How do you know if your data are crap(垃圾；废话)? You go and look at the toilets. In 2018 Rajasthan, a state in north-western India beloved by tourists, declared that it was “open defecation-free(无露天排便)”. Separately, government auditors visited dozens of villages in the state to inspect homes built under a government housing-subsidy scheme. “Interestingly”, the report notes, 49% of houses had no toilets. Despite the disclosure, data dashboards continued to show potty penetration(厕所普及率（幽默说法）) at 100%. Interesting indeed.
你怎么知道你的数据是垃圾？去厕所看看就行了。2018年，拉贾斯坦邦——印度西北部一个深受游客喜爱的邦——宣称已实现“无露天排便”。与此同时，政府审计员走访了该邦数十个村庄，检查政府住房补贴计划下建造的房屋。报告指出，“有趣的是”，49%的房屋没有厕所。尽管这一数据已公开，数据仪表盘仍显示厕所普及率为100%。确实有趣。
It is not uncommon, anywhere in the world, for one wing of government(政府的一个部门) to have no idea what another is doing. But that vignette(小插曲；短文) is not petty snark(尖刻评论；嘲讽) from a columnist. It is contained in a recent report from Niti Aayog(① 背景：Niti Aayog（国家转型...), the government’s own think-tank, that laments the quality of statistics in India. The risk of inaction, it said, is that “policy rides on numbers no one fully trusts(政策依赖于无人完全信任的数字)”. That was just the starkest of six risks it listed.
在世界任何地方，政府的一个部门不知道另一个部门在做什么，这种情况并不罕见。但那个小插曲并非专栏作家的无聊嘲讽。它出自印度政府自己的智库——Niti Aayog最近的一份报告，该报告对印度统计数据的质量表示惋惜。报告称，不作为的风险是“政策依赖于无人完全信任的数字”。这只是它列出的六个风险中最严峻的一个。
For decades after independence India boasted a statistical infrastructure far superior to what its level of development would suggest. But the system suffered from both neglect and political interference. Matters reached a nadir(最低点；谷底) in the 2010s under governments led first by a distracted and scandal-plagued Congress Party(心不在焉、丑闻缠身的国大党) and then by an inexperienced and ideological Bharatiya Janata Party(缺乏经验、意识形态浓厚的印度人民党). Controversies in 2018 and 2019—over GDP calculations, unemployment rates, payroll data and consumption—sapped(削弱；逐渐消耗) confidence, at home and abroad, in India’s numbers. After one incident, two officials at the National Statistical Commission(① 背景：成立于2006年，独立于统计部...), a regulator, resigned in protest.
独立后的几十年里，印度曾拥有远超其发展水平的统计基础设施。但该系统同时遭受忽视和政治干预。2010年代，在先是心不在焉、丑闻缠身的国大党，后是缺乏经验、意识形态浓厚的印度人民党领导下，事态跌至最低点。2018年和2019年围绕GDP计算、失业率、薪资数据和消费的争议，削弱了国内外对印度数字的信心。在一次事件后，监管机构国家统计委员会的两位官员辞职抗议。