4 what they could do if it is compromised). Over 800 mil- lion Indian residents were enrolled by 2015. Aadhaar: Initially, Aadhaar was projected as a voluntary facility for all residents. Although in the UPA-2 years Uniquely Indian the use of Aadhaar spread rapidly, it was more or less confined to welfare applications. This changed dra- matically in 2016 after the Aadhaar Act was passed. Dystopia? Since then, it has been made compulsory for many services. What started as a voluntary ID gradually be- came compulsory, and there is a danger of it becoming Reetika Khera the only ID for certain uses. Compulsory Aadhaar is a very different thing from a voluntary Aadhaar. This piece discusses some of the troubling ques- tions – legal, technological, and related to its applica- tion – about the Aadhaar project, its implications for privacy, civil liberties, surveillance and tracking, and Introduction how this impinges on the functioning of a democracy. In doing so, the paper seeks to make connections with n 28 January 2009, the Government of India ongoing debates in other parts of the world – debates constituted the Unique Identification Authority that arise from the growing influence of technology of India (UIDAI) through a Gazette notification. and technology companies. OThe main aim was to “generate and assign UID to resi- dents”, where UID refers to “Unique Identity”. The brand name “Aadhaar” (meaning “foundation” in some Indian Why Aadhaar? languages) and a logo followed. The Aadhaar project came to be seen as one of the flagship schemes of the sec- Over the years, the UID project has reinvented itself – ond United Progressive Alliance (UPA-2) government as a welfare-enhancing technocratic initiative, a proj- (2009–2014).1 ect for financial inclusion, an administrative aid The idea behind Aadhaar was to provide each against terrorism and for better tax administration, Indian resident a unique number, the uniqueness of and, most recently, as a big data opportunity. Some of which is guaranteed by biometric identification (and these narratives are outlined below. demographic details if need be). At the time of enrol- ment, people provide the following demographic in- The welfare façade and technocratic tyranny formation: name, gender, date of birth, parents’ (or in welfare husband’s) name, residential address and any other information that the government may prescribe (bar- The most morally forceful framing of Aadhaar was as an ring caste, religion and a few other sensitive attri- enabler of welfare. Identity and inclusion were the twin butes). They are also required to submit photographs, objectives that proponents used to sell the idea to the ten fingerprints and both iris scans. These are stored in Indian public. The early media blitz (in the national and the UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository international press) was focussed on the “transforma- (CIDR). For the purpose of generating a unique num- tional” potential of Aadhaar. The claim was that having ber, the UIDAI does a one-on-n match, i.e., each new an Aadhaar number would enable inclusion. Non-exis- enrolee’s details are matched against each existing per- tent (“bogus”, “duplicate”, “ghost”) beneficiaries were ev- son in the CIDR who has been issued a unique num- erywhere, according to this narrative, and Aadhaar, be- ber. This is supposed to guarantee uniqueness. ing centralized and unique, would sanitize beneficiary In September 2010, the UIDAI began issuing databases. By ensuring “inclusivity” and corruption-free Aadhaar numbers to Indian residents. With the im- implementation, it would be a “game-changer” for wel- pending threat of making Aadhaar compulsory for wel- fare in India. Early on, this understanding of the prob- fare programmes, and an incentive-based private agen- lems in welfare administration was shown to be flawed cy led enrolment model, enrolment picked up quickly (Khera 2011), yet over time Aadhaar became de facto even though there was no legal framework guiding the compulsory for accessing welfare benefits. project. The legal vacuum had serious consequences be- There is plenty of evidence (including in the gov- cause a proper legal framework would have defined the ernment’s own data) of the problems associated with the rights of ordinary people vis-à-vis the state (e.g., give application of Aadhaar in welfare. What is brushed clarity about why their data was being collected and aside as teething problems or rare imple mentation is- economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Volume 21 · Number 1 · November 2019 Aadhaar: Uniquely Indian Dystopia? by Reetika Khera 5 sues are routine – not rare – occurrences: people have of reasons – connectivity issues, electricity supplies, bio- been shut out of their pensions, Public Distribution Sys- metric authentication