Seventeen years ago, a pilot project issued India's first smart national identity cards, but the initiative faded amid evolving citizenship debates. Residents of a Delhi village remember the 'red cards' as unused souvenirs, while current uncertainties surround proof of citizenship. The story highlights the stalled progress toward a national register of citizens.
In 2008, Mishro Devi, now 69, became the first Indian to receive a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC), a smart card issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under a pilot project in Pooth Khurd village, north-west Delhi's Bawana area. The card featured an embedded electronic chip with her biometric details, including 10 fingerprints, an iris scan, photograph, and thumb impression, along with personal information like name, date of birth, parents' names, place of birth, place of issue, and a 10-year validity period. Issued by the Registrar General of Citizens under the MHA, the pilot targeted citizens aged 18 and above, concluding on March 31, 2009, with 12.88 lakh MNICs distributed and biometric data captured from about 30 lakh people.
Mishro preserved her 'red card' as a souvenir, never using it despite being told it could secure civic facilities like potable water and prove citizenship. She recalls a 2008 ceremony at a local school where officials felicitated her. Other villagers, like Bharpai, 67, who can't locate her card, and Deepak Dabas, Mishro's son, also received them but found no practical use. Rajbir Dabas admitted using his to evade toll taxes by intimidating attendants with its official appearance, while Rajesh noted around 4,000 villagers got the cards, though they proved useless compared to documents like electricity bills.
The MNIC's history ties into broader citizenship debates. On August 12, 2024, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha that citizenship is governed by the Citizenship Act, 1955, without listing valid documents. This ambiguity resurfaced with the Election Commission's special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar starting June 2024, aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants using 11 documents like birth certificates and passports; Aadhaar was later accepted following Supreme Court petitions.
In 2015, then Minister Kiren Rijiju mentioned plans for compulsory registration and a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC/NRC) from the National Population Register (NPR), which holds data on 119 crore residents. First collected in 2010 and updated in 2015, NPR updates were halted after 2019-20 riots following the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on December 9, 2019, which killed 83 people amid fears of Muslim disenfranchisement. The government states no national NRC decision yet, though Assam's excluded 19 lakh applicants. A former MHA official revealed biometrics from the pilot were transferred to the Unique Identification Authority of India for Aadhaar, which the EC now deems proof of identity, not citizenship. The 2027 Census pre-test from November 10-30, 2024, omits NPR questions, leaving the MNIC's legacy as a forgotten experiment.