This repository contains the complete replication package for "Narratives, Numbers, and Democratic Accountability: India's Economic Transformation 2004-2025," an independent empirical study examining how two distinct political periods—the United Progressive Alliance (UPA, 2004-2014) and National Democratic Alliance (NDA, 2014-2025)—produced fundamentally different models of economic growth, governance, and democratic accountability in India.
Research initiated: March 2024
Current version: September 2025
Interactive website: someperspective.info
Despite official narratives celebrating high GDP growth and improved global rankings, India's economic reality reveals a more complex story. This research uses rigorous empirical analysis to document five critical transformations between 2004-2025: (1) a collapse in employment elasticity followed by precarious gig-economy recovery; (2) inequality reaching levels exceeding the colonial era; (3) systematic erosion of fiscal federalism through constitutional workarounds; (4) unprecedented suppression of official statistics; and (5) measurable deterioration in democratic quality as assessed by multiple international indices.
We construct three novel indices to quantify these changes: a Statistical Suppression Index (SSI) measuring government interference in data production; a Fiscal Centralization Index (FCI) capturing the erosion of federalism; and a Democratic Quality Index (DQI) aggregating multiple assessments of institutional health. All three indices show concerning trajectories, with acceleration post-2019.
Key Finding: India's post-2014 growth model decoupled economic expansion from employment generation, concentrated wealth at unprecedented levels, and centralized political power while simultaneously suppressing the statistical infrastructure needed for democratic accountability.
India stands at a critical juncture where the gap between official narratives and lived reality has widened dramatically. This research matters for several reasons:
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Accountability Gap: When governments suppress data (2017-18 consumption survey, 2021 census), evidence-based analysis becomes essential for democratic accountability.
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Policy Relevance: Understanding why GDP growth failed to generate employment is crucial for designing effective economic policy.
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Comparative Politics: India's trajectory offers insights into how democracies erode while maintaining electoral competition—a pattern observed globally but with distinct Indian characteristics.
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Methodological Contribution: The three indices (SSI, FCI, DQI) provide replicable frameworks for measuring institutional change in other contexts.
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Historical Documentation: This research creates a comprehensive empirical record during a period when official statistics became increasingly unreliable.
This study addresses four central questions:
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Employment: Why did employment elasticity collapse to 0.01 (2011-2016) before recovering through informal gig work rather than formal job creation?
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Inequality: What mechanisms drove the top 1% income share to 22.6%—higher than during British colonial rule?
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Federalism: How did the constitutional guarantee of fiscal devolution get undermined despite 14th and 15th Finance Commission recommendations?
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Statistics: What explains the systematic pattern of data suppression, delayed releases, and methodological revisions?
``` someperspective/ │ ├── README.md # This file ├── LICENSE # CC BY 4.0 License ├── CITATION.cff # Citation metadata │ ├── data/ │ ├── data.json # Complete dataset (2004-2025) │ ├── data_dictionary.md # Variable definitions and sources │ └── sources.bib # BibTeX references for all data sources │ ├── analysis/ │ ├── replication_code.R # Main analysis scripts │ ├── indices_construction.R # SSI, FCI, DQI calculations │ ├── robustness_checks.R # Sensitivity analyses │ └── visualizations.R # Chart generation code │ ├── paper/ │ ├── india-economy-paper.md # Full academic paper (Markdown) │ ├── india-economy-paper.pdf # PDF version │ └── appendices/ │ ├── technical_appendix.pdf │ ├── data_appendix.pdf │ └── robustness_appendix.pdf │ ├── website/ │ ├── index.html # Interactive visualization website │ ├── assets/ # Charts, downloads, CSS, JS │ └── CNAME # Domain configuration │ └── documentation/ ├── METHODOLOGY.md # Detailed methodology ├── LIMITATIONS.md # Known limitations and caveats └── CHANGELOG.md # Version history ```
- 2011-2016: Employment elasticity collapsed to 0.01—the lowest in India's post-independence history
- Formal employment declined from 17.5% (2014) to 11% (2024) of the workforce
- Youth unemployment reached 23% for graduates, 17% overall
- Recovery (2017-2023): Elasticity increased to 1.11, but driven by precarious gig economy work (median income ₹15,000/month)
Implication: Economic growth fundamentally decoupled from employment generation, contradicting standard development theory expectations.
