Can fake news fight the looming economic crisis?

There are several critical numbers that do not yet have an official imprimatur and hence are conveniently dismissed by the government as unreliable and fake. 

What about the GDP numbers? The government has been claiming that India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. All this chest-thumping does not square with how the economy’s health is perceived by the likes of the former Chief Economic Advisor of the government of India, Kaushik Basu, who thinks otherwise. In a tweet that incurred the wrath of many noisy ruling party supporters, Basu said: “Over 2020-22, India’s annual GDP growth is .43 per cent. This places India in the middle of the global growth table”. The big question is, does fudging figures and hiding the truth help in elections and the economy? And also for how long?

Deliberately, it seems, the government has created a miasma of confusion over every data point that can allow researchers, writers or detractors to ascertain exactly what the state of the Indian economy is. There is no data that can pass off without kicking off unnecessary controversy. It never used to happen in the days of the Congress. India was a proud nation that kept its books clean and was known to be a master at smartly maintaining its key statistics.

Expectedly, there was a BBC expose on how the decision to impose a claustrophobic lockdown on 1.4 billion people – the majority of them daily wagers – was taken by the Prime Minister’s office without consulting anyone of any significance. So tragic was the outcome of the lockdown, which found many migrants in the throes of severe poverty and hunger, leaders of countries like Nepal and Pakistan had to assure their citizens that they would not repeat the Indian lockdown. Understandably, these countries suffered less from the pandemic or its dreadful state interventions. 

Even on the issue of deaths due to the pandemic, the government has been coy in owning up to how many died due to the coronavirus. It has hung on to a figure of 4.8 lakh deaths, which is 1/10 of what the World Health Organisation (WHO) claimed. Government agencies deny these estimates due to WHO’s methodology, but they seem to loathe to update their own numbers. 

The worrying truth is that the vaccines did not really get enough time to be tested on human beings, and they were rushed through to fight the pandemic. No one is asking the question – did those areas in Africa, Latin America or Asia that did not get vaccinated fare worse than those that did? For instance, Israel, which allowed four or five vaccine shots performed better – in terms of deaths due to the virus – than those that did not get or take any? The government should have illuminated our masses rather than blindly agreeing to the findings of the legacy countries – the US and the West. 

By the look of it, the government sailed out of these crises rather safely. Despite the dodgy figures of migrants returning home or people dying due to Covid, the government continues to smell roses as a country that fought the dreadful disease competently.

The credit for the government’s success should not go to how many people were vaccinated but to how many people got free food once the country came under the sway of the pandemic. By government estimates, 800 million got food grains every month after April 2020. Since then, the government has spent $18 billion every year, which adds up to $42 billion till now. The programme is scheduled to end on September 30. If that happens, then the price of food grain in the market will zoom to an astronomical level.

The other bigger worry that the government is loathed to make noise about is the stoppage of LNG to the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) after the German government took over Gazprom Germania under temporary management, thus disrupting a long-term deal between the two companies. Media reports suggest that GAIL is buying LNG at double the price of $40 mmBtu. GAIL has an impossible target of 2.85 million tons to buy from the open market, which could pauperise the company and cause strain on the budget. The company supplies 52 per cent of the gas to fertiliser and power companies. 

What it means is that the impact of the Ukraine war, from which India has been cushioned for some time, would be felt with all its intensity. The likely scenario that could unfold is high power prices, strained food grain supplies and general restiveness that would come from spiralling inflation. Can obfuscation of data help in tiding over the looming crisis?

Sanjay Kapoor is a Senior Journalist based out of Delhi. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India, its neighbourhood and West Asia. He is the Founder and Editor of Hardnews Magazine and he is also the General Secretary of Editors Guild of India.