UID – “The Unique Indian Donkey” – By Ram Krishnaswamy
Living in Australia, I have been opposed to the concept of universal ID cards for decades. When I learnt about the UID project in India, I could not believe or accept that India was going down the path abandoned by Australia, Britain and America. Instead of listening to voices of dissent, the government of India has appointed a tech czar who is copying an ID card model from Mexico, of all countries. Why should we emulate a model from a country, which is for all practical purposes is controlled by drug lords?
Like other Australians, my main objection to ID Cards in Australia, and now in India, is about “loss of privacy”.
Privacy is like vision, which we may appreciate only when we go blind. Like freedom, it is not possible to appreciate the value of privacy until you have lost it. Indeed, privacy and freedom are linked, like two sides of a coin.
People who endorse Aadhaar echo the same argument time and time again, “What privacy should the poor worry about, when they don’t have anything to cover their private parts?" This is an argument that cannot be refuted blindly, and yet, it evokes a feeling of nausea from any thinking, caring person. It is better asked thus: “What privacy can the poor worry about, when we ensure them no choice in being able to clothe their bodies?”
The fact is that the poor do have individual identities, they are all some ones daughter, they are all some ones son as sung by Australian singer John Farnham.
This is a song I urge readers to listen to and absorb the lyrics
“You are the Voice try and understand it, make a noise and make it clear, we are not gonna sit in silence, we are not gonna live with fear. This time we know we all can stand together, we have the power to be powerful, believe me we can make it better" should appeal to many readers.
Identity is not a feature that accrues with wealth, but the Government lacks the data and means to identify the poor. This is a different issue altogether that could have been addressed differently had there been public consultations.
Once Privacy is lost Indians will have to resign to the idea of living in fear. All one needs to do is take a quick look at the plight of the poor Indian migrants in Malaysia and how the IC or Identity Card is used to harass these poor souls. (This is material for another article)
The Aadhaar Related Articles Blog
It was on 8th February 2009, that I first asked fellow IITians and 36 co-authors of Reflections by IITians (a book I co-edited, and which was launched at the Pan IIT meet in Dec 2008), what they thought about UID?
The debate was healthy, with a large number supporting UID, primarily because they believed in the Nandan Nilekani, the Tech Czar in charge of UID. To many, Nilekani was a fellow IITian, a good and honest man who would not do anything that was wrong and that he was not doing it for money as he had truck loads of it.
Nandan Nilekani had staked his reputation on Unique Identity, an idea he revealed in his book “Imagining India”. Imagining India was a great marketing feat and proved to be a winner. The idea of the poor lacking identity was accepted and endorsed by the Prime Minister of India, who appointed Nandan Nilekani Chairman of UIDAI. I am however, struggling to complete reading this fat book, is such small print as we see mostly in insurance policies, so customers don’t bother reading them.
Those engaged in heated debates online got sidetracked with other issues. So, I posted another note on 8th Sept 2009 titled “UID Card keeps bugging me”. I seemed to be all alone in the beginning, but eventually I found I was able to convince several others that the UID has its drawbacks, through one-on-one discussions with them. Today there are over 100 IITians opposed to Nandan Nilekani’s UID, which has been rebranded as Aadhaar.
Did UIDAI decide to change the name and rebrand, because of the realisation that there was nothing Unique about this ID programme that India has embarked upon?
After all Adolf Hitler had used IDs, IBM computers and Databases to exterminate Jews, Communists and the disabled, in Nazi Germany. ID Cards that were issued in South Africa sparked Gandhi's non-violence movement against authorities. So what was unique in UID ?
I began researching, and also requested other friends to send me articles and comments on UID. Soon, I was suffering from information overload. I struggled to manage the emails and Aadhaar-related articles. I needed to archive all this. So the idea of a Blog was born on 18th May 2010, exactly a year ago.
Reaching out
The past one year has been an amazing journey trying to stop UID in its tracks, trying to convince a large number of Indians of the ills of an ID card. The odds are stacked against the nay-sayers, with the entire media nationally turning into a UID propaganda machine, lured by the UIDAI advertising dollars. TV stations were clamouring to interview UIDAI Chief to improve their ratings. Media was not interested in publishing articles opposing UID in the newspapers, only because it was not 'news', no one had set himself alight, and even if they did agree, an allowance of max 700 words was the limit. There was one exception to the rule.
