Slight spelling anomalies and mismatched fingerprints keep a child out of school or a family
from their ration entitlements. https://thewire.in/special/tears-queues-and-a-never-ending-search-for-kagaz-the-real-story-of-aadhaar
At the Inderlok Aadhaar centre, the day's heat rises. So does people's frustration with a system that treats them with a callousness they have done nothing to deserve.
Their only fault is being born in a country with many languages which decided to impose a unique identity, attached to biometrics, now mandatory for basically everything. This ID card is depriving them of their most basic rights: the right to education, the right to food.
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At the Inderlok Aadhaar centre, the day's heat rises. So does people's frustration with a system that treats them with a callousness they have done nothing to deserve.
Their only fault is being born in a country with many languages which decided to impose a unique identity, attached to biometrics, now mandatory for basically everything. This ID card is depriving them of their most basic rights: the right to education, the right to food.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) hits the underprivileged the most. It drives them to despair, this search for their own identity, based on paperwork or kagaz.
The kagaz can go wrong with the slightest spelling mistake - a lady in queue at the Inderlok Aadhaar centre is there to correct a half s in Hindi to a full s - or with fingerprints not matching as children grow up or adults grow old.
Out there is an apathetic system that is hell-bent on pushing the Aadhaar for every service, even school enrolment.
There is scattered media coverage of children not being able to go to school because of lack of Aadhaar - but nowhere close to sounding the alarm bells on how the goal of universal enrolment being perused in lofty official documents lies by the wayside.
Teachers and principals voice concern about ground reality. Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar reported on April 22 that a parents' forum in Haryana has said that children whose parents do not have a 'permanent address' have complained that they are being denied an Aadhaar card and, consequently, school enrolment.
The e-KYC of ration cards is supposed to weed out cheaters. But what it is doing is helping the state cut down on the poor's right to a minimum amount of free food.
Journalist Rahul Bhatia says the biometric identity Aadhaar took shape as a Hindutva instrument of surveillance, but was pushed with the carrot of welfare to make it palatable in a big, complex country.
Big numbers, unverified, were dangled to show how much the smart identity card would save the country - in terms of stemming leakages in welfare schemes. No one checked to see if those numbers were correct, or where they came from.
"The discourse then becomes how technology will have this net benefit. Meanwhile, we are not looking at whether it has been audited, who is designing it, where the data flow is. These are important discussions in a country that is going digital in a huge way," says Bhatia, author of The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy, a book released last year.
by Aparna Kalra
29/05/2025