Thanks, Alexa. I actually didn't look much at the graph, one way or another. My point was simply that in a country as large as India (or even not nearly as large), one should be looking at at local rates (and local factors of potential causality) not simply national averages, if ones wants to make heads or tails of a complex set of claims like these.
Your conclusion ("was likely unrelated") differs with what the authors of that study put forth in their abstract, BTW.