The editors of Money Life were open to views that opposed UID. Thanks to Sucheta Dalal, the gutsy founder-editor of Money Life, they took the risk, and allowed IIT Alumni such as Ramdas Keshavmurthy, Samir Kelekar, Vickram Crishna and myself to vent our concerns, backed by well researched articles by the Money Life Digital Team.
The ‘Aadhaar Related Articles’ Blog is a small success in itself, with over 1316 articles that have been captured, receiving over 66,015 hits this very minute, making it to the top on Google searches for “Aadhaar”. This is a worry as 666 is the Number of the Devil himself, who is behind numbering 1.2 billion mindless people. I must publish this article before the number reaches 66600.
Facing the Tsunami
It is unnerving how anyone who opposes the majority, speaks his mind and relays what his inner voice tells him, is automatically branded an “activist”. At times it appears that the few of us - in a population of a billion - opposing UID in India are like frogs in the well, hearing echoes of our own voices. Nevertheless, a committed few have marched on, regardless of the hopelessness of the situation, armed with the fact that Mahatma Gandhi objected to ID cards in South Africa and the finger printing of all coloured people.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this Act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard.”
Gandhi organised the Natal Indian Congress in South Africa in 1894. 115 years later, in 2009, its offshoot, the Congress Party of India (UPA II alliance), embarked on this mindless project. Its distinguishing features? Taking prints of all ten fingers, plus iris scans, and if (when) those fail, digital photographs, a process that is reserved for convicted criminals in most parts of the world. Does India have 1.2 billion criminals without identity?
Taking on this behemoth is like facing up to a chameleon, or, as in the popular film/comic book series, a Transformer. Each feature that is logically and rationally criticised results in a crafty shifting of the goalposts.
Initially, UIDAI announced that UID was compulsory for all people residing in India including illegal settlers then overnight sensing trouble it was made optional, and was aimed at the poor, who lacked the proof of identity needed to avail government subsidies. This sure did the trick. Instant silence was bought from educated Indians, as UID would not touch them, making them indifferent to the project. “Let it go, why should we object to something that does not affect us?”, “Why should we stop the government from doing something good for the poor?”, were the kind of responses I began to see.
I argued this was not correct, for if it was issued only to poor people in India, “UID would Institutionalise Poverty”. We have a nation fragmented by religion, caste system, even untouchability, that raises its ugly head even in this century. UID would now create a clear demarcation between people with and without Aadhaar, between the haves and the have-nots, institutionalising poverty. Once a UID number was allocated, it would be impossible to jump the barrier to the other side, as UID was for life, and will live on even after death.
One can take some comfort, remembering, “It is easy to laugh at people who fire arrows at helicopter gunships, but on the other hand it is not so easy to defeat people who are willing to fire arrows at helicopter gunships”. This is not from the movie Avatar, but “Vietnam: A War Lost And Won” authored by Nigel Cawthorne.
Truth and Consequences
A few die-hard Indians like us still believe in Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophies and adhere to his preachings.
These quotes of Mahatma give us hope:
- “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- "Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always. "
- "The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."
- “In matters of Conscience the Law of Majority has no place.”
It is our genuine hope that Truth will prevail, eventually.
“Protest is not something you delegate, politics is not something you outsource. It is what you stand for, literally,” says Shiv Visvanathan, Indian Express. So true, and this inspires few of us to march on regardless.
Shifting Sands – The Foundation
Today, on 18th May 2011, the first anniversary of the Aadhaar Articles Blog, we find that the ground rules keep changing. UID (now known as Aadhaar, mocking the very foundation of life in India), and UIDAI (now known as NIAI – shaming our heritage of Truth same as Satyam ) are like a crafty boxer in the ring, constantly weaving and ducking, lacking the punch to deliver the TRUTH.
Initially UID was optional, meaning, not compulsory. Today UID is optional only as far as the UIDAI (NIAI) is concerned. It is slated to become 'ubiquitous', according to UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani.
