Digital Dilemmas and Exclusion of Marginals: A Trajectory from Paradox of Privacy to Poverty of Privacy

This article investigates the competing claims over privacy by the state and civil society as the digital dilemmas arise in the implementation of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 that poses a potential challenge to people’s right to privacy guaranteed under the Indian constitution. The objective is to examine how different sections, especially the marginals such as SC, ST, OBCs, minorities, and women perceive and practice privacy in enrolling for Aadhaar in India. This article has adopted a technique of ‘convenient sampling’ in conducting in-depth discussions with ‘open-ended questions’ during fieldwork in the Telangana state of India. The empirical evidence suggests that demographic factors such as class, caste, gender, and religion influence privacy in India. Further, the interpretation of the informants’ responses, on privacy and Aadhaar, indicates the prevailing ‘poverty of privacy’ rather than the ‘privacy paradox’ among the marginalized sections.