‘The title of the paper, which mentions democratic backsliding, cannot be an accident.’
New Delhi
A yet to be published economics research paper titled “Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy”, which alleges electoral manipulation in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by the Bharatiya Janata Party, is facing ire from political experts for being dubious research and deliberate misinterpretation of data. In fact watching the ever growing global power base of India, several forces that would much rather have a pliant and weak government in New Delhi may now be attempting to create a global narrative that “India is no longer a democracy”, they say.
The author of the contested piece of research, Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor of economics at Haryana’s Sonipat-based Ashoka University, in his paper, claims that he has “documented irregularity in India’s 2019 general election data by showing that the incumbent party’s win margin distribution exhibits excess mass at zero, while no such pattern exists either in previous general elections or in state elections held simultaneously and subsequently. This implies that the incumbent party in 2019 won a disproportionate share of closely contested elections.” According to this research, the BJP gained an extra 11 seats out of 543. The BJP on its own won 303 seats—way above the majority mark of 272.
However, the researcher also includes a disclaimer saying, “The tests are, however, not proofs of fraud, nor does it suggest that manipulation was widespread.”
Historian and author Hindol Sengupta told The Sunday Guardian: “I am of the considered opinion that while this may have been one academic trying to connect abstruse dots, the title of the paper which mentions ‘democratic backsliding’ cannot be an accident. Therefore, one is compelled to come to the conclusion that while the paper is ridden with ambiguities as such work of complex econometrics usually are, there was little disguised attempt to position it to support the case being made by a couple of Western think-tanks with questionable data against India on ‘democratic backsliding’.”
Sengupta tweeted earlier: “There is a simple and very basic question that the paper does not answer and it is worth asking the academic @AshokaUniv — if ‘voter manipulation’ is the key to winning in national polls, how come the same party does not manage to do so in state elections where a far tighter grip on data and machinery is plausibly possible, but the same party loses, from time to time, state elections as the incumbent?”
Amid the furore, the Ashoka University, which employs the author put out a statement saying “social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their individual capacity does not reflect the stand of the University”.
Das’ paper has not gone through the internationally recognised process where experts in the field put a thesis through academic rigour.
Sengupta told The Sunday Guardian: “It is important to note that the conclusions such that they can be derived from the paper are limited and with several ifs and buts. Primarily, if there is voter manipulation at the national election, how is it that the same party loses state elections or even smaller sub-regional elections? The academic knows these things and the paper offers only very limited scenarios. Yet, the title of the paper is at a very different scale, should I say, and therefore it is my considered opinion that this was a case of positioning for ‘other’ motives which backfired.”
The debate on Das’ paper began on Monday when the erstwhile Twitter thread (now X) by M.R. Sharan, assistant professor at the University of Maryland in the US, went viral.
Sharing excerpts from the paper, Sharan said: “The BJP won the 2019 parliamentary elections in India: but was it ALL fair and square?…” This was picked up by several Congress handles in an attempt to amplify the claim.
Sengupta told The Sunday Guardian: “I think things like these are too easily connected to direct politics. They are often more intricate. As a rising power, India has many segments of the global power base that do not wish to see a strong government in India (of any party or leader which has full majority and wide popularity). These forces would much rather have a pliant and weak government in India. This has always been the case and especially so today. But strong governments are sometimes hard to dislodge and therefore there is an attempt now to create a global narrative that India is no longer a democracy.”
Many others too have not agreed with the content of the paper.
Anant Sudarshan, who teaches economics at the University of Warwick and the University of Chicago, posed a series of questions on the assumptions and methods of Das. He tweeted: “Let’s reiterate that @sabya_economist has written a careful, rigorous, and brave paper. BUT suggestions of election fraud need to clear a high bar and cannot be uncritically retweeted. There are some things about this paper that undercut that bold title.”
He added: “… this is not watertight evidence of fraud IMO. If I were the talented author, I would find some of these poll booth observers and interview them.”
Sengupta said: “If it can be established by repetition and data (since Western data has been shown to be vastly flawed after India was ranked lower than Pakistan and Afghanistan on some parameters), what better than to get academic reference on this from an Indian academic? Therefore, I reiterate that the title of the paper was no accident and actually gives away the game.”