On Sir Listen To Digital Governance And Aadhaar Pioneer

The government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) need to carefully read criticisms of the latest round of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by one of the country’s digital governance pioneers. In an article in this newspaper, Ram Sewak Sharma — who, as the founder director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), played a central role in building the infrastructure that governments now rely on for welfare delivery — amplified concerns voiced since the commencement of the SIR. The ECI has invited criticism for not balancing the legitimate imperative of updating the voter list — removing duplicate or deceased voters while ensuring that newly eligible citizens are enrolled — with the equally compelling obligation to avoid wrongful exclusion. Reports have pointed out that the burden of eligibility lies primarily, and unfairly, on the citizen. People are being asked to furnish proof of birth, residence and citizenship, when, as Sharma points out, the state itself has rarely been diligent enough to keep such records.

In Aadhaar, India has a technologically sophisticated framework for identity verification. However, as Sharma argues, by not regarding the document as credible address proof for the SIR, the state is failing to make meaningful use of a database — which also carries biometric details and proof of age — that it has created. The philosophy behind India’s Digital Public Infrastructure has been to ask less, not more, of citizens. The SIR seems to be moving in the opposite direction — as Sharma writes, by “using a document-heavy method to solve a problem the country has already solved”.

A procedure that carries the possibility of disenfranchisement demands the closest constitutional scrutiny. The government and the ECI, therefore, can ill afford to ignore the words of one who was part of the system not very long ago: “A republic that takes its duties seriously does not make its people prove again and again they belong.” The Supreme Court — which pushed the ECI to be inclusive when the SIR process began but appeared less vigilant when the exercise was held in West Bengal — should urge the poll body to take note of Sharma’s warning: “India has a DPI the world now studies. It would be perverse to declare that none of it can be trusted.”