Biometric data's colonial imaginaries continue in Aadhaar's minimal data

Abstract

This paper considers three moments in the treatment of data about race and identity in India. Many elements go into the development of data imaginaries as these change over time. A complete history is beyond the scope of this paper, but I develop three key episodes to explore critical but changing features of interrelations between race, identity and statistical arguments historically. One aim is to explore key features of the argument developed by two significant individuals – Thomas Nelson Annadale and P.C. Mahalanobis – as they sought to develop databases that could answer questions about race formation and, in the case of Mahalanobis, might also be used to develop statistical methods on the one hand and aid governance on the other hand. A second aim is to use this historically based but highly selective investigation to uncover key features of the ideology with which the government of India has presented Aadhaar, its vast biometric identification system powered by authentication technologies afforded by artificial intelligence. This enables me to identify different forms of racial or ethnic identity that could be – and in one or two cases actually have been – implicated in the way Aadhaar has been used in practice.