Distant, opaque and seamful: seeing the state through the workings of Aadhaar in India

In this paper, I aim to explore in what ways a digital identity system affects the relationship between state and citizen. Invoking ‘seeing the state’ as an analytical lens and adopting ‘anthropology of state’ as a methodological approach, I explore the changing state–citizen relationship through citizens’ everyday encounters with the state and through quotidian practices of the state mediated through material and social practices around Aadhaar, the foundational digital ID system in India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on welfare disbursement in Jharkhand, I argue, when citizens interact with the state through the workings of Aadhaar, they see the state to be increasingly distant, opaque and seamful. My overall objective is to show how the discursive practices through which the state appear in its citizens’ perception changes through the mediation of a foundational digital identity system.