100 Ways to See India: A visual data book on the country's changing story

Packed with eye-catching visuals, this data book lets you dip in anywhere, finish quickly, and discover insights about where the country is heading

100 Ways to See India: Stats, Stories, and Surprises

by Rohit Saran

Published by HarperCollins Publishers India

191 pages  ₹999

  Over the last decade, much discourse has been generated over India’s data: Its unreadability, what it shows versus what it hides, how it can be utilised as a public good, and so on and so forth. Today, we are witnessing a phenomenon in which a rise in access to data hasn’t led to a corresponding rise in numeracy skills — what Rohit Saran, the author of 100 Ways to See India, describes as “flooded with numbers, but starved for insights”.

 

Most media houses currently have a daily or weekly product that attempts to make sense of the deluge of numbers offered by data sets in India, while some new-age ventures such as IndiaSpend focus solely on data journalism. There are also books like Whole Numbers and Half Truths by Rukmini S that also try to unravel the intricacies of data and offer readers an analysis not just of the numbers themselves, but also of how far these numbers can actually help. 100 Ways to See India is another step in this direction, packed with eye-catching visuals and the promise of seeing where we as a country are headed more than seven decades after Independence.

 

The book is meticulous about parsing India’s myriad datasets and presenting them in a manner that is not too intimidating, and also dedicates some time in explaining how it came across the data, how it measured against other sets that recorded the same data but from different angles, and finally, how it was designed — the whole thing comes off rather like an investigative thriller where describing the detective’s method is as important as the actual solution of the mystery.

 

In the preface and the contents page, the author makes it clear that the book is designed in a way that takes into account “modern reading habits: dip in anywhere, finish something, and come away with a spark of discovery”. In theory, that sounds good: Not only does it cater to shortened attention spans with its colourful graphics that explain almost 70 per cent of a given chapter, it also adds a touch of whimsy to the process of learning and is a good reminder that educating oneself, even on dry subjects such as maths and statistics, is never too late. However, for a reader who will read the book in linear progression, the process can be a bit jarring: The chapters go from crime, health, politics, dietary preferences, and so on in seemingly ordered chaos. And while the book does invite one to “connect the dots”, the exercise can be somewhat perplexing and makes one wish that the chapters were grouped on the basis of their subject matter, to provide a more comprehensive and less fragmented flow of information and processing.

 

The chapters discussing population and migration are the most interesting from a sociological perspective — they do a good job in tracking the story of how we grew into a more aspirational society in the 21st century, particularly after the economic reforms of 1991, rather than one just focusing on the basics. However, the book doesn’t delve enough into the aftermath of 1991, which is a strange choice, considering the wide-range of influence those reforms have had and will continue to have.

 

Similarly, in “India’s Vegetarian Perception — and Non-Vegetarian Reality” and other chapters dealing with the issue of food preferences, not enough attention is paid to how this vegetarian perception is being weaponised by a select few to attack those who follow a different diet than theirs, and is even finding its way into policy, with state governments often “banning” the sale of meat on kanwar yatra routes, Hindu festivals, and so on.

 

Even though the author steers clear of offering any opinion in the book, there is one exception: The chapter titled “Why Only 3% Adult Indians Pay Income Tax”, where he clearly takes a side, the one belonging to the income tax-paying class. It is bemusing to see that this is the cause in contemporary India about which he feels most strongly, enough to cast aside the journalistic tone that the rest of the book has, including the other chapters on income tax.

 

The most enjoyable chapters in the book are those with the more “quirky” data sets, such as the ones on the dung economy worth ₹1 trillion; how Delhi is Bihar’s second-largest city; and the rise of chess in India. Another interesting chapter was the one on Indian districts: “The Indian district isn’t just a unit of administration — it is a living, shifting puzzle. And a nightmare for trivia nerds!”

 

One of the final takeaways in the book, and probably one of its best, is that putting more funds into local governance could potentially result in less polarisation. “One way to reduce polarisation is to push more money, power, and accountability to the local level. It won’t eliminate divisions, but it might insulate governance from their worst effects,” Mr Saran says in “How Our Differences Became Division”. Definitely an idea worth pursuing.