Ubiquitous means 'present', 'appearing' or 'found everywhere', like corruption, against which activists recently fasted at Jantar Mantar.
UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number. “This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily”. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or registrars from mandating enrolment.” Writes Jean Dreze the brain that created NREGA
We can now see how an honest technologist like Nandan Nilekani, plays with words like “ubiquitous”, once he became a politician.
In an interview, Nandan Nilekani took objection to the comment that UID is the “Whitest of all White Elephants”. The fact is, it could cost taxpayers as much as Rs1.5 lakh crores by the time the project sees completion. This may include, over and above actual costs incurred by UIDAI, additional expenses borne by third party agencies, many of whom are state-run undertakings and corporations.
One lakh has five zeros - 1,00,000 ,
One crore is 100 lakhs and has seven zeros – 100,00,000
One lakh crores has 12 zeros – 1000,00,00,00,000
That is one hell of a lot of zeros, by any standards.
The Unique Indian Donkey
Many people in the Indian government, enthused by Nilekani's tireless evangelising, believe that Aadhaar is a magic bullet - they keep loading more and more on UID. To the naysayers, Aadhaar is now like a “Unique Indian Donkey” that will collapse under its own weight.
It is not practical to discuss everything the Magic Bullet can do, so, I shall limit it to just listing the relevant tags that one can use to search the Aadhaar Related Articles Blog to familiarise oneself.
TECHNOLOGY: IDENTITY, PHOTO, BIOMETRICS, IRIS SCAN, FINGER PRINTS, SCANNERS, PORTABILITY, MEXICAN ID CARD
PROMOTERS : PRIME MINISTER, UNION CABINET, STANDING COMMITTEE, WHITE HOUSE, NIAI BILL, NAC, 1000 MOUs, LIC, NATIONAL BANKS, STATE GOVTs, SEBI , NGOs
AUTHORITY: BILLIONAIRE CEO,WORLD IS FLAT, IMAGINING INDIA, TED – IDEAS IN CONFLICT, CABINET RANK, POWER OF IDENTITY, AADHAAR NOT COMPULSORY, UBIQUITOUS, INFOSYS SHARES
WORK LOAD: AUTHENTICATION, NATIONAL SECURITY, COUNTER TERRORISM, ILLEGAL MIGRANTS, CORRUPTION, NPR, IB, RAW, NSC, RTI, POVERTY, GOVT SUBSIDIES, PDS, NREGA, CASH TRANSFERS, MICROFINANCE, MICRO ATM’S, KIRANA SHOPS , NATGRID, CENSUS, BPL, APL, BPL CARD, RATION CARD, STUDENT ID CARD, DRIVERS LICENCE, KISAN CARD, PAN CARD
GRAVY TRAIN : ACCENTURE, ERNST & YOUNG, MICROSOFT, CHLOROPHYLL, L-1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS, MIND TREE, WIPRO, MORPHO, BIMA, JAYALAXMI FINANCE, VISA CARD, MASTERCARD, IMF. WORLD BANK, e BAY, REGISTRARS, INTRODUCERS
DISSENT: UNCONSTITUTIONAL, PRIVACY, WIKILEAKS, DATABASE, HACKERS, ORWELLIAN, PROFILING , CONNECTING SILOS, TRACKING, INSTITUTIONALISING POVERTY.
It is relevant to share at this point a small story on Common Sense, in the form of an obituary: Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents - Truth and Trust, by his wife - Discretion, by his daughter – Responsibility, and by his son - Reason.
Today, it comes as no surprise to read the news that Aadhaar is compulsory to get government benefits. If you are reading this article, you may let it pass as another rant from a naysayer - “It is compulsory for poor people who need government subsidies, and does not affect me” will be your retort.
It won't be long before you will require an Aadhaar to apply or renew your passport, bank accounts, credit card accounts, mobile phone accounts, and eventually you will need an Aadhaar number to breathe, an Aadhaar number to breathe your last - and you may have to present your Aadhaar Number at the Pearly Gates of Heaven.
Will Aadhaar be the Magic Bullet that people believe it to be, or will it be the Silver Bullet (suppository) that will make India go weak at the knees?
Amen