failures, etc. Authentication by the tem (PDS) rations, hospital ser- vices, savings, and mobile connec- Reetika Khera is an associate professor (economics) at the Indian Institute of Management, tions, etc. In the poor state of Ahmedabad. Her main interest is in social policy and has been drawn to research on Jharkhand alone, the use of Aad- technology with the increasing use of technology in welfare programmes. [email protected] haar has been made compulsory in the PDS and has resulted in the deaths of over twenty people after they were denied PDS beneficiary in person means that people like Olasi Hans- rations due to Aadhaar-related failures (Khera 2019a). da, who lives alone and has limited mobility, are simply Earlier, to get any social benefits, people needed excluded, despite possessing all documents, including to meet the eligibility criteria for the scheme in ques- Aadhaar. For others it means increased transaction costs tion. There were many hurdles along the way: learning in terms of repeated visits, longer waiting times, etc. about the existence of such schemes, figuring out eligi- bility criteria, running from pillar to post to under- Enabling financial inclusion stand application procedures, and the required sup- porting documents, etc. What Aadhaar has done is to There are many barriers to financial inclusion in India add a few new hurdles at the finishing line, pushing it – lack of documents for Know Your Customer (KYC), further out of people’s reach. limited reach of the banking system, costs of servicing The first new hurdle is getting an Aadhaar num- new customers, etc.2 The lack of KYC documents was ber. While it is true that only a tiny fraction now do singled out as the main cause of financial exclusion, and not have Aadhaar, this can add up to a large number Aadhaar was again projected as the only – and best – and can concern those who are the most in need of way forward.3 Combined with “banking correspon- state support. For instance, in December 2017 I met dents” who would act as extension counters of banks in Kapil and Savitri Paikra in Surguja (Chhattisgarh). areas where regular bank branches were not financially Kapil Paikra has been bedridden since 2009 after a bad viable, this was another way in which Aadhaar was sup- road accident. His PDS rations have been discontin- posed to improve financial inclusion. According to the ued as he has not submitted his Aadhaar number. He World Bank data on financial inclusion, between 2014 has never been able to enrol for Aadhaar because he and 2017 the proportion of those aged 15 years and has been bedridden since before Aadhaar was above who had an account rose from 53% to 79%. Al- launched. Savitri asked, “Can I carry his bed to the most half (23% in 2014 and 38.5% in 2017) had made Aadhaar enrolment centre?” no deposit or withdrawal in the past year. It is hard to The second new hurdle is linking the Aadhaar tell from the available data whether this improvement is number with each new scheme for which it is made on account of Aadhaar, or the result of other govern- compulsory. This is not as small a demand as it seems: ment and RBI initiatives, or simply a function of time, a single trip can be cumbersome for the elderly; in or (most likely) the combined result of all these factors. many cases, the task cannot be accomplished in one Another potential contribution of Aadhaar is a reduc- trip. In 2011, in Ranchi District, an old man was being tion in the cost of acquiring new customers. forced to open a new bank account because the govern- Some felt that Aadhaar would facilitate a transi- ment wanted to route his pension to an Aadhaar-linked tion to cash transfers (in lieu of in-kind transfers). Cash bank account instead of the local post office. The other- was viewed as a better option as it is believed to be less wise helpful banking correspondent had to turn him prone to corruption.4 Though cash was not explicitly away because one key document was missing. A few pushed by the UIDAI, the early welfare claims and minutes later, we saw the man squatting by the roadside Nilekani’s 2008 book (Imagining India) betrayed some on the road home, which was about a kilometre away. indications of this. For instance, “interoperability” and When we asked why, he said he couldn’t walk any fur- “portability” (i.e., welfare benefits that can be claimed ther – he was too exhausted from the excursion. In anywhere, especially important for migrants) were pro- 2013, in East Godavari, the “pioneer” district in linking jected as desirable and only possible within the Aad- the PDS to Aadhaar, I met Jyothi, a young Dalit mother haar eco-system. Aadhaar, it was claimed, would elimi- of twins. For some reason, which nobody was able to nate intermediaries and thus corruption also. explain to her, the new system would no longer allow her to draw her rations.