Opinion A Kerala story: Marriage, love and the benefits of a video KYC

Long before the one-time password became part of the faintly horrifying heartbeat of mundanity, the abbreviation “OTP” stood for something a little more romantic: One True Pairing, used by fans for their preferred fictional couples. A little of that romance seemed to have rubbed off on the one-time password recently when a couple in Kerala registered their marriage using video KYC, which verifies identities using Aadhaar-based OTPs or email authentication, and received a digitally verified certificate on the same day. Those who’ve been brought down to earth soon after their weddings by the full-length, analogue municipal office experience might be forgiven for feeling a little envious.

One couple’s video — showing them completing the KYC process on a laptop while in their wedding clothes, complete with garlands — has gone viral, but it’s part of a broader trend in Kerala, taking advantage of the state government’s digital governance initiatives. Online marriage registration is one of the features of the K-SMART platform for local self-governance, launched last year. Reportedly, of the 1,44,416 marriages registered in Kerala between January 2024 and September 2025, 62,524 were done online.

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This must be placed in the context of Kerala’s strides in digital literacy, and comes after another initiative of the Local Self-Government Department in which nearly 22 lakh people who were identified as “digitally illiterate” completed a training programme. Alongside this is the KFON project, which aims to ensure universal internet access, providing it free of cost to families below the poverty line. The major remaining challenge is to ensure that all households actually have digital devices. The promise of digital governance can be fully realised only when it is democratised by ensuring both access and literacy. The rapid uptake of facilities like online marriage registration signals that progress is being made towards that end; the momentum must continue. The alternative is to learn to appreciate the musty charms of the municipal office and the reflective possibilities of the queue.