New Delhi, July 16 -- Why has the dream of Digital India made our country vulnerable to frauds? Much of it lies in the history of how India's digital infrastructure was created. At the heart of it is a simple debate-should an online India be centralized or decentralized?

Let's rewind to the 1990s. The internet had just come to India, and barely a few had access to it. Early internet culture in India was heavily influenced by libertarian and 'anarchist' forms of thinking of Silicon Valley that dreamt of a decentralized internet where people from around the world could connect to one another, find safety in anonymity, and live a life outside of government and society if they wished to.

A lot of this changed in the last 20 years, says Srin...