Nandan Nilekani - The Aadhaar behind Aadhaar

By Srikanth Nadhamuni, this article appeared on the Times of India on July 18th, 2018

I met Nandan in Sept 2002 at a BATF (Bangalore Agenda Task Force) public meeting. I had just moved back from a 16yr stint in the US and was eager to work on social impact in India. He was working with the various government bodies of Bangalore like the BBMP (municipality), BDA (development authority) to improve the city. In a first for Bangalore, the various heads of local bodies were presenting their plans at a public meeting over powerpoint with timelines and deliverables. I was amazed.

My first impression of Nandan was that of a master strategist - he seemed to have a bigger and grander picture in his mind and was ready to work the details to achieve it. Later years would prove this was indeed one of his most enduring qualities - his ability to conceive of large-scale systems and implement his ideas in exacting detail. I left the meeting that day feeling upbeat and inspired that an enormously capable person was throwing his weight behind the issue of governance in a fast-growing and increasingly chaotic metropolis.

This first meeting reinforced some of my own thoughts. I was keen to work on improving municipal governance using technology. These ideas found an instant connect with Nandan, leading us to create the eGovernments Foundation. Fast forward 15 years – generous grants (~Rs.30cr) and strategic inputs from Nandan and the tireless work of the foundation has enabled eGov to transform over 300 cities across the country by improving everything from financial accounting, civic works management, and property tax collection to redressing peoples complaints.

In 2002 Nandan Nilekani was also the CEO of the incredibly successful Infosys. From being the first Indian company to list on the Wall Street to creating dozens of millionaires, Infosys was the quintessential Bangalore success story - a bunch of techies with their middle-class values and impeccable work ethic had created a global software powerhouse which epitomized good corporate governance and rapid growth. With Nandan at its helm between 2002 and 2006, Infosys saw its top line grow a whopping six-fold.

One thing that always amazed me about Nandan was, every time I sent him an email, he would respond to it in less than 5mins. I later found that this was not just with his emails; all his work would get processed and dispatched as and when they arrived - with zero wait time. It was no wonder that he always seemed to have time to take up yet another project or take under his wing yet another promising youngster.

Nandan is constantly reinventing himself and upping his game. After he left Infosys in 2009 he wrote “Imagining India”, a celebration of hope and as one magazine put it, “a story told by one of India’s greatest dreamers who, having realised his dreams, is now impatient to help his countrymen realise theirs”. He documented the idea of Aadhaar in his book and was soon called upon by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to implement the project. The rest, as they say, is history.

The one project that truly needed all his qualities of strategic thinking, attention to detail, and enormous patience was Aadhaar. The UIDAI was composed of public and private sector individuals, and within the public sector officers from almost every cadre (IAS, IPS, IFS etc) were inducted. This mix of cultures and working styles could have ripped the project apart. Instead, with Nandan’s constant guidance at monthly meetings in Delhi HQ and Bangalore Technology Center (which I headed), a cohesive and productive workforce emerged. Private sector attention to detail and the public sector understanding of scale and ground realities came together to deliver, for the first time a large-scale national project ahead of schedule. Aadhaar enrolled over a billion people and today performs over 50 million transactions/day. Nandan was truly the Aadhaar behind Aadhaar!

If there is one place where Nandan misstepped that would be his foray into politics. In 2014 in spite of his hi-tech political campaign in India’s IT city the Modi wave that swept the country during the Lok Sabha elections did not help the cause of his Congress ticket. He lost the election. Nevertheless, his ability to make lasting systemic change as a neutral party is perhaps more important to the country than his entering the political fray. In some sense, this was reaffirmed by the Congress’ creation of Aadhaar and later the BJP government’s vigorous support of it.

He is now applying his decades of formidable experience in technology, policy, and nationwide implementation to create new rails that would power digital India through “India Stack” - A set of standard protocols(APIs) such as Universal Payments System (UPI), eSign, DigitalLocker and many more.

To state the obvious, Nandan and his wife Rohini are extremely wealthy; in fact, they are billionaires. But what distinguishes them is their empathy towards others. Rohini’s connect with and understanding of the issues of the underprivileged and Nandan’s enormous capability in strategic problem solving has created a power couple who have founded enduring organizations in public service - eGovernments Foundation, Akshara, Pratham-Books, Arghyam, IIHS and, ekStep. They recently pledged to donate half their wealth, and, going by their track record in implementing projects, this will perhaps be one of the most impactful of philanthropic grantmaking.

Over the years Nandan’s outstanding work has been recognized by a plethora of awards. The Time magazine placed him in the Time 100 list of 'World's Most Influential People'. He was the first Indian to be conferred the ‘Legend in Leadership Award’ by Yale University. In January 2006, Nandan became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board. But perhaps his most cherished the ‘Padma Bhushan’ one of India’s highest civilian honour.

India has seen highly successful industry magnates, impactful government leaders and dedicated social workers touching the lives of millions. From being CEO of Infosys to Cabinet Minister of Aadhaar to a champion for a host of highly impactful NGOs, Nandan is a rare and gifted individual who has kept the country’s development goals above all else. but I would say his best is yet to come.

Srikanth Nadhamuni

Was the founding CTO of the Aadhaar project and is currently Managing Trustee of eGovernments Foundation and CEO of Khosla Labs.