Institute for Social and Economic Change |
Working Paper: 263
Conflict Truths and Contrasting Realities: Are Official Statistics on
Agrarian Change Reliable?V Anil Kumar
Abstract
In this article, we contrast the official secondary data with independently collected primary data regarding some key aspects of agrarian change in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. The main argument of the paper is that while the official statistics on certain aspects are reliable, on other aspects of agrarian change such as land holding structure can be misleading when taken prima facie. In order to get closer to the truth, we need disaggregated original primary surveys, which can portray a nuanced picture of agrarian change over time. This is particularly the case with the longitudinal data pertaining to land ownership.