In global discourse, India is often lauded for its statistical system. In recent years, this image has been dented by concerns about the quality of its core economic statistics. However, much of the criticism rests on lack of investment in data collection machinery, poor design of data collection instruments, and inadequate supervision. The political economy of statistics has received relatively little attention.

Ankush Agarwal and Vikas Kumar, professors of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, and Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India, set out to address this often-overlooked field by carrying out a statistical audit of data for Nagaland. The book's central premise is that the deep and multifaceted relationship between statistics and politics is a defining feature of modern states, and that government statistics are sites of political contestation. This argument is illustrated by an evaluation of official statistics for Nagaland.

Nagaland, located on India's North-Eastern periphery, was the first small state formed after Indian independence. It was granted full statehood in 1963 in response to one of the oldest armed insurgencies on the Indian subcontinent. It has a special status that grants it preferential access to Central government funding. It is also home to a variety of tribal groups that continually compete for political power and resources. Tribes are primarily Christian and speak more than 20 mutually unintelligible languages. Nagaland is home to communities found across the border in neighboring states within India and in Myanmar and has long-standing border disputes with its neighbors. Immigration from the nearby state of Assam, Bangladesh, and Myanmar has led to widespread fears of getting swamped by “outsiders.”

Agarwal and Kumar carefully trace the relationship between these unique political conditions and creating statistics and maps. The introduction sets the stage by noting, “During an exploratory visit to the state to study the abnormalities in census data, we were struck by the multiplicity of mutually inconsistent maps displayed in government offices.” Subsequent chapters carefully trace these errors, relating them to competing claims for resources and political power.

The chapter on census data is fascinating. It notes that Nagaland registered the highest growth in population across India between 1981 and 2001 (from 774,930 to 1,990,036). However, in 2011, the population showed a slight contraction to 1,978,502 while the population in other states was steadily growing. This stagnation in the absence of epidemic disease, natural calamity, and any significant change in its political status and socioeconomic conditions is termed demographic somersault by authors. They attribute it to the political claims of different tribes using inflated figures until 2001, which was then corrected, at least partially, in the 2011 Census.

Authors carefully examine the internal consistency of various censuses and compare with other demographic information and conclude that this is due to inflation of population estimates in successive censuses until 2001, resulting in an overestimation of Nagaland's population by as much as 36 percent. The most exciting part of this chapter is their discussion of possible explanations for this phenomenon. These explanations include political transition following the statehood of Nagaland, an armed insurgency that subsided only in the late 1990s, leading to the deployment of armed forces who would have been included in census, increased coverage of census as the insurgency subsided, and immigration from nearby states and Myanmar as well as Bangladesh. Authors examine each of these and discount their role, arriving at their favored explanation, political claims for power and resources made feasible through inflation of headcount.

After dismissing conventional explanations, the chapter on Winning Censuses argues that a desire to seek favorable policy changes led to deliberate manipulation of the census. A higher census count would allow for the creation of a new district and increased allocation for welfare schemes. For demographers, it is interesting to ask how the numbers game could be manipulated. In some cases, rural to urban migrants were counted in both rural and urban areas. In other instances, village authorities carefully manipulated census figures resulting in the falsification of headcount.

While statistical data often come under attack from scholars who have an inherent mistrust of statistics, the authors of this book are economists trying to uphold the sanctity of statistics. This results in a rigorous examination of statistical data and evaluation of various sources of error. This paradox makes for careful focus on data quality that is rare among books of this genre.

在全球话语中，印度经常因其统计系统而受到称赞。近年来，由于对其核心经济统计数据的质量的担忧，这一形象受到削弱。然而，大部分批评都在于缺乏对数据收集机器的投资、数据收集工具的设计不佳以及监督不力。统计的政治经济学受到的关注相对较少。

印度德里印度理工学院和印度班加罗尔 Azim Premji 大学的经济学教授 Ankush Agarwal 和 Vikas Kumar 着手通过对那加兰邦的数据进行统计审计来解决这个经常被忽视的领域。这本书的中心前提是，统计与政治之间深刻而多方面的关系是现代国家的一个决定性特征，而政府统计是政治争论的场所。对那加兰邦官方统计数据的评估说明了这一论点。

那加兰邦位于印度东北部，是印度独立后第一个小国。1963 年，为了应对印度次大陆上最古老的武装叛乱之一，它被授予完全的国家地位。它具有特殊地位，可以优先获得中央政府的资金。它也是不断争夺政治权力和资源的各种部落群体的家园。部落主要是基督教徒，讲 20 多种相互无法理解的语言。那加兰邦是印度邻邦和缅甸边境社区的所在地，与邻国之间存在长期的边界争端。来自附近阿萨姆邦、孟加拉国和缅甸的移民导致人们普遍担心被“外人”淹没。

Agarwal 和 Kumar 仔细追踪这些独特的政治条件与创建统计数据和地图之间的关系。引言通过指出，“在对该州进行探索性访问以研究人口普查数据中的异常情况时，我们对政府办公室显示的大量相互不一致的地图感到震惊。” 随后的章节仔细追溯了这些错误，将它们与争夺资源和政治权力的主张联系起来。

关于人口普查数据的章节很吸引人。它指出，那加兰邦在 1981 年至 2001 年期间在印度的人口增长率最高（从 774,930 到 1,990,036）。然而，在 2011 年，人口略有收缩至 1,978,502 人，而其他州的人口则在稳步增长。在没有流行病、自然灾害以及政治地位和社会经济条件发生任何重大变化的情况下，这种停滞被作者称为人口翻筋斗。他们将其归因于使用夸大数字直到 2001 年的不同部落的政治主张，然后在 2011 年人口普查中至少部分纠正了这一点。

作者仔细检查了各种人口普查的内部一致性，并与其他人口统计信息进行了比较，得出的结论是，这是由于在 2001 年之前的连续人口普查中人口估计数的膨胀，导致那加兰邦人口高估了 36%。本章最激动人心的部分是他们对这一现象的可能解释的讨论。这些解释包括那加兰邦建国后的政治过渡、武装叛乱仅在 1990 年代后期平息，导致部署了本应被纳入人口普查的武装部队、随着叛乱平息人口普查的覆盖面增加，以及来自附近的移民州和缅甸以及孟加拉国。作者检查了每一个并贬低他们的作用，得出他们喜欢的解释，

在驳回传统解释之后，“赢得人口普查”一章认为，寻求有利政策变化的愿望导致了对人口普查的蓄意操纵。更高的人口普查计数将允许创建一个新区并增加福利计划的分配。对于人口统计学家来说，询问如何操纵数字游戏是很有趣的。在某些情况下，农村和城市地区的流动人口都被计算在内。在其他情况下，村当局小心翼翼地操纵人口普查数据，导致人数造假。

虽然统计数据经常受到天生不信任统计的学者的攻击，但本书的作者是试图维护统计神圣性的经济学家。这导致对统计数据的严格检查和对各种错误来源的评估。这种悖论使得人们更加关注数据质量，这在此类书籍中是罕见的。