
AHMEDABAD, India — Until recently, India’s national identification system, Aadhaar, was heralded both nationally and internationally as a game changer. Headlines in India routinely described it as such. And in a 2011 profile of its founder, Nandan Nilekani, The New Yorker detailed his mission to use the technology — which involves biometric data and the provision of a unique 12-digit number — to fix corruption and “bring about a change in the relationship between the state and the poor.”