In a village in Odisha, a man arrived at a bank carrying what no institution expects to confront: the skeletal remains of his sister. The act was shocking, even grotesque. But it was also, in a perverse way, logical ~ a desperate attempt to translate lived reality into a form legible to a system that recognises only documents, not circumstances. India’s banking expansion over the past decade, accelerated by schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, has been celebrated as a triumph of financial inclusion. Millions now possess accounts, debit cards, and a nominal foothold in the formal economy. Yet access to an account is not the same as access to one’s money.

The distance between the two is measured not just in paperwork, but in literacy, mobility, and administrative empathy. When an account holder dies without naming a nominee, the system defaults to caution. Banks are bound by rules requiring death certificates and proof of legal heirship. These are not arbitrary hurdles; they are safeguards against fraud. But safeguards become barriers when the state fails to ensure that citizens can realistically meet them.........

© The Statesman