Why are you lying Mr.Bidwai?

If there were any 'Hall of Shame' dedicated to Indian media, Comrade Bidwai would be its star attraction. He has displayed an admirable consistency in getting things wrong. It is only recently that his dominance is under threat by Yogendras-come-lately, who are being just as consistent in the failure dept., if not more.

Mr.Bidwai came up with this piece, hollering excitedly, "BJP on a downswing in Gujarat," on Dec.14, 2007 i.e., barely 9 days before the official results were declared. Read it for yourself and laugh out loud, for it is futile to excerpt that one and deprive you of precious humor.

Now, undaunted by the results, Comrade Bidwai is at it again. One would think that the severe rebuke served by Gujarat's electorate will moderate our comrade, but no such luck. There's no stopping him. He comes up with an equally ridiculous piece, titled Why Gujarat , heaping abuse on Gujaratis; panning, what just a week ago, was his favorite party, Congress(Italy); and, finally, torching the reputation of Gujarat state itself.

Apart from the hyperbole that's expected from Mr.Bidwai, obviously in the Marxist mouthpiece, Frontline, this article is riddled with misleading facts. Let's visit few instances that give up his conceit. Mr Bidwai says-

Consider development. Despite high GDP growth, Gujarat’s rank in areas such as health, literacy, education, and hence human development and gender empowerment, has been slipping, according to the official Human Development Report (2004).

You wonder why anyone would look into a 2004 report when it's 2008 already (download report here). Well, the reason is not difficult to see. The report, funded by UN, has been co-authored by some Mrs. Mahadevia, who says , "Gujarat under Modi has fared worse than most states in almost every index of human development. Hunger, disease and death are chronic in the villages."

Clearly, she's a fellow-traveler. It also helps that the report is supposedly deemed official, while there are a multitude of such official reports that attempt to take stock of state's progress. But Mr Bidwai just chose this one.

But this is not all. The crowning glory of the Marxist charade here is that the whole report is based on data from 1991-2001 at most, certainly before the appointment of Narendra Modi as CM. In some cases, which Mr.Bidwai cites conveniently, the numbers are solely from one or two years as you will just see. Raising the pitch a notch higher Mr.Bidwai tosses this nugget at us-

Nothing bears more eloquent testimony to Gujarat’s unbalanced and warped development than the fact that 74.3 per cent of its women and 46.3 per cent of its children are anaemic.

Makes you sit and take notice. But wait, don't be fooled just yet. Mr.Bidwai misquotes the figures. It is 46.3 per cent women and 74.5 per cent children. Check out the figures of other states too.[Table 71 and 69, from pages 315 and 314, for women and children resp.]

Figures below, States:: % women anaemic:: % children anaemic

• TamilNadu 56.5 69
• Gujarat 46.3 74.5
• West Bengal 62.7 83
  

The "eloquence" of Bengal doesn't seem to bother our comrade. Bidwai carries his selective outrage further-

Gujarat’s indices of patriarchy are frightening. The sex-ratio is an abysmal 487:1000 in the 0-4 age-group and 571 in the 5-9 age-group (national averages, 515 and 632 respectively).

Firstly, it is 467:1000 not 487 as Mr Bidwai quotes. Abysmal? Yes. But check the competition. [Table 57, sex-ratio, page 308]

States :: 0-4 age group ::5-9 age group

• Gujarat 467 571
  
• Maharashtra 496 565
  
• West Bengal 481 629
• Kerala 329 408

Mr Bidwai makes it a point not to talk about the Marxist utopia of West Bengal? Makes you wonder why. But, he's not finished, not just yet. He drops another number.

Gujarat’s health indices are barely higher than Orissa’s. The proportion of children under age 2 who receive complete vaccination fell from 53 to 45 per cent between 1998-99 and 2005-06.

Okay, the report doesn't talk about vaccination figures. I am not aware where Mr Bidwai got his numbers. However, what Comrade Bidwai doesn't tell us is that in almost all health indices , numbers from Gujarat are barely higher than Waste Bengal too. Further, they are barely lower than Kerala's in most cases.

One more:

In social sector spending as a proportion of public expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19 among 21 major States.

This is slightly tricky. Lesser spending doesn't necessarily mean bad. It can also mean that taxpayers are losing lesser on wasteful policies or that the efficiency is better which warrants reduced spending. Ah, but then we're talking about comrade Bidwai here. Such inconveniences are quietly buried under the rhetoric that follows.

Read it, it's quite entertaining. All we're left to do is to wonder why Mr Bidwai prefers to lie repeatedly! The tone of the article is unmistakably hostile to Narendra Modi and Gujarat. While the CM, Mr Modi, cannot be held accountable towards index figures prior to his tenure, the populace of Gujarat does not fare anywhere close to the dire picture that Mr Bidwai has painted here.

Anyway, I don't think our comrade is listening. You can bet he will persist with his tunnel vision.

Update Jan 14: Figures from Kerala added.