{"id":1195,"date":"2022-11-15T07:50:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T07:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2022-11-15T07:50:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T07:50:48","slug":"whole-numbers-and-half-truths-what-data-can-and-cannot-tell-us-about-modern-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/whole-numbers-and-half-truths-what-data-can-and-cannot-tell-us-about-modern-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Whole Numbers And Half Truths: What Data Can And Cannot Tell Us About Modern India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whole Numbers And Half Truths: What Data Can And Cannot Tell Us About Modern India
\nby Rukmini S.
\n<\/strong>Publisher: Context (2021)<\/p>\n

For a book of non-fiction, dealing primarily with numbers and graphs of all kinds, Whole Numbers And Half Truths by Rukmini S. almost reads like a thriller. The very first chapter (\u2018How India Tangles With Cops and Courts\u2019) sets the pace, revealing some uncomfortable and shocking truths about crime in India. The data elicits an eagerness in the reader, the desire to know what will be unveiled next. Successive chapters carry forward this narrative, revealing eye-opening details that sometimes fill you up with hope and other times bring you down with gloom.<\/p>\n

The author, a seasoned data journalist, uses data from both government as well as private sources to interpret various aspects of the modern Indian life: religion, politics, jobs, health, among others. Interspersed with these statistical materials (for which there are references at the end of the book) are anecdotes and quotes from a varied selection of the population. These \u2018asides\u2019 add warmth to the book, humanising the cold, hard numbers and showing us the complex feelings and beliefs that bind this diverse nation together. <\/p>\n

In \u2018What India Thinks, Feels and Believes\u2019, for instance, the general, liberal veneer of India is carefully removed to show the conservative heart that beats at the centre. Everything depends on how the query is framed to the responders \u2013 and Rukmini shows us how specific lines of questioning are better suited to shed light on what the citizens truly stand for.<\/p>\n

But even then, some answers can be quite complicated. Although \u2018development\u2019 is often believed to be the main point of contention during elections \u2013 which political party promises more schemes and dreams \u2013 the surveys cited in the chapter \u2018How India (Really) Votes\u2019 suggest that people use a \u201cmuch more complex decision matrix to arrive at decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decisions and beliefs aside, Whole Numbers And Half Truths also touches upon the sensational nature of Indian media, all the suffering Covid-19 brought into our lives, as well as, of course, the deficiencies of data collected in India.<\/p>\n

An ever-present thread in every chapter, the problem with data is boiled down to a \u201ccombination of neglect, discredit and dismissal\u201d in \u2018Conclusion\u2019. It doesn\u2019t help, as Rukmini explains in \u2018Introduction\u2019, that \u201cstatistics can be unintelligible, out of date, hard to find, and harder still to communicate.\u201d There is a desperate need, too, for context and interpretation, which she so beautifully illustrates in the data she translates in the book.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s cover too (subtly) draws our attention to the importance of data. Bundled away towards the end, a note explains that the \u201cPinocchio within a bar chart\u201d on the front jacket is intentional. \u201cEvoking the colours of the national flag, it adds a human face to impassive numbers as a reminder of what they ultimately represent. The face wraps around the book, but it is the spine that shows where this work truly lies: filling in the gaps between the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

And fill the gap it does. Whole Numbers And Half Truths bares open the misunderstandings, misinformation, and mistakes of modern India and implores us to go beyond the numbers at the surface and seek out the truth of ideas, beliefs, and motivations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whole Numbers And Half Truths: What Data Can And Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S. Publisher: Context (2021) For a book of non-fiction, dealing primarily with numbers and graphs of all kinds, Whole Numbers And Half Truths by Rukmini S. almost reads like a thriller. The very first chapter (\u2018How India Tangles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,57],"tags":[266,391,390,393,392,394,356,395,389,229],"class_list":{"0":"post-1195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business-economics","8":"category-humanities-social-sciences","9":"tag-context","10":"tag-data","11":"tag-date","12":"tag-economics","13":"tag-math","14":"tag-new-india","15":"tag-pandemic","16":"tag-pratilipi","17":"tag-rukmini-s","18":"tag-westland-publications"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attagalatta.com\/booksmart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}