India, Nov. 7 -- When Keir Starmer was in India last month, an assertion from him got all of the UK worked up. Britain could learn from Aadhaar, he said. For a country that has spent decades sneering at India's bureaucratic mess, here was the British Prime Minister suggesting that India's digital identity system might be a model worth studying.

The next morning, headlines in the UK were fast and furious. Most of them suggested Starmer is pushing to copy India's surveillance state. Privacy groups warned of mass data leaks. Editorials thundered about government overreach. It was the kind of uproar that happens when one side of the world mistakes the other's reality for a mirror of its own.

But there is a nuance here. When the West talks a...