Agartala May 21: The recent National Family Health Survey that was conducted between 2019 and 2021 busts many myths and also confirms some ugly realities of India.

Numbers and data should be the two deities that any self-respecting media professional should respect and revere. Unfortunately, in the din and noise of acrimonious debates that revolve around matters of faith, a treasure trove of fascinating data that showcases an India that is both changing and clinging on to past prejudices is being largely ignored.

We are talking about the data released by the latest National Family Health Survey that was conducted across the country between 2019 and 2021. While the data released by the NFHS is sufficient to fill up at least a few full-length books, let us focus on just five data points that reflect the reality of India.

1. Swachh Bharat is still a work in progress: Globally, one of the most talked about achievements of the Narendra Modi regime is its determination to ensure that every household in India has access to a functional toilet. Dozens of states and hundreds of districts have issued self-congratulatory notes declaring that open defecation is now part of a sordid past and history.

But the latest NFHS report reveals that open defecation is still widely practised across the country. According to the survey, close to 26% of Indians still do not use modern, functional toilets.

That is a staggering 350 million people; almost equal to the entire population of the United States of America. Bihar leads the list of infamy with close to 44% saying they still defecate in the open. Predictably, Kerala performs the best with just 0.4% defecating in the open.

The shocker comes from Tamil Nadu where almost 34% defecate in the open. We are waiting to see the gender split in this set of data, as the authors know the toilets played a critical role in swaying women voters towards the BJP in recent assembly elections, since it became a tool not just on the issue of hygiene and sanitation, but more importantly a tool on the issue of sexual crimes against women in rural part.

It’s an open secret that the majority of sexual harassment against women in the countryside happens when they go into the fields almost always in darkness, either in the wee hours of morning or late hours after dusk. Is there any gender skew in using the toilets as far as rural India is concerned? We are still looking for answers in the detailed dataset.

2. Women remain on the wrong side of the digital divide: The most revolutionary product and technology that has transformed the lives of billions of people across the world is the mobile phone. It has not only helped people connect faster and better with each other, but also helped them dramatically increase productivity and incomes.

Think of a barber or an electrician whose customer base and income has multiplied manifold because of a smart phone.

But women in India still lag behind their male counterparts when it comes to ownership and usage of mobile phones. According to the NFH Survey, 54% of women in India own a mobile phone, while the national average is 93%. There can be no data that reveals the cruel reality of the gender gap in the digital divide that persists even now.

The worst performing state is Madhya Pradesh with just 39% of women owning a mobile phone. Surprisingly, “developed” states like Gujarat and Maharashtra also reveal gender discrimination with figures of 48.8% and 54.6% respectively. During the previous round of NFH survey in 2015-16, about 46% of women owned a mobile phone. There is improvement, no doubt, but at a painfully slow pace.

3. Indian wives can and do say no: Recently, a two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court created a stormy controversy when it delivered a split verdict in a case related to alleged marital rape. This has been a contentious issue in the country for decades. While one section feels that making marital rape a punishable offence under law will severely undermine the institution of marriage, many others are convinced that denying a wife the agency to say no to her husband when even a sex worker enjoys that right is a grotesque denial of justice.

4. How big is the middle class in india? Ever since economic reforms were unleashed in India, the actual size and purchasing power of the Indian middle class has been a matter of conjecture, debate and controversy. While the optimists are convinced that the Indian middle class with enough money to buy gadgets and goodies is the second largest after China, the cynics and large sections of the western media scoff at such claims and insist that the Indian middle class is so small that many multinationals tend to ignore the country in their present and future marketing and sale strategies.

5. Urdu is a South Indian language: Many Indians lament that the beautiful Urdu language is languishing in India as it is being ignored in mainstream discourse. Many more Indians are convinced that Urdu is primarily a North Indian language that is being gobbled up by fanatic proponents of Hindi.