A citizenship in crisis: voice, welfare and other contestations in the digital state

Date added:June 28, 2017

The vision, design and implementation of e-governance in India with its attendant “datafication” leads to many pertinent questions about the changing nature of governance and state-citizen engagement. This Brief argues that data-based decision-making in India is part of a larger trend that seems to displace the complex ingredients of participatory governance - dialogue, deliberation, audit and answerability - in favour of a fait accompli that disempowers citizens. Whether it is biometric based authentication systems, online grievance mechanisms or Big Data based beneficiary rationalisation, the absence of modes for a meaningful right to be heard, right to contest and seek accountability, decouple citizenship from rights and justice.

The authors include a case study on "Rajasthan Sampark", a grievance redressal portal of the state government of Rajasthan to manage citizen grievances across multiple departments and administrative branches.  They use the study to argue that to be meaningful for local accountability, citizen-centricism needs to be a key design feature of e-governance platforms.

The authors take the view that digital technologies in governance and data-based solutions need to be harnessed towards strengthening grassroots democracy rather than alienating it. They put forward the Charter on Democratic Accountability in the Digital Age as a step towards consolidating this emerging dialogue on data governance / data in governance.