People should never be just a number. But these days, they are not even a number.
Among all the ways in which governments blindside a citizen, perhaps the most comprehensive is ‘data invisibility’, or invisibilising a citizen in data. As data is necessary for decisions and policy, no action is possible without the relevant population numbers. For example, most recently, the Central government said in Parliament that there is no data on farmers who had died in farmers’ protests. This robs the farmers of recognition and respect and their families of compensation and gratitude.
The government had the wrong kind of data on the farmers’ protests. First, that the protests were being done by rich farmers. In fact, most farmers were small and marginal. Second, that the farm laws only hurt the middlemen, and they were protesting. In reality, most were farmers and their families. Third, that anti-national elements had infiltrated the protests. In truth, they were pro-national, which is why they won in the end.