On Wednesday, the Columbia University Department of Anthropology hosted a seminar led by Dr. Kriti Kapila about the anthropological questions surrounding the new age of Indian digitalization.

On Wednesday, October 18, the Columbia University Department of Anthropology hosted social anthropologist Dr. Kriti Kapila of King’s College London to deliver their seminar The State as Platform: India After Biometrics. Kapila’s seminar was given as part of the Franz Boas Seminar series, which offers a scholarly perspective on the implications of anthropological questions for modern society. 

Kapila’s work focuses on the role of law and genetics in colonial and contemporary Indian society. In addition to serving as the Academic Director of the International School of Government, they also have extensive experience in educational programming. Wednesday’s talk centered on the recently established Aadhaar system, a twelve-digit number assigned by the government to each Indian citizen and used for a variety of purposes, from identification to financial data collection.

The Aadhaar system is representative of a larger digital phenomenon overtaking the broader world – the use of digital platforms as commercial marketplaces. Networking sites such as delivery services and social media convert all interactions into data, which becomes “their chief product or commodity,” said Kapila. What was thought to be the intermediary stage of a transaction is now the most important as data becomes a new type of raw material. 

India has a long history of biometrically tracking its citizens through census and fingerprint identification, but Aadhaar is radical because it is both universal and mandatory. The system originated as a part of the “Digital India” campaign put in place after the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, which aims to provide India with a competitive advantage in the data industry. The new government regime signaled a shift in technological priorities in India, and the platform differs from earlier biometric tracking in its combination of identification and mandatory financial tracking.

Another component of the “Digital India” program contributing to an increasingly data-driven environment is the India Stack system. The Stack is broken up into four different levels, focusing on consent, cashless payments, paperless documents, and a digital biometric identity (Aadhaar). As a result of this “paperless, presence-less” model, Kapila argued that the government was becoming more and more of an “omnipresent, unseen” force in Indian life.

But in what type of sovereignty does the sovereign essentially disappear? Kapila analyzed the role of government in India over time, shifting from “seen to unseen.” In the age of earlier prime ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, progress, like the construction of a megadam, was large and visible. In our modern age, “infrastructure” is becoming increasingly invisible, which could have consequences for citizens who are unable to turn to a single source for help when they encounter digital issues.

Aadhaar and digitization can also have far-reaching implications for the citizenship and sovereignty of the Indian individual. Since participating in the Aadhaar system is a prerequisite for accessing state services, private, and public transportation, citizens have no choice but share their data with the government for public use. In this way, a citizen’s body becomes a part of the digital infrastructure, “not just the object of its control.” 

After the implementation of Aadhaar, the attorney general argued in the landmark litigation on privacy that Indians do not have complete ownership over their bodies. But who owns the bodies of Indian citizens if not the citizens themselves? Kapila argued that the citizen is “performing a particular type of uncompensated labor for the state,” a debt that can never be paid back. Essentially, they are providing the Indian government with unlimited data and resources—a “gift that offers nothing in return.” This represents a sort of “erasure in the title of the body,” as each individual is no longer just working for themselves.

Kapila connected this unlimited uncompensated labor to a form of slavery, which they later elaborated on in response to audience questions. They claimed that the use of data had “never-ending potential” but never reimbursed the citizen, “tantamount to permanent enslavement.” Individuals are born with the debt they have to pay to the government.

Although the average Indian is arguably disadvantaged at a personal level by the Aadhaar program, it has been championed by both the government and the World Bank. A graduate student in the audience inquired as to how Aadhaar directly connects to state power, and the answer lies in the boost it gives to the economy. By having direct access to information about each citizen’s financial habits, India’s information economy is actively growing.

Another audience question revolved around the broader implications for identity and expression with Indian society. Who gets to define autonomy for the average citizen? Kapila expressed that even in a democratic country, the space for democratic deliberation is shrinking. The space for opposing viewpoints is disappearing day by day, with the goal of keeping each citizen “small” within the larger framework of the government. As Aadhaar continues to permeate the lives of Indian residents, the economic landscape is rapidly transforming, with the potential for “reconfiguration of citizenship in its wake.”

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