alt Hacker NewsThe friction already existed long before supreme court orders. No two departments agreed upon what ID they would need for doing the work. It could be rationcard, PAN, passport, driving license etc. Some organizations asked for more than one ID just in case. India just has too many IDs and it is asked for too many use cases.
Aadhar made it easier than before. It is really a quality of life improvement.
The main issue is government requiring IDs even when it is not usually needed in other countries. Mostly in the name of security. This is the root cause. Aadhar is just the symptom.
However Aadhar does enable deeper breaches into privacy due to its unified nature and the way it is validated through government owned infrastructure. There is full tracking possible on all the services that the residents used.
If Aadhar was a self sovereign ID, then having a single ID is definitely a good thing. It keeps privacy intact while usable where needed.
My point wasn't that no id was required before Aadhaar. It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked.
Post Aadhaar, even though all of those IDs are still legal and acceptable under law, the govt has added so much friction on the non Aadhaar path that in practice those IDs are unusable.