- Top 1% income share: 22.6% (2022)—higher than any year during British rule
- Top 1% wealth share: 40.1% (₹54.5 lakh crore)
- Bottom 50% wealth share: 6% (₹8.1 lakh crore)
Implication: India experienced the most extreme concentration of economic resources in its independent history, with wealth inequality exceeding income inequality.
- State fiscal autonomy reduced from 42% (2014) to 29.8% (2024) of total government resources
- Cesses and surcharges (not shared with states) rose from 10.4% to 20.2% of gross tax revenue
- Amount bypassed: ₹4.3 lakh crore in FY2023-24 alone
Mechanism: Rather than amending the Constitution, the Centre used cesses, GST design features, and conditional transfers to achieve de facto centralization.
- SSI Score: Increased from 2.3 (2014) to 7.8 (2023)—a 239% increase
- Major suppressions: 2017-18 consumption survey, 2021 census (indefinitely postponed), unemployment surveys
- Pattern: Systematic interference rather than isolated incidents
Implication: The statistical infrastructure essential for democratic accountability was systematically undermined.
- Freedom House: Downgraded from "Free" to "Partly Free" (2021)
- Press Freedom: Fell from rank 140 to 161 (of 180 countries)
- Democratic Quality Index: Declined from 0.71 (2014) to 0.42 (2024)—a 41% deterioration
Pattern: Multiple independent international assessments document parallel institutional deterioration.
This research triangulates evidence from multiple independent sources:
Government Sources:
- National Statistical Office (NSO) surveys: PLFS, ASI, NSSO
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) databases
- Ministry of Finance annual reports
- EPFO and ESIC employment records
- Census of India (when available)
Independent Sources:
- Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) Consumer Pyramids
- World Inequality Database (WID.world)
- V-Dem Institute democracy indices
- Freedom House assessments
- Reporters Without Borders press freedom rankings
- IMF, World Bank, and ILO databases
``` SSI_t = Σ(severity_i × salience_i) / n
Where:
- severity: withheld(1.0), delayed(0.5), revised(0.3)
- salience: census(1.0), CES(0.8), PLFS(0.7), other(0.6)
- n: number of statistical events in year t ```
Purpose: Quantifies government interference in statistical production through event-based coding.
Components:
- Share of cesses/surcharges in gross tax revenue
- Actual devolution to states (%)
- States' own tax revenue as % of GDP
- Conditional borrowing requirements
- Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) share of social spending
Aggregation: Min-max normalized, averaged with directional alignment
Current Score: 0.78 (2023)—26% increase from 2014
``` DQI = (V-Dem × FH × RSF)^(1/3)
Where:
- V-Dem: Liberal Democracy Index (0-1)
- FH: Freedom House score (normalized to 0-1)
- RSF: Press Freedom ranking (inverted and normalized) ```
Geometric mean: Ensures weakness in any dimension reduces overall score
Current Score: 0.42 (2024)—41% decline from 2014
- Employment Elasticity: Calculated as ε = (%ΔEmployment) / (%ΔGDP) across three distinct periods
- Inequality Measurement: Combined income tax data with wealth surveys, adjusted for underreporting using Pareto interpolation
- Cross-validation: All major findings verified across multiple independent datasets (CMIE-PLFS correlation: r=0.89)
- Robustness: Trends tested across different base years, deflators, and time periods
```r
install.packages(c( "tidyverse", # Data manipulation and visualization "jsonlite", # JSON handling "lubridate", # Date handling "scales", # Formatting "ggplot2", # Plotting "patchwork", # Combining plots "knitr", # Report generation "rmarkdown" # Document compilation )) ```
```bash
git clone https://github.com/Varnasr/someperspective.git cd someperspective
Rscript analysis/replication_code.R
Rscript analysis/indices_construction.R
Rscript analysis/robustness_checks.R
Rscript analysis/visualizations.R ```
The replication scripts will generate:
- All figures used in the paper (saved to `outputs/figures/`)
- Statistical tables (saved to `outputs/tables/`)
- Index calculations with confidence intervals
- Robustness check results
- Supplementary analysis files
Expected runtime: Approximately 10-15 minutes on standard hardware
To update with latest available data:
```bash
Rscript analysis/update_analysis.R
```
This research acknowledges several important limitations:
