The walk to prove they exist
A recent Times of India report about a tribal woman who walked 4 km to a bank carrying her 90-year-old mother-in-law to complete a KYC form stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't stop thinking about that scene — not as a shocking headline, but as a mirror showing how our systems still demand physical proof of worth from those who already carry so much.
When I read about that walk, I felt a mix of admiration and shame. Admiration for the courage, love, and grit of that woman; shame because our financial and administrative systems still make her carry a burden to be recognized as a citizen with rights. This is not only an image of personal sacrifice — it's a symptom of design choices that leave the frail, the elderly, and the geographically remote at the margins.
What this moment reveals
The story brings into sharp relief several truths we must confront:
- Infrastructure is uneven: access to a bank five minutes away for some means a four-kilometre trek for others.
- Bureaucracy assumes physical mobility and documentation as the baseline, which excludes many elderly, disabled, or homebound people.
- Technology and policy that are meant to simplify — Aadhaar, KYC rules, digital onboarding — can become barriers when they are not adapted to the realities of rural life.
I have written before about the need for a more inclusive approach to identity and KYC. In my piece, Single KYC ? Why only for Financial Sector ? I argued for simplifying identification processes so citizens do not repeatedly prove their existence every time they need a service. That argument feels more urgent today than when I first wrote it.
Practical fixes that respect dignity
If we want to honor the courage of that woman with systems that actually help, here are practical changes we should push for now:
- Mobile KYC camps and doorstep verification for elderly and immobile citizens.
- Authorized community agents (trained locals) who can perform KYC and banking tasks within the village.
- Acceptance of alternative verification methods where biometrics or travel are impractical — e.g., video KYC with trusted witnesses, registered caregiver attestations, or simplified community-based identity records.
- Policy moves toward a single, portable KYC record that can be used across institutions so people aren't repeatedly forced to travel.
- Investment in local banking access points (banking correspondents, post office integration) with elder-friendly processes.
These are neither revolutionary nor prohibitively expensive. They require political will, empathetic product design, and a small shift from assuming the user will come to the service to the service coming to the user.
Why this matters beyond one story
This is not just about one woman or one bank visit. It is about dignity. About the implicit contract between a state and its citizens: that recognition, services, and protections should be reachable — physically and administratively. When systems demand that the weakest walk the farthest, we need to redesign those systems.
I try to keep my optimism tethered to practicality. We can build identity and service systems that are both secure and humane. We can make KYC a bridge to inclusion rather than a gate that keeps people outside. But to do that we must listen to the experiences hidden in news snippets: the long walks, the caregivers on tired backs, the rituals of survival.
A small call to action
If you work in policy, banking, product design, or community development, ask this simple question whenever you redesign a process: who is forced to carry the cost of proving the rest of us right? Start there. Make the systems bear the weight instead of the people.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
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