The trouble with government in fact checking

At the heart of the SEARCH model was a rigorous method of collecting and verifying data on infant morbidity and mortality in a few study villages. This led the SEARCH team to question Gadchiroli’s official infant mortality figures. Following their complaints, the district collector of Gadchiroli conducted an inquiry in one block (Aheri) in 1998. His report suggested that the actual infant mortality rate was 9 times the official figure and the under-five mortality rate was 8 times. Soon after this report, the collector was transferred. The Bangs didn’t give up. In 1999, they reached out to NGOs in other parts of the state to begin a two-year-long study of infant and child health outcomes. The sample wasn’t random but the surveyors tried to choose representative settlements across Maharashtra. SEARCH was the training hub for this vast survey covering more than 200,000 people, with funding from Child Relief and You (CRY) and Swiss-Aid.

The survey showed that the health department’s management information system (MIS) missed more than 75% of infant deaths in the state. When the survey report Kowali Pangal (in Marathi, ‘the fall of tender leaves’) was published in 2001, it caused a political storm. Opposition lawmakers lambasted the government and the health minister tried to defend the MIS figures, but other officials, including the state’s chief minister, acknowledged the need for course-correction.

The government appointed a committee headed by Bang to improve infant mortality data, and accepted its recommendation of conducting child death audits in each village. Maharashtra became the first state to launch a child nutrition mission in 2005. The SEARCH model of using community health workers to monitor and treat newborns was eventually scaled up across rural India (see ‘Gadchiroli’s trudging doctors spell hope,’ Mint, 17 Apr 2012, bit.ly/3Lq9Hpx).

Imagine if such an intervention happened today, and opposition lawmakers raised a hue and cry over it. At the outset, social media trolls of the ruling regime would likely attack the “unscientific” findings of a “foreign-funded survey”. Now imagine that Maharashtra had a state-run fact-check unit, and that it had similar rules as the Union IT ministry’s proposed fact-check unit. Such a unit would promptly dismiss the Kowali Pangal report as false since it contradicted the official “truth” of the health department. Even if newspapers reported on it, social media intermediaries would be asked to block the “false” content online.

This is the dystopian future we are staring at right now. The IT ministry’s fact-check unit can block any content about the government that it deems to be false or misleading. It is meant to fight “misinformation” against the government. Since only government officials have access to certain kinds of government data, they are best placed to run the unit, the ministry claims.

Such claims are questionable. Typically, government data that is inaccessible to the public is also unreliable and unfit for fact-checks. For instance, analysts prefer to use the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data rather than Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) data in gauging labour market trends. That’s because the anonymized respondent-level PLFS data is publicly available, unlike the EPFO database (see ‘The promise and peril of big data in India’s policy space’, Mint, 21 December 2021). Datasets that escape public scrutiny tend to be riddled with errors. If these datasets are still used in policymaking, that is either because of a lack of alternatives or the apathy of government officials. Since any admission of data gaps can invite public pressure to fix them, most officials like to pretend that such gaps don’t exist.

Some departments deliberately distort databases. As Abhay Bang found out, a complacent health department in Maharashtra encouraged the under-reporting of infant deaths. At any level, if a functionary correctly reported the number of deaths, her performance stood out as poor in comparison with the past. This functionary would be held responsible for the “increase” and face a reprimand, Bang wrote in a 2002 Economic and Political Weekly article. Biased data “suits politicians” since it makes the government’s performance look good, Bang argued.

Things haven’t changed much since then. As the pandemic demonstrated, the gap between official data and the truth can be wide. Yet, a government-run fact-check unit will always favour the official narrative even if it’s untrue. As a result, legitimate critiques of the government might get suppressed.

Unless the IT ministry’s decision is overturned, India’s democratic credentials are likely to suffer. The Indian state’s ability to course-correct would be impaired and the country’s progress would be hurt. At a time when India is trying to emerge as a viable and democratic alternative to China, we can do without such self-goals.

Pramit Bhattacharya is a Chennai-based journalist. His Twitter handle is pramit_b.