Targeted money transfers using Aadhaar: A way to steal elections

The use of targeted money transfers using Aadhaar is a corrupt practice as defined under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. But just 90 days before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, at least 41 million voters received gifts and gratification through direct benefit transfer of at least Rs.623 billion through the PM-KISAN scheme.

A poster for the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG subsidy to consumers scheme, in Hyderabad on June 1, 2013.

Aleksandr Kogan , a professor of Cambridge University, sought consent from users to take a psychometric survey using his app, “This Is Your Digital Life”. The app required the users to log into their Facebook accounts. While profiling the user, the app also captured all the news feed, timeline, posts, messages, direct messages and data of the friends of the user. This data were passed on to Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who reportedly weaponised them in political campaigns in more than 200 elections across the world. In 2017, Cambridge Analytica was caught on camera confessing to the manipulation of elections in Mexico, Malaysia, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Brazil. Cambridge Analytica was also contracted by Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election in the United States and by Arron Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, in the 2016 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom.

There was shock and outrage across the globe against Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. In elections where they were part of the campaign, they were accused of having manipulated the results by their use of blackmail, bribes, coercion or replacement.

Meanwhile, in India, in February 2012, the Nandan Nilekani-led Task Force on an Aadhaar-Enabled Unified Payment Infrastructure pushed for the use of Aadhaar numbers for direct benefit transfer (DBT) to target subsidies, benefits and services to beneficiaries. This called for the expansion of transfer of money, in place of subsidised goods and services, and the use of Aadhaar numbers as a financial address of the beneficiaries.

The use of the Aadhaar number as a financial address for money transfer not only replaced subsidised goods or services to beneficiaries, but it replaced money transfers to bank accounts of beneficiaries that used the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI)National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT). Since then, 452 government schemes across 56 Ministries have been converted to DBT for targeted delivery of subsidies and benefits as money to bank accounts. In most of these schemes, Aadhaar numbers are used to transfer money to beneficiaries instead of their bank accounts even when the bank accounts were readily available.

The transfer of money to Aadhaar numbers, instead of the beneficiaries’ bank account numbers, requires the seeding of Aadhaar numbers to beneficiary lists. Since money must ultimately go to bank accounts, Aadhaar money transfers also require a separate mapping of the Aadhaar number to a bank account. This is maintained by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a non-governmental company that manages Aadhaar payments. This mapping is updated by the NPCI on the basis of Aadhaar numbers seeded to bank accounts by various member banks.

The Aadhaar numbers seeded to the beneficiary lists and bank accounts, therefore, decide the targeting of the subsidy or benefit to beneficiaries. Unlike a list of bank accounts of fixed beneficiaries, the list of beneficiaries now becomes a volatile one that is available for manipulation by seeding or deseeding Aadhaar numbers to beneficiary lists or bank accounts, every time, before making money transfers.

It is strange that this push to use Aadhaar for money transfers was made in the name of transparency as neither the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) nor the Ministry of Finance nor the RBI certifies the Aadhaar numbers as those belonging to beneficiaries or the accounts to which the money actually gets transferred as those with Aadhaar numbers of the list of beneficiaries. The Comptroller and Auditor General has never audited the need, or sanity, to use Aadhaar, which is an uncertified, unverified and unaudited number, to decide inclusion or exclusion from beneficiary lists. Neither has it verified whether those who actually received the money through Aadhaar numbers were those who qualified as beneficiaries. The use of Aadhaar for money transfers enabled an ecosystem of private players to take control of targeting money transfers.

In November 2012, the UIDAI pushed the Election Commission of India to seed Aadhaar numbers to voter IDs. The Election Commission has since been linking Aadhaar numbers to voter IDs in different States through a process of seeding Aadhaar numbers from other databases. The web portals of the Chief Electoral Officers of various States have been providing voters the ability to link Aadhaar to voter IDs. According to former Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat, at least 320 million Aadhaar numbers had been linked to voter ID cards as of March 2018.

It is strange that the Election Commission allowed a number that is unverified and uncertified by the UIDAI and generated by a private ecosystem to be linked to the voter ID. The Aadhaar provides no value to the election process and actually violates the requirements of the Registration of Electors Rules.

This linkage of Aadhaar to voter IDs, however, allowed the selective inclusion or exclusion of voters in beneficiary lists by seeding or deseeding their Aadhaar numbers to the list. It also enabled periodic linking or delinking of bank accounts mapped to the voters’ Aadhaar, allowing selected voters to claim subsidies meant for others and for some to be denied their subsidies.

The combination of money transfers using Aadhaar and linking voter IDs to Aadhaar enabled the manipulation of voters. It now made it possible to either target the gratification of voters by way of selective Aadhaar money transfers or the dissatisfaction of voters by denying the subsidy, benefit or service they are entitled to by excluding them selectively from money transfers. It weaponised money transfers to allow the manipulation of voters and influence their votes.

Selective inclusion

Campaigns by political workers across political parties enthusiastically created beneficiary lists for various government schemes using Aadhaar. The lists of various parties were then used to selectively include or exclude beneficiaries from receiving subsidies and benefits in various government schemes. This means the use of Aadhaar in place of traditional electronic fund transfers in order to transfer benefits or subsidies did nothing other than allow the selective targeting of voters across government programmes.

In 2018 alone, over Rs.3 trillion were transferred to voters using their Aadhaar numbers through DBT. Just 90 days before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, at least 41 million voters received gifts and gratification through DBT of at least Rs.623 billion through the Pradhan Mantri KIsan SAmman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme.

Such targeted money transfers to voters form a gift and gratification of voters. The use of targeted money transfers using Aadhaar is, therefore, a corrupt practice as defined under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. No election in India can ever be free or fair if India continues the Aadhaar programme that manipulates voters.

Targeted manipulation of voters with Aadhaar-linked money transfers makes Cambridge Analytica’s psychometric profiling to target messages look benign and non-corrupt. Shockingly, all this has been done right under the gaze of those whose role it is to protect the democracy and sovereignty of India.

Run by an ecosystem of private players, the Aadhaar programme is the Trojan Horse that has taken control of the democratic process of India. It has destroyed the sovereignty of the people of India. The ways in which Aadhaar compromises Indian democracy and the sovereignty of its people are just the tip of the iceberg.

If Cambridge Analytica’s manipulation of voters in elections across the world was repugnant, the Aadhaar ecosystem’s destruction of democratic processes in India is both treacherous and repugnant. The Election Commission was apprised of how Aadhaar was an instrument to steal elections in December 2018. Why, then, has the Election Commission failed, as yet, to stamp out the government’s Aadhaar programme?

Dr @AnupamSaraph is a Future Designer and a Professor of Systems, Governance and Decision Sciences, Environmental Systems and Business. He has been adviser to governments, NGOs and businesses across Asia, Europe and the United States.