India’s Move Toward ‘Data Nationalism’ and Post-Truth Governance
Government Rejects Global Rankings and Domesticates Democratic Indices
December 16, 2025
Across three major areas involving climate risk, press freedom and economic reporting, the government is steadily moving away from global benchmarks. It is discarding international assessments and building its own homegrown versions instead. These are managed or overseen by government bodies, which gives it more control over both the data and the story the data tells. The result is a system that does not just measure progress. It also quietly rewrites what progress is supposed to mean.
The Environment Ministry recently told Parliament that it does not accept any external ranking as a basis for domestic policy, as reported by The Times of India. The reply came in response to a question about the Global Climate Risk Index, an annual report by the group Germanwatch. The report placed India ninth among the countries most affected by extreme weather in the last three decades. It recorded more than 80,000 deaths and nearly 170 billion dollars in economic losses from 430 major weather events in India since 1995.
The government took a similar position on global air quality rankings, including those by IQAir and the World Health Organization, which often list Indian cities among the most polluted in the world. In response, it pointed to its own Swachh Vayu Survekshan, a national survey that ranks Indian cities based on their clean air initiatives and gives awards on National Clean Air Day. This domestic ranking is different in one important way. It rewards effort rather than results. A city can have poor air quality and still be recognised for its policies. The focus shifts from measuring real conditions to acknowledging declared intentions and official action plans.
A similar pattern can be seen in the government’s reaction to the Global Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. In the 2025 edition, India was ranked 151 out of 180 countries. The Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, L. Murugan, responded by saying that India has a vibrant press and does not need validation from foreign organisations, as reported by Newslaundry. He pointed to the number of registered periodicals and private television channels as evidence of press freedom, but did not address concerns about surveillance, threats to journalists or the growing difficulty of expressing dissent.
Parliament was told that freedom of the press is protected under Article 19 of the Constitution and that oversight is provided through the Press Council of India along with voluntary self-regulation.
In 2024, the government even asked a domestic think tank to begin designing a homegrown democracy index that could counter international ones.
If global benchmarks are rejected again and again for being “biased” or “unclear,” the obvious question is what takes their place. Can official claims of success stand in for results that are independently verified?
One notable exception to this trend is the statistical overhaul announced by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in November 2025. The move is technical in nature and is meant to improve how India calculates its Gross Domestic Product.
The new system, set to begin in 2026, will use 2022 to 2023 as the base year and bring in several techniques that match international standards, according to Outlook Business. These include using double deflation in manufacturing to adjust for inflation more accurately, breaking down company turnover by business segment, and expanding the use of labour force and unorganised sector surveys. The government also plans to rely more on data from Limited Liability Partnership filings, corporate annual returns and construction activity, using an improved commodity-flow method.
After years of criticism over opaque data revisions and economic estimates that appeared to favour political narratives, this statistical revamp seem to be a bid to rebuild trust in the credibility of government data. It is an effort to match global practice, not defy it.
This suggests that India is not turning away from international norms across the board. It is willing to accept global methods when they help improve technical capacity. What it resists are the judgments that come from outside. In effect, the message seems to be this. We want to match the best in the world, but we do not want the world to judge whether we have managed to do it.
This is where the idea of data nationalism comes into focus. The term is often used in legal writing on data localisation and the way states claim authority over information produced within their borders. Legal scholar Christopher Kuner, for instance, has written about data nationalism as part of state efforts to control how data is stored, accessed and used, especially when it originates inside the country.
The definition fits India well. The government has developed its own indices for climate action, digital governance, smart cities and education quality, and these often produce higher scores than international rankings.
Take climate policy, for instance. The Ministry of Environment, along with the think tank CEEW, released a Climate Resilience Index that ranks states based on their policy preparedness rather than their actual climate vulnerability. In digital governance, the National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment, run by the Department of Administrative Reforms, evaluates how well states deliver online services. These scores are regularly cited in official reviews, even though global reports suggest more uneven progress.
Urban development follows the same pattern. The Smart Cities Mission runs a national awards contest that ranks Indian cities on innovation and planning, even as international rankings continue to place them low on infrastructure, pollution and liveability. In education, the Ministry of Education’s Performance Grading Index gives weight to administration and facilities, which results in more flattering scores than global assessments like PISA, which measure learning outcomes.
There is nothing wrong with creating domestic benchmarks. Most countries do it. The problem begins when these are used not to add depth to global reports but to discredit them. At that point, the system stops testing itself and starts admiring its own reflection.
This is also where the risk of post-truth governance becomes real. In such a system, official narratives start to matter more than verifiable facts. Policy decisions begin to rely less on solid evidence and more on what supports a political message or shapes public opinion. It may not always involve spreading falsehoods, but it allows those in power to decide which facts to accept, based on what serves their political interest.
This kind of model is not unique to India. It finds strong echoes in other rising powers.
China has its own Human Rights Action Plan and speaks of democracy with Chinese characteristics. Russia produces state-approved indices on governance and social stability. In both cases, international criticism is dismissed as cultural bias or Western interference. The underlying message is familiar. We are different, we are confident and we will not be judged by anyone else.
However, as the world’s largest democracy, India should have been at the forefront of open data, shared standards and honest comparison. Its scientists, statisticians, journalists and institutions have all contributed to global understanding. But recent choices point toward a more closed mindset, where the government defines not only the policies, but also the facts they are built on.
India does not need to shield itself from scrutiny. It needs more transparency, not less.
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