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Census Gap: No census conducted since 2011, limiting demographic analysis and population projections
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Suppressed Data: The 2017-18 consumption survey was never released; we use multiple imputation techniques validated against available partial data
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State-Level Variation: National aggregates mask significant heterogeneity across Indian states—detailed state-level analysis in forthcoming work
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Informal Economy Measurement: Despite methodological improvements in PLFS, informal sector measurement remains challenging
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COVID-19 Impact: The pandemic created structural breaks (2020-2021) that complicate trend analysis; we use careful periodization to address this
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Causality: While we document strong correlations and temporal sequences, establishing definitive causality requires additional identification strategies
See `documentation/LIMITATIONS.md` for detailed discussion.
If you use this data, code, or findings in your research, please cite:
```bibtex @techreport{someperspective2025, title={Narratives, Numbers, and Democratic Accountability: India's Economic Transformation 2004-2025}, author={Varna Sri Raman}, year={2025}, institution={Independent Research}, type={Working Paper}, url={https://someperspective.info}, note={Accessed: [Date]} } ```
For specific indices, please also cite:
```bibtex @article{statistical_suppression_index, title={Measuring Statistical Suppression: The SSI Framework}, author={Varna Sri Raman}, journal={[Journal if published]}, year={2025}, note={Available at: https://someperspective.info} } ```
See `CITATION.cff` for complete citation metadata.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit and indicate if changes were made
Funding: This research received no funding from political parties, corporations, advocacy groups, or government entities. It is entirely independent academic work.
Conflicts of Interest: None declared.
Data Transparency: All data sources are documented with URLs, access dates, and retrieval methods. See `data/sources.bib` for complete provenance.
Code Transparency: All analysis code is provided for full replication. No proprietary software is required.
This is a living research project. Contributions are welcome:
- Data corrections: If you identify errors in the dataset, please open an issue with documentation
- Code improvements: Pull requests for improved efficiency or additional robustness checks are appreciated
- Extensions: We welcome extensions to state-level analysis, sectoral breakdowns, or international comparisons
Please see `CONTRIBUTING.md` for guidelines.
For questions, corrections, or collaboration inquiries:
- Email: [research@someperspective.info]
- Website: someperspective.info/contact
- Issues: Use GitHub issues for technical questions or data corrections
This research builds on decades of work by India's statistical system, civil society organizations, independent researchers, and international monitoring bodies. Special acknowledgment to:
- The National Statistical Office for maintaining data infrastructure under difficult circumstances
- CMIE for providing crucial independent employment data
- The World Inequality Database team for inequality measurement innovations
- V-Dem Institute, Freedom House, and RSF for democracy monitoring
- Journalists and researchers who continue documenting India's transformation despite challenges
- v1.0.0 (March 2024): Initial release with data through December 2023
- v1.5.0 (September 2024): Extended to June 2024; added robustness checks
- v2.0.0 (September 2025): Current version with data through August 2025; refined indices methodology; added interactive website
See `documentation/CHANGELOG.md` for detailed version history.
This research has been:
- Cited in [number] academic papers
- Referenced in [number] media articles
- Used in [number] policy briefs
- Presented at [conferences/seminars]
See `documentation/IMPACT.md` for tracking.
Last Updated: September 2025
Data Current Through: August 2025
Next Scheduled Update: December 2025
For the latest data and interactive visualizations, visit someperspective.info