Aadhaar: How did we throw the baby out with the bath water?

Book Review of The Making of Aadhaar authored by Ram Sewak Sharma

The biggest regret expressed by Ram Sewak Sharma in the book, is the limitation on usage of Aadhaar. Peculiarly, I share this regret. Consent based, widespread commercial use of Aadhaar truly could have been a fundamental change. 

How did even staunch supporters of Aadhaar turn against it? Is a book still waiting to be written once we are at a reasonable distance from this bit of contemporary history.

While most would find “The Making of Aadhaar” written by Ram Sewak Sharma as a bold narrative by a career bureaucrat, from my perch I find it polite and politically correct and yet eminently readable.

On the cover is an endorsement by Late Pranab Mukherjee, the story of Aadhaar is as much about the undercurrents between him as the Finance Minister and Chidambaram as the home minister that polarized into the pro-Aadhaar and pro-NRC (National Register of Citizens) camps. 

Aadhaar was rubbing salt in the wounds caused by the worst ever handling of the Indian economy by Finance Minister Mukherjee. That the then Secretary, Banking was micro-managing banks with a circular a day and forcing Aadhaar amongst various other things on them was certainly not helping. UIDAI was seen as a proxy to derail Ministry of Home Affairs projects.

That no reconciliation took place between NRC and Aadhaar at the outset strengthened these suspicions. Chidambaram was quite vocal about his opposition to Aadhaar at that stage, only later when he rightly got back into his chair at the Ministry of Finance and could hammer out a reconciliation, financial prudence and turf issues, did he support Aadhaar. He saw the benefit of Aadhaar for Direct Benefit Transfers and Financial Inclusion.

This turf war between the Ministry of Finance backed UIDAI and Chidambaram run Ministry of Home Affairs saw a meeting of minds between Dr. B K Gairola then Director General NIC and Mr. C. Chandramouli, the then Registrar General of India, a very upright and competent bureaucrat who handled the NRC project and felt that was the right way.

Gairola viewed the private sector with high suspicion. Nandan Nilekani coming from the private sector was chipping away at the supremacy of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Gairola used the name of a political family often. This created an impression of a parallel chain of command and gave him firepower within the system.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology with R. Chandrasekhar at its helm was the other important stakeholder. The Ministry was obviously unhappy with the fact that UIDAI was a part of the then Planning Commission and not a department under their jurisdiction.  

While they would not oppose Aadhaar, the support for the project was perfunctory. Principally, Chandrashekhar was a great champion of public private partnership and pragmatic enough to accept that in the face of a severe lack of state capacity, enlightened self-interest from the private sector was the best we could deal with. He understood and appreciated this new construct in the government.

CERT and the security establishment had their own reservations related to choices of technology, security, and privacy issues. Both Nandan Nilekani and Ram Sewak Sharma would have had a tough job charting these very choppy waters. 

At this juncture probably the support of Sam Pitroda for Aadhaar and his very strong relationship with Dr. Gairolla would have also come into play to help the project move along. That both Nandan and Ram Sewak Sharma were far more receptive to plurality of views while at the helm of UIDAI also helped and provided a periodic pressure valve for the noisy democracy to let out its steam.

The biggest challenge to Aadhaar actually came from within the government which set the stage for eventual judicial clipping of its wings, however much the narrative may be twisted to put the blame at the door of civil society.

The book, "Making of Aadhaar" touches the internal battles cursorily and the role of civil society at length.

Civil society got hyper-active post Ram Sewak Sharma moving out of UIDAI. Officers who followed him were a bit like a bull in a China shop, completely convinced on use of state power to trample all dissent. Bravado and gloating are not hallmarks of good governance under any circumstances. So are blatantly untrue statements and technological misleading of the system. The Draconian persona running Aadhaar at this stage rubbed on their own image on Aadhaar and its possibility of misuse. Enter civil society. Some well-meaning, some habitual protesters and others simply lobbying for businesses that would hurt if Aadhaar were to be commercially implemented.

A crackdown on all forms of dissent to Aadhaar followed. This was entirely a bureaucratic effort and had no political blessings. The communication and the body language were all wrong. Statements like “Let that journalist go to his child’s school and explain why his papa’s name needs to be changed?” created a sense of national outrage. 

This perhaps is a milder example from a very long list of actions that would not be recorded as exemplary bureaucratic response to dissent. These actions amplified the latent fears manifolds and convinced the public and the courts to limit the usage of Aadhaar. They had stopped unbridled power in hands of the bureaucrat without realising that the baby was being thrown out with the bath water.

The lesson learnt, or the lesson lost, is that meaningful dialogue with the correct stakeholders in a participatory democracy is extremely important. You cannot pretend to dialogue only with the people who are visibly a part of the same eco-system to create an echo chamber. The result will always be a push back and everyone loses.

 Aadhaar is a watershed development in our lifetimes. No other single initiative has sped up India’s Digital journey as much as this single step. Restricting the commercial use of Aadhaar is a national loss, and perhaps with time, all of us will get together to review this and correct whatever needs to be corrected.

A large part of the blame for throwing this baby out with the bath water lies with the inept handling of bureaucrats at UIDAI post the departure of Ram Sewak Sharma. The newer lot hopefully will undo the damage.

There are many parallel narratives. I am certain that this book is not the last word on the subject. In the meanwhile do buy and read the book, it will be a valuable addition to any library.