Sita Devi of Radhani Gram Panchayat of Bahraich district of UP went to get her 7-year-old daughter registered at the local government primary school. She was asked to show the child?s birth certificate, which she didn?t have; what is it anyway, she enquired?
She offered her BPL card, voter?s card and a membership card of her self-help group (which had a bank account with the local post office); she even offered to bring her NREG card from the panchayat. But, the local school authorities could not, did not, perhaps even can not, accept any card other than the birth registration certificate. Sita Devi?s daughter has not been attending school.
It is this maze that Nandan Nilekani and the newly constituted UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) would have to deal with to provide a unique identification to each Indian citizen. The country?s competence in information technology, in both human and institutional senses, is unmatched anywhere in the world. So, the technological solution is available. It also appears that the resources are also likely to be made available for this project.
The real challenge in its implementation is the politics of governance reform in the country today. Without such reforms, citizens of India may have identities, not necessarily ?unique?. The methodology of such a governance reform in the systems and institutions of the state in India today is perhaps the most complex institutional change project. As practitioners and scholars of institutional change know very well, individual and systemic ?resistances to change? from a wide variety of vested interests would have to be confronted head on.
Based on practical experience of attempting to reform governance at the grass-roots levels, let me identify some key types of resistances. First, and perhaps most easily recognisable, is the overlapping, confusing and disjointed nature of various ministries and departments of the Central government itself; each has a ?pet? programme and an almost ?unique? methodology to deliver it (depending on the minister and the secretary of the day). The situation gets even more complicated at the level of state governments, where ?unique? methodologies and programmes of service delivery become multiplied several folds. How can we ensure that all Central ministries and departments and all state governments stop behaving in a distinctively ?unique? manner?
Second, when such ?unique? identity is being assigned to each citizen, all other ?not-so-unique? identities should be instantly abolished. The introduction of a new system can be made to work only when contradictory systems are abolished. For the past 60 years, new systems and institutions have been added in the government, but no system, department, law or statute has ever been fully abolished. This is in contrast to the time-tested Indian tradition of Shiva?s ?tandav? dance, to destroy the evil or ineffective to create the new. Institutional change is as much about creating the new as about ?destroying? the dysfunctional old.
The most pervasive resistance comes from the very culture of India, a centuries-old culture of oral and informal interactions. A substantial number of households operate in the informal economy with cash transactions. Even a very large number of not-so-poor folks operate in this way?in the so-called black economy.
In addition, much of the negotiating and contracting is carried out in oral form, thereby reducing the possibility of ?documented? transactions. Over the decades, a large number of citizens have become suspicious of government effort to ?record? information about people?s lives (as the confidentiality of the same has not been guaranteed). How will such resistances be dealt with?
In the final analysis, the success of this project depends on the effective use of political authority to navigate through the politics of institutional reforms. How to address the politics of corruption in the political and official system, which does not like transparency and accountability? How to address the politics of vote banks, so millions of ?foreigners? with voter cards could be identified, and not given the ?unique? national identity? What will the police do if all information about all citizens is uniquely available in one database? What will the banks do if half the citizens with ?unique? identity cards show up to open bank accounts? How will the government?s treasury departments function if information about financial flows is available in real time? And, how would the system ?uniquely? determine when a person has passed away (considering that death registration rates in some parts of the country today are less than a quarter)?
It is indeed a necessary initiative; India cannot aspire to develop further without having such a system of ?unique? identity for all its citizens. But it is not merely a technology transfer exercise; it is comprehensive institutional reform exercise. Maybe Mr Nilekani should sit in the PMO, to be able to harness required leadership and authority. Perhaps he should also think of ways to build a broad-based ownership of this project, to create the momentum needed to overcome the various resistances.
?The author is president, PRIA