of data, the “question does not arise” of paying compensation to those who had lost their lives during this period. Strange coming from a government that could give such a precise figure on the overall Covid deaths that occurred in 2021.
Now that things are heating up on the electoral front, we can see newer and newer statistics and claims being made. Interestingly, the PM seems to be leading from the front in analysing the election manifesto of its biggest opponent, the Congress party.
While the BJP’s manifesto is not being publicised by its own party members, every day the average citizen is being provided with newer statistics about what is likely to happen if the Congress were to come to power.
As regards the claim that the Congress will steal the mangalsutras of married women, the PM seems to have touched on a very sensitive matter. The origin of the mangalsutra dates back to the 4th century BCE and makes an appearance in the Lalita Sahasranamam and the Purananuru, a Sangam text. But Usha Balakrishnan, a historian of Indian jewellery, states, “There was no concept in ancient India of a marriage being solemnised through a mangalsutra as we know of it today, with diamonds, pendants, and the like.”
She suggests that this could be a modern concept, resulting from marketing or business strategies. Even today, in many ceremonies, the sutra, or yellow thread, with a thali (pendant), is used, and maybe that’s all that the poor can afford.
I wonder if the PM thought about touching a raw nerve in the snatching of a mangalsutra, as it brings to mind bad times like widowhood or Covid 19, when so many women were forced to pawn their mangalsutras and gold.
The latest unverified detail that is being put out by him is that Congress is likely to snatch away one of your two buffaloes. For those who don’t own these bovines, it is best to dismiss the thought by saying, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics!”
(The author is an independent writer)