Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal. A newsletter on Indian politics.As always, if you’ve been sent this newsletter and like it, to get it in your inbox every week, sign up here (click on “follow”).Possibly the most famous tale from the ancient Greek Aesop's Fables is The Boy Who Cried Wolf. A shepherd repeatedly lies about a wolf attack. So when a real one does occur, villagers don’t believe him.Something similar might now be happening with doubts over the Modi government’s GDP data. While the current controversy might not have a leg to stand on, it only exists because the government has played fast and loose with data for so long that Indians simply don’t trust it anymore.Garg orderOn Tuesday, the Modi’s government’s former finance secretary, Subhash Garg, argued that year-on-year economic growth from the first quarter of 2025-’26 to the first quarter of 2026-’27 was not 7.8% – the official government number – but only 2.6%.Worse, Garg alleged that this was not an innocent mistake – it was explicit data manipulation by the Modi government to make itself look good. He claimed that the GDP figures for Q1 2025-’26 had been deliberately revised downwards so as to make the growth rate look higher.“The government has been using this toolkit for the last few years, of over-projecting GDP in the concerned current year by showing high GDP growth in current prices and low or no inflation. In 2024-’25 also, the Q1 GDP in current prices, which was announced at Rs 70.25 trillion in the press release of August 2024, has been reduced to Rs 66.81 trillion.”‘Jobless people’A stung Modi government launched a counter offensive. The news show that Garg made the allegation on was first off the blocks, with the anchor spluttering angrily to rebut his claims during the interview. (This was on a channel owned by Gautam Adani, an industrialist seen to be particularly close to the Bharatiya Janata Party.)Later, the government fielded its key advisors and ministers not only to counter Garg but also call him names. “A few jobless people call themselves economists and appear on TV channels to harm the country,” Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said. The State Bank of India put out a research document starting with the line, “It is difficult to understand why some sections/people are unable to digest that the Indian economy grew by a robust 7.8% y-o-y.”Much of the response by the government and its supporters focused on the allegation that Garg was comparing apples to oranges. The Indian government has put out a new data series that revised the method of calculating GDP. They argued that Garg was comparing across these two series – a conceptual mistake. Crying wolfWhile there is merit to the government’s defence, what is remarkable is the traction Garg got. The former finance secretary has been everywhere over the past two days. Even channels and newspapers seen to bend towards the government have platformed him.Front page pe 2.6% print kar diya .. what is happening to media 😭#GDP pic.twitter.com/2jiIZKKDtC— Niraj Bhatia (@bhatia_niraj23) September 3, 2026