Most of the time, that is a fair assumption, said Pronab Sen, a longtime civil servant who oversaw India’s economic statistics and the introduction of the new system before retiring in 2016. But small businesses were less able to cope with some big structural changes of the Modi years, he said.

“Corporate India is doing very well,” Mr. Sen said in an interview at his home in southwestern New Delhi. “Noncorporate India, which accounts for about 45 percent of the economy, is not.”

Mr. Modi abruptly recalled the country’s large-denomination currency bills in November 2016. It was a mostly unsuccessful effort to catch people skirting taxes. Large businesses could adapt by asking customers to use credit cards or bank wire transfers for easier transactions. Small businesses, reliant on cash, suffered months of severe disruption.

Seven months later, in summer 2017, a single value-added tax was introduced, partly to better monitor taxable revenue. The new tax replaced a labyrinth of 17 state and national taxes, and considerably curtailed widespread bribery between businesses and tax collectors. Big businesses could afford to hire specialists to cope with the change and the government’s buggy software. Small businesses struggled, and are still struggling, to adjust.

Government economic statistics have not measured the divergence between how small and large businesses were affected by the reforms. The Modi campaign ran partly on its efforts to free businesses from red tape, but it provided no data from the past two years on joblessness, a key indicator of the informal sector’s health.

Disputes over India’s data prompted rancor, including complaints from 108 economists and social scientists who signed a letter in March that contended the Modi government was silencing bad news. “In fact, any statistics that cast an iota of doubt on the achievement of the government seem to get revised or suppressed on the basis of some questionable ideology,” the letter said.

Mr. Modi’s economic policy commission has insisted that the unemployment survey data — which remains unpublished — needs further review. Amitabh Kant, the commission’s chief executive and one of Mr. Modi’s top appointees, said in an interview that “India is creating a lot of jobs, but India is not creating quality jobs.”