“No data maintained” is somehow the theme of this ongoing monsoon session. Every crucial question asked in Parliament by the opposition government has only answered in a phrase: “No data maintained”.
We at TSA prepared a list of questions to which GOI had only one universal answer. The insufficiency of information has sparked anger among the public, who are incriminating the government of being inhuman and working for their personal objective like getting data on JNU, Muslim migrants, Data of city with Mughal names, etc.
The coronavirus crisis aside, the government seems to be missing other crucial data. Based on this theme congress spokesperson ex-union minister Shashi Tharoor shared a photo on his Twitter profile which mocked the current government perfectly.
- No data reflecting the death of Migrant
On 24 March 2020, an abrupt lockdown was announced leaving hapless migrants no time to prepare themselves. Media reports themselves confirmed at least 110 migrants workers died, and that number is a serious undercount as it’s just a fraction of the real fatality rate. They were hardest-hit due to COVID.
- Closure of MSME during the lockdown
No data on the closure of MSMEs due to COVID. This has visibly suffered a massive loss of revenue and jobs. They’ve lost their livelihoods.
- The murder of RTI activists
The government said it had no data on RTI activists murdered in the country and the implementation of the Whistleblower protection scheme by various states. The government responded to a question by TMC’s Sunil Kumar Mondal.
- India’s position on the world corruption list
The government said it maintained no data on India’s position in the list of corrupt countries in the world in response to a question by TMC’s Sunil Kumar Mondal.
- Number of plasma bank
The GOI has no data on the count of the plasma bank. Strange that no data on the number of plasma banks in the country, which provide plasma therapy to COVID patients.
- Count of political prisoners
Since Kashmir lost its special status their leaders were captivated. It took several Kashmiri leaders in detention and kept them under house arrest, including former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah, and Farooq Abdullah. Though the father-son duo is out Mrs. Mufti is under house arrest even now.
The Modi government, though, has said, “No political leader is under house arrest in the union territory of J&K.”
The government did not have data to provide on the number of political prisoners under trial in response to CPI Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Visvam’s question. The government said that it does not maintain any data on the arrest of the political prisoner.
- People in the police force died due to COVID-19
Many are suspected to have died on duty. But they’ve no data regarding the same. The centre is blaming it on states. The junior minister for home affairs shared a list of 100 deaths among centralized armed police forces, he said that police, too, is a state subject.
“The data in respect of Police personnel who died due to Covid-19 across the country is not maintained centrally,” the written reply (pdf) read.
- People died due to police brutality during the pandemic as well. While explicit bias suggests that police have an active disdain and disregard for marginal lives, implicit-bias models emphasize the ways that police are trained to automatically associate everyone with danger or criminality, leading them to unconsciously use harsher force than they should.
- Death of health worker
The IMA raised their voice against the careless statement and said at least 382 doctors had lost their lives to COVID. They also shamed the government for not having empathy towards frontline workers, despite all the thali-banging.
The IMA said in its statement “IMA finds it strange that after having formulated an unfriendly partial insurance scheme for the bereaved families to struggle with the ignominy of the government disowning them altogether stares at them.”
To solve a problem we must address that it exists. With the lack of data, there is little scope of corrective measures. The absence of data especially in the case of deaths of migrants, healthcare workers, the general public, police personnel is worrisome owing to the deficit of data.
To the people in power, there is still time to recognize the follies of their government. There is a pertinent time to gather and release data wherever required. To consult all stakeholders and more importantly nations together. One can just hope the government takes corrective coarse.
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