In a remote village in Andhra Pradesh, Resmo, an elderly Adivasi woman, had enrolled for her Aadhaar card and was told she would receive it. She never did. When she returned to the office enrol again, she was told she had already been enrolled and was turned away.Without an enrolment ID, there was no way to trace her application or understand what had happened. Each visit meant long travel, expenses she could not afford, and a lost day’s wages. However, with no other way to resolve the problem, all she could do was try again.The Aadhaar card has become central to welfare delivery, from pensions to public distribution system, and much of the public discussion focuses on enrolment numbers, authentication and efficiency. In many Adivasi areas, however, the problem appears much earlier. What happens when enrolment itself fails?Aadhaar has a clear entry point and a clear endpoint. What it lacks is a functioning middle – a system that can track, diagnose, and resolve breakdowns in between enrolment initiation and successful issuance. In Adivasi regions, where documentation is uneven and access to services is limited, this gap becomes particularly visible.The barriersThough Aadhaar application is presented as a one-time process, in Adivasi areas, it is often a prolonged and uncertain one with several barriers.The first barrier is documentation. Establishing an identity requires records such as date of birth or proof of address, which Adivasi individuals are often unable to bring forth.If this hurdle is crossed, individuals are then required to travel to enrolment centres. These centres are usually located in bigger towns, often far from Adivasi habitations. This requires several rounds sometimes as applications may be accepted or rejected, often without explanation. Such a pattern was also documented in Devahuti Sarkar’s report from Jharkhand for The Wire.In the case that enrolment is successful, further steps still remain: mobile linking, biometric updates, and document corrections.Aadhaar application, thus, becomes a continuous administrative challenge, with shifting requirements compounding the burden due to authentication failures and administrative requirements.Tasks that may seem routine impose recurring costs on Adivasi residents, who must travel long distances to access functioning centres.No resolutionDespite this continuous engagement, both the Aadhaar system and its implementing authorities provide limited support when things go wrong.Field studies in tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh, including field documentation by LibTech India of over 300 cases, suggest enrolment rejection rates as high as 24%. In Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitharama Raju district – where nearly 80% of the population is Adivasi – administrative campaigns have encountered rejection rates as high as 60 percent. These figures point not to isolated errors, but to systemic patterns.Yet, there is often no way to understand or follow up on failures, and individuals are simply asked to start again.Many failures arise from process-related issues. Application forms are often in English, requiring operators to fill them. Errors in form selection, demographic entry or document uploads can lead to rejection. In some cases, applications are rejected as “duplicate” without explanation.These are not failures of identity, but breakdowns in process arising from documentation errors, operator mistakes, and system design constraints.A system without memoryA deeper limitation lies in the system’s lack of continuity beyond enrolment. Enrolment operators are not permitted to retain applicant data beyond a short period (typically 15 days), effectively erasing local traces of earlier attempts.In Adivasi contexts where documents are hard to preserve and mobile access is unstable, enrolment IDs are easily lost. Without a linked mobile number, there is no way to access application status or retrieve details. This forces individuals to restart the process, not because identity is uncertain, but because the system cannot reconnect them to earlier attempts.Re-enrolment thus becomes the system’s default response – not a solution but a substitute for resolution.A practical way to address this is to anchor such information within local institutions. In Scheduled Areas, gram sabhas function as recognised governance bodies with knowledge of community members. If enrolment details were accessible at this level, individuals could return to a known institution instead of restarting from scratch.These limitations extend beyond individuals. Officials at local administrations often organise enrolment camps and mobilise Adivasi residents. However, once it is completed, they do not get to know whether the applications were successful or rejected. As a result, administrative effort does not translate into effective outcomes. Even within PM-JANMAN, a scheme which explicitly seeks to ease the Aadhaar card enrolment process for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups through relaxed procedures, similar difficulties have been documented in practice.Bypassing local institutionsThese challenges are more significant in Scheduled Areas, where governance is constitutionally structured. Under the Fifth Schedule and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, gram sabhas are recognised as foundational institutions of self-governance.These institutions possess detailed knowledge of identity and residence within the community. Yet Aadhaar systems operate independent of them, relying more on centralised, document-driven verification.This creates a gap between how identity is known on the ground and how it is recognised administratively. It also reflects a deeper accountability issue: systems operate without being meaningfully accountable to constitutionally recognised local institutions.Rethinking data, access and accountabilityThese issues are often framed as questions of privacy. However, the challenge in Adivasi areas is not simply about restricting or sharing data.Aadhaar systems are designed to share information only with the individual, with little provision for access by local institutions. While this aligns with an individual-centric understanding of data protection, it sits uneasily in Adivasi contexts, where identity and entitlement are embedded within community structures. In Scheduled Areas, institutions such as gram sabhas are constitutionally recognised. Yet, they are excluded from access to basic information such as enrolment status or rejection reasons.This creates a structural contradiction: a system designed around strictly individualised access is operating in contexts where governance and problem-solving are institutionally mediated through bodies such as gram sabhas.Privacy, intended as a safeguard, then functions as a barrier for collective problem-solving, isolating individuals from institutions that could support them. In practice, while the system records data, it does not enable communities or local administrations to act on it. Privacy, in this sense, does not merely limit disclosure; it limits accountability.The issue, therefore, is not simply whether data is shared, but whether it is accessible in ways that enable resolution.Rethinking Aadhaar from Adivasi contextsThis is not an argument against Aadhaar. The question is whether the system is designed to function accountably in cases where documentation is uneven and access is constrained.Adivasi areas make these limitations visible. What appears marginal elsewhere becomes systemic: repeated enrolment, unresolved failure, shifting requirements, and weak institutional support.If Aadhaar is to function as a foundational identity system, it must incorporate what it lacks – a structured middle that can recognise failure, support correction and enable institutional coordination.This must also align with the constitutional framework governing Scheduled Areas. Under the Fifth Schedule and PESA, gram sabhas are recognised institutions of governance. Designing accountability mechanisms anchored in these institutions offers a pathway to make identity systems more responsive and locally grounded.A system that cannot remember its citizens cannot serve them. In Adivasi areas, a system that cannot support people when things go wrong risks turning identity into a site of exclusion rather than inclusion.B.D.S. Kishore and Chakradhar Buddha are affiliated with LibTech India. LibTech India is a centre in Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD). The views expressed are personal.