Anguthhachaap. This term has over a period of time become synonymous with illiteracy. In the Hindi movies of those eras when nobody could even think that the Bombay filmdom would one day be referred to as Bollywood – an aspirational cloning of Hollywood – it was almost a regulation scene in which a jamindaar or a money lender would be shown forcing a person put his thumb impression on a deed that would someway lead to the slavery of the entire family of the unsuspecting poor illiterate man.

That what was an ink impression has in the digital age turned into an important tool to authenticate a person’s identity beyond reasonable doubt. In those days one needed an expert to match fingerprints and certify the authenticity. In these digital days, it just takes a few seconds to check the same with the person concerned putting his thumbs on a scanner that can be carried in a pocket.

Fitted to a smart phone and connected to a database thumb impression therefore is not just about a tool to allow an illiterate person to authenticate a transaction. It has moved beyond that into a realm that minimizes frauds with the help of biometrically authenticating a person’s identity.

This has had a far-reaching consequence for financial inclusion. For long illiteracy had stood as a roadblock to getting the citizenry bar none into organized financial market. There was also the problem of reaching out into a remote village with a traditional financial institutional branch. To validate every transaction that was done with thumb impression needed a trained personnel which of course was a challenge.

With the evolution of digital technology the whole task of authentication can now be done by anybody. All that it requires is a net connection, a smart phone and a small thumb scanner. All of these can be carried in a pocket. The net would connect the phone to a database storing thumb impressions. All that a financial representative would need to do is to scan a client’s thumb and transmit that to the database concerned through the phone and the job is done. Aadhar is meant to do just that. Help biometrically establish the authenticity of a person’s identity.

The point to note here is that the digital age has brought in a sea change in the facilities available to the financial sector. Specially the micro finance industry that works at the grassroots with customers many of whom may not have conventional documents or facilities to authenticate their identities got spared the pain of leaving perennially outside the boundary of the organized financial market. With biometry they are spared the crisis of identity as it were. Anguthhachaap is no longer synonymous to illiteracy.On the contrary, it stands for empowerment.