Statistics are like swimwear; they tease with a lot of show-n-tell, but hide the real stuff.
Remember that fateful evening of November 8 (imagine if Lehman’s financial crash and Osama’s strike on the Twin Towers had happened on the same day!), when Prime Minister Modi gummed up citizens’ cash and India’s economy, and Donald Trump became the richest, oldest in the first term, most married and expletive-loving POTUS? We are yet to recover from the tsunami of those twelve hours.
Besides disbelief and misery over the last fortnight, Indians have also been taking a fusillade of numbers aimed at creating a particular kind of narrative.
The Official Spin:
Prime Minister Modi has created “Ram Rajya” for India’s poor. He has snatched this windfall from “bad people”, who are petrified of his 56-inch-chest. He will now use this money to build more schools, rural roads, hospitals and give what-not to India’s poor.
The Reality:
This is very bad news. Because it means that this Rs 5 lakh crore is not tainted. And if demonetised cash continues to gush in at this rate – 40 percent of the total hoard in just 10 days - and reaches anywhere near Rs 14 lakh crore by December 31, the whole demonetisation manoeuver would become a colossal flop. Why? Because scamsters would have managed to convert all their black money into white, routing the government at its own game!
But what about the fact that banks would be flushed with cash and government would go on a development over-drive? Zilch. People who “legitimately” deposited Rs 14 lakh crore will equally legitimately withdraw it, for good and bad deeds, and the situation would come back to what it was on November 8, except that twice as much black money would now be carried in the same satchel, since the Rs 2,000 currency note packs in double the punch of the demonetised Rs 1,000 note.
The Official Spin:
People are nationalists; they are willing to live with extreme distress for the sake of doing something noble for the country. They understand that there is no gain without pain. They have given the BJP handsome victories in Shahdol and Lakhimpur. The BJP also gave a stiff fight to demonetisation’s most strident critic, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
The Reality:
Let’s rip off some swimwear. Both Shahdol and Lakhimpur were constituencies that the BJP won with a 55 percent vote share in 2014. Given that the BJP’s national vote share was 31 percent, you can safely assert that these two constituencies were among the strongest bastions of the ruling party. Now look at what happened in the bypolls.
In Shahdol, the BJP’s vote share came down from 54 percent to 44 percent, an astonishing diminution of 10 percentage points. The Congress gained almost all of it. The BJP’s victory margin shrank from 2.4 lakh votes to 60,000. Another 10 days of spiraling rural distress, and who knows?
In Lakhimpur, while the BJP held on to its vote share, the Congress garnered all the discontent to increase its kitty by 8 percentage points versus 2014.
In Tamluk, Mamata spanked all her opponents by increasing the Trinamool Congress’ vote share from 53.6 percent to nearly 60 percent. And in Cooch Behar from 40 percent to 59 percent! Even as the BJP came second there, it was a pyrrhic achievement. While it may not have caused her spectacular victory, Mamata’s shrill opposition to demonetisation did not harm her either. Whichever way you look at it, demonetisation could not have carried the day.
The Counter-Spin:
In a one-on-one contest in the strongest citadels of the BJP, the Congress gained a positive swing of 8 percentage points. And Mamata gained well over 10 percentage points.
Is that a ringing endorsement of demonetisation?
The Official Spin:
See, people are willing to undertake any amount of pain. They utterly, totally and completely support Prime Minister Modi’s demonetisation “brahmastra”, even if they have to suffer grievous injury themselves.
The Reality:
It’s a bit of a black hole. To judge the efficacy, accuracy – and most important, honesty – of an opinion poll, you need to be transparent about its methodology, size, spread, demographics, field survey dates and several other vital parameters. None of these facts were disclosed in the news report. Even C-Voter’s website did not have any detail (at least we failed to find it).
Was it conducted on the phone? On the internet? In one-on-one field interviews? How large was the sample? On which dates was the poll conducted? Right after November 8, or on November 20? How was the question framed? Was it “do you support demonetisation?” Obviously anybody would say “yes”. Or was it phrased as “will you continue to support demonetisation if the current distress were to sustain over 50 more days?” Clearly, the latter question may extract a somewhat different answer than a black/white outcome.
Finally, after much digging around, we learnt that it was a telephone survey with a mere 1,200 respondents spread over 200 Lok Sabha constituencies, that is, an average of 6 respondents per seat!
As for the 98 percent saying “aye-aye-PM” on the app, I don’t believe that’s a scientific poll.
So I now rest my case. The same set of facts can be spun and twisted to reach entirely different conclusions:
Spin:
80 percent people are delighted that a successful demonetisation will collect Rs 14 lakh crore which will be used for their welfare. They have overwhelmingly voted for the BJP.
Reality:
If Rs 14 lakh crore are deposited in banks, the demonetisation manoeuver would have failed, and a highly distressed electorate may give jitters to the BJP, the early portents of which were evident in the Lok Sabha bypolls.
Feel like a swim, anybody?
Raghav Bahl is the co-founder and chairman of Quintillion Media, including BloombergQuint. He is the author of two books, viz ‘Superpower?: The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise’, and ‘Super Economies: America, India, China & The Future Of The World’.
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