Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the changing contours of citizenship documentation within India through a case study of AADHAR (Unique Identification Scheme) and its wider implications for the relationship between identity politics, technology and citizen-formation.

Paper long abstract:

India has always been culturally diverse, and this diversity has been acknowledged by giving special rights to minority groups leading, in Iris Marion Young's terms (1989), to a group-differentiated citizenship regime. Hence, while in Western democracies citizenship has been centred on the individual, the nodes of citizenship in India have been community-oriented. However, in recent times one can increasingly witness the emergence of the individual as a socio-political unit coinciding with the burgeoning influence of liberal market economy and a 'good governance' paradigm emphasizing a market concept of equality, while turning "citizens" into "customers". This trend is further accentuated by the massive inlets of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) into governance mechanisms having a significant impact on the way citizenship is certified in post-colonial nation-states. Given this wider context, this paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to capture the politics behind the recent Unique Identification Scheme (UID), or AADHAR scheme initiated by the Government of India that seeks to give every Indian citizen a unique identity document. Criticized on the grounds of accumulation and storage of personal data (such as fingerprints and an iris scan), it nonetheless provides a valid identity to people who might not have other formal identity documents, thus giving them a legal status and making them eligible to government benefits. Though declared non-mandatory by the Supreme Court of India in September 2013 for its potential to be exclusionary, this scheme provides important insights into the complex relationship between citizenship, identity politics and use of technology by the government in India.