India is no country for data

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Mahendra Singh was a farmer from Kuleri village in Haryana’s Hisar district. Last Saturday, while holding a protest with hundreds of farmers outside Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, in Agroha town, where deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala attended a function, Singh died of cardiac arrest. He was in his sixties. The farmers were protesting in solidarity with tens of thousands of others who have been sitting at Delhi’s borders since 26 November, campaigning against the three farm laws passed by Parliament in September last year. A few hours later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Neeraj Chopra—son of a farmer from Panipat, Haryana—in Tokyo to congratulate him on winning India’s second-ever individual gold medal at the Olympic Games.  Singh, meanwhile, became one of the 500-odd farmers who, according to the Indian government, did not die during the ongoing farmers’ protest. Confused? Let me explain. The union government has denied any knowledge or record of farmers dying or falling ill during the ongoing protests. In a written reply to Parliament during the monsoon session last month, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said …