Book review: Tarangini Sriraman. In Pursuit of Proof

In her timely book, Tarangini Sriraman examines a topic of considerable interdisciplinary interest to scholars of India: the role of government documents in fashioning the relationship between the state and its subjects. As the author notes, there is a rich literature on this subject across fields ranging from history to anthropology. Her analysis seeks to contribute to this scholarship by focussing attention on how a variety of populations have sought to insert themselves within processes of document production. Recognizing the collaborations and contestations between the Indian state and these populations in the ‘popular making of ID documents’ is essential, Sriraman argues, to understanding claim-making, welfare and state–society relations in independent India.

The real strength of Sriraman’s book is in her empirical efforts to uncover this popular making of IDs across several document types and multiple historical periods. Her efforts begin with examining the transformation of the ration card, from its origins as a British administrative effort to handle wartime scarcity (Chapter 1), to a starring role in India’s post-independence efforts to count, discipline and dispense benefits (Chapter 2). She also analyses the tiered documentation afforded to Partition-induced refugees in the Kalkaji neighbourhood of Delhi (Chapter 3), and the range of documents used by poor migrants in Delhi’s Govindpuri settlement to establish proof of their residence and status within the city (Chapter 4).

Sriraman blends an impressive range of methodological strategies to present these analyses, while maintaining a spatial focus on the capital city and its surroundings. She frequently combines archival research with interviews of key (mostly) government officials, such as members of the Department of Food and Supplies and the Delhi Development Authority, the operators of fair price shops, and the staff within the relatively new Unique Identification Authority of India tasked with the roll-out and management of Aadhar. She also draws on several years of ethnographic research among long-standing poor migrant communities living in Govindpuri, an informal settlement, and with seasonal migrant communities accessed at a bus terminal and Aadhar enrolment centres.

These wide-ranging empirical efforts yield tangible pay-offs. Most clearly, Sriraman’s account challenges depictions of vulnerable populations as passive targets of government classification and enumeration. Sriraman is hardly blind to the punitive and often arbitrary nature of these high-stakes processes. Yet, she also shows how Partition refugees, internal migrants and slum residents routinely insert themselves into processes of enumeration and document production, and in doing so alter, delay and even sometimes upend them. Her book is especially valuable in highlighting interesting continuities across periods and document types in such efforts. For example, in Chapter 3 she studies post-Partition refugee associations and their activities within unauthorized housing colonies in Delhi. The leaders of these associations became influential in enabling the collection of survey data on their neighbourhoods for the purposes of regularization and resettlement schemes. In later chapters, we see clear parallels with active efforts by informal slum leaders in Govindpuri to manage the process of enumerating households for documents certifying eligibility for resettlement and other benefits.

Sriraman also offers a welcome degree of nuance in her portrayal of Indian bureaucrats. It is easy to pillory these actors and portray them as monolithically corrupt and self-interested. Yet, such a view would obscure the many genuinely collaborative moments that emerge between bureaucrats and residents in the making of IDs. Sriraman interviews retired food officials, who narrate episodes in which they clearly broke protocol, especially when they found eligibility requirements too onerous. Many of these episodes occurred in the 1960s and 1970s—the height of the License Raj. Sriraman notes the significance of this fact in countering depictions of public officials in this era as ‘characterized only by venality, ubiquitous malpractices, and mercenary impulses’ (p. 51). In Chapter 3, she describes how refugee associations induced sympathy from key officials, and in one remarkable episode (with an association of refugees from Mirpur, a district in Pakistan-administered Kashmir), even mobilized an entire ministry to lobby other ministries on their behalf.

While packed with interesting insights and nuggets, the book’s broad scope is occasionally to its detriment. First, the author’s desire to engage with a wide range of theoretical arguments and literatures often undermines the clarity of her own central arguments, both within and across chapters. These lengthy discussions also reduce the readability of the text, and prevent the reader from quickly getting to the fascinating empirical materials that are the core contributions of this book. Second, the book would have been strengthened by a greater willingness to consider alternative interpretations of its evidence. In Chapter 2, the dilemmas officials faced in enforcement decisions are often framed in the language of emotional dilemmas. The evidence of this comes from the interviewed officials who couch their discretionary decisions to go against official guidelines, and even misreport violations, as evidence of their sympathy for the populations they inspect. Yet, Sriraman does not sufficiently dwell on the fact that the bureaucrats whose testimony she relies on to make these arguments may have clear incentives to portray their motivations in this manner. Finally, the book provides insufficient justification for why particular IDs and historical periods are chosen over others, and the implications of these choices for the arguments made.

None of these concerns should detract from the overall appeal of this study, which is especially timely, given the highly contentious efforts of the Indian government to implement a unique biometric identification system. Indeed, Sriraman’s final substantive chapter contributes to this discussion by noting how the process of Aadhar enrolment she observed in Delhi depends upon applicants providing acceptable paper documents verifying their identity. She narrates the episode of an old man who was told his ration card could not serve as the required document to issue his son an ID card. When the man pointed out ration cards are only issued to heads of households, he was told that little can be done except for him to pursue an alternative paper-based ID for his son. The transformative potential of Aadhar is clearly undercut by its reliance on the edifice of prior paper-based documentation, with all their attendant limitations.

She also notes that Aadhar would pose significant problems for disadvantaged communities, even if its technology were to work as planned. In particular, her book shows that these communities rely on their ability to move freely between IDs, to negotiate, and even to counterfeit, in order to access welfare. In foreclosing these abilities, Aadhar has clear regressive potential. Her arguments offer important ethnographic heft to the numerous critiques of making Aadhar a mandatory and exclusive channel for accessing public services (note: the book was published prior to the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of Aadhar in several, but not all, key policy arenas).

In summary, In Pursuit of Proof is a valuable book for scholars and students interested in bureaucratic politics, citizenship and modern Indian politics. Sriraman’s efforts to amass a wide-ranging array of evidence on a crucial topic deserves wide readership.