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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the emergence and political economy of a private industry for customised socio-economic data in India. Moving away from statist conceptions of statistics, it highlights the role of non-state actors in the production and use of quantitative knowledge for development policy.

Paper long abstract:

The statistical system in India, created as a tool of colonial governance, was subsequently refashioned and became an integral element of planning in the post-colonial era (Menon 2022). In this context, the production of statistical knowledge by the state was seen as a necessary public infrastructure. The emergence of a neoliberal political economy and transformations in development ideology, entailed a shift in this infrastructure. The widespread popularity of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) as an empirical tool of quantitative social science in the last two decades, facilitated the emergence of an alternative machinery to produce the customised data required for such evaluations (Reddy 2012). An industry of private survey firms now exists in India, which is engaged by development actors to produced tailored data for RCTs and non-RCT surveys. These customised data collection exercises are primarily funded by philanthropic institutions seeking to create “social impact” through “evidence-based interventions”. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Delhi, this paper examines the origins and political economy of this industry for customised development data in India. Through interviews with elite actors that comprise this industry, it analyses how privately produced data has become an input into public policy, and what this alternative system for quantitative knowledge can tell us about the ideological underpinnings of India’s current development trajectory. In doing so, this paper seeks to advance literature in anthropology and development studies on the social and material foundations of elite knowledge and the intermeshing roles of state, international and private actors in contemporary development practice.