Big Data Discourses| Data in India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI): A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach

Abstract

At the 2023 G20 Summit held in New Delhi and afterwards, India and other multilateral entities made concerted efforts to accelerate conversations on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to enhance digital governance and sustainable development. This article traces its evolution over the last 20 years in India—from its early conception in 2006 as a digital ID for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families to its formalized nomenclature as Digital Public Infrastructure at the G20 summit. I then draw on the theoretical framework of the Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach (Raghunath, 2020, 2022) to examine how data have been imagined and deliberated as part of the DPI in India and internationally. The article concludes by analyzing the deliberative potential of DPI within the policy ecology and reflecting on the strengths and limitations of the Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach for this study.