Banjot Kaur 
New Delhi: The Union health and family welfare ministry has accepted the resignation of K.S. James as the director of the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), which is responsible for preparing the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
The health ministry had suspended James on July 28, 2023, apparently because it was ‘unhappy with data sets’ in NFHS-5. His suspension was formally revoked last week, only for his resignation – submitted in August – to be accepted hours later.
Copies of the orders revoking his suspension and accepting the resignation are available with The Wire.
“The competent authority, on subsequent review, is of the opinion that in view of material changes in the circumstances, the suspension of Prof. K. S. James may not be extended further,” said the order of the Union health ministry dated October 11, 2023.
Earlier, in July, following his suspension, the ministry had released an unsigned and undated note to the media which claimed that a fact-finding committee found merit, prima facie, in 11 out of 35 complaints allegedly received against James.
“The irregularities were mainly regarding [the] lapses observed in certain appointments, recruitments of faculty, Reservation Roasters, Dead Stock registers, etc. (sic),” it had said.
Even in the note, the ministry did not clarify for what charges the committee found prima facie merit or when the complaints against James were received.
The report of the fact-finding committee was never made public.
An unnamed source, purportedly from the Union health ministry, told The Print that James had participated in a “China-based webinar”, which apparently raised eyebrows within the ministry.
Now, without clarifying the outcome of the inquiry initiated after his suspension, James’s suspension has been revoked. The Wire has sent an email to the health ministry seeking its response. This article will be updated if and when a response is received.
The Wire has reliably learnt that once James’s suspension was revoked on October 11, he was reinstated formally. Within an hour of his reinstatement, his resignation, tendered on “personal grounds”, was accepted.
A source at the institute confirmed that to date, nobody at IIPS, let alone the director’s office, is aware what were the 11 charges that were found prima facie true in the preliminary report of the ministry and led to the director’s suspension.
Since the director’s office was not made aware of those allegations, there was no response to them. However, James’s suspension continued to remain in place until he tendered his resignation.
When The Wire contacted James for comment, he refrained from going into the details about the events leading up to his suspension, its revocation and his resignation. However, he confirmed that he had resigned in August. Currently, he has accepted the position of a short-term visiting scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna.
Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and K.S. James. In the background are students and faculty at the 2022 convocation of IIPS. Photos: Official Twitter and www.iipsindia.ac.in.
‘India’s loss, IIPS’s loss’
The Wire spoke to two IIPS faculty members – one professor and another associate professor – at two departments. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We are angry but we are helpless [about the director’s resignation]. This has never happened before,” said one of the faculty members.
“We can’t resist this,” the professor added.
The faculty member confirmed The Wire‘s earlier report about discomfort within the government about figures on anaemia in NFHS-5, which was released under James’s watch. “There was some pressure… but ultimately it [NFHS-5 data] was published,” he added.
“He held an important position in the committee which finally approves the data before publication and [therefore] he could carry forward the [final] results,” the professor added. The committee consists of several independent domain experts outside the institute. The final stamp of approval, before the data is made publicly available, though comes from the government.
The data showed that anaemia had increased in the NFHS-5 period (2019-21) as compared to the previous round, NFHS-4.
Apart from this, NFHS-5 also revealed that India was not open defecation-free – a claim repeatedly made by the members of the ruling BJP and several Union ministers. The survey showed that in no state or Union Territory (UT), except Lakshadweep, 100% of the population have access to toilet facilities. Similarly, the NFHS-5 data also raised questions about the ‘success’ of the Ujjwala scheme to encourage LPG as cooking fuel.
The professor said there are already talks ongoing of some ‘uncomfortable indicators’ being dropped from the ongoing data collection process for NFHS-6.
The associate professor feared that the credibility of NFHS-6 might go for a toss.
“[The] colleagues working on NFHS-6 are in a tight spot. Some of them do worry about the [data for] indicators [that they are collecting now],” the associate professor said.
NFHS is a large-scale exercise that spans all states and UTs that IIPS undertakes on behalf of the Union health ministry. It provides data on important indicators not just related to health but also other aspects of human development which governments have sought to improve through several targeted schemes. The NFHS data helps understand the ground impact of those schemes and is heavily referenced in academic and policy-making circles at both national and state levels.
Both the faculty members The Wire spoke to also talked about the spillover effect on the institute, especially about various international collaborations that the IIPS could forge.
“Now funding agencies will think twice about sanctioning projects because the message has gone out [that the director was forced to leave for presenting accurate data],” the professor said. Asked to explain further, he said the institute does rigorous surveys not just for the government of India but also partners with agencies such as Unicef and the United Nations Population Fund.
The associate professor said James was successful in launching joint courses with foreign universities. “Several MoUs were signed with them,” the associate professor added. Both of them wondered if that momentum would continue anymore.
One of them said the immediate fallout of James’s resignation is the shifting of the venue for the sixth Asian Population Association Conference that will be held in November next year. It is a coveted conference in the field of demography which will be attended by more than 600 experts from across the globe. Earlier, the conference was to be hosted by IIPS in Mumbai. The associate professor said that until early October, the hosting rights remained with IIPS but it was later changed to an institute in Kathmandu. The Wire could not immediately verify if the change of venue was linked with the ongoing developments at IIPS.