As someone who grew up under the shadow of 1984, George Orwell’s cult classic , I have always been terrified of being reduced to a cipher. That is why, and for no reason of politics I sidestepped Aadhar. I consider it a violation of my privacy. I have a PAN card though. But frankly I have no idea of what that means and why I have it. I rarely buy expensive stuff. And when I do, I write a cheque for it. An old habit that dies hard.
So I keep my PAN card in my wallet with my driving licence and a few credit cards I diffidently use. I take out cash from the bank twice a month and spend that. And the rest of the time I write cheques like my father used to do. I know it’s awfully old fashioned. But convenience determines choices and I am not exactly concerned too much about money– making it, spending it, or investing it. I have made other choices in my life.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t figure digital. I do, but I am happy to step aside and let better men and women use it and benefit from it in all those wonderful ways the Government recommends. I have made my choice. And much as I am bombarded by the seductions of the digital world, I have easily resisted the thought of running off to get myself an Aadhar card just because my bankers are threatening me and my tax guy tells me I can’t file my IT returns without it.
In fact, that makes me even more cussed. I have filed my tax returns regularly for as way back as I can remember. Every member of my family (barring Mojo and Mowgli, my two four legged daughters) file their tax returns too. And I intend to do so for as long as people find it worth their while to pay me.
Then why do I need Aadhar? I claim no benefits from the Government that I know of (no house, no car with a swirling red light on the top, no shrieking siren, no awards in a long, long time since Governments don’t like writers and journalists with a mind of their own) unless you consider the Rs 21,000 I get every month as pension for being in Parliament for six years. So why the arm twisting?
It all began with Orwell (real name: Eric Arthur Blair, born in Motihari) and though 1984 has come and gone, the threat remains. Regime after regime in different nations have tried, in different ways, to tag their citizens. The British spent a fortune on it and then gave it up, wisely. They realised there are better (and simpler) ways to catch wrongdoers than to put their entire lives on a card that can be easily hacked or stolen. Here, we don’t worry about privacy. We allow astrologers and palmists to intrude in our private lives. Vaastu guys and yoga gurus enter our homes to tell us who we are. Now Aadhar wants to do the same.
I prefer to decode myself. I have spent most of my life trying to do so. I may not have always succeeded. But that doesn’t mean Aadhar can open a window to my soul. Poetry suits me far better. Give me music or art any day.
So, dear Government, be kind, generous, wise. Stick to your mandate. Give us better roads, safer homes. Build us bridges that don’t collapse. Protect women and children from the marauding male gaze, stop mindless lynch mobs, defeat crime, build more humane prisons where inhabitants are not tortured or murdered, stop extortionists, lock away the preachers of hate and enmity but give them a fair trial first, stop corruption, stop dowry, protect the old and the ailing, help the poor get some dignity. They have been crying for it for 70 years.
Yesterday, Three Square Market, a Wisconsin tech company, implanted microchips under their employees’ skin, between the thumb and index finger. No one protested; in fact, employees love it. Sweden’ s Epicentre, a start-up is doing the same. Companies across the world are looking at this new tech, right out of 1984, where victims no longer resent their victimhood. Once the chip is implanted, any task involving RFID technology — swiping into the office building, paying for lunch — can be done with a mere wave of the hand.
Employees see it as a convenience. But convenience for whom? For those who control the microchip. Today it enables you to enter a building or get lunch. Tomorrow it will help you get past airport checks. But eventually your whole life will be in that microchip. It will change the employer/employee relationship.
This raises important questions of privacy, personal identity, issues which are being argued in the Supreme Court even as you read this. Everyone claims microchips are safe, encrypted.
The Aadhar guys say the same. But in a world of consummate hackers, ranged on either side of the law, nothing is ever safe.
More important: Who controls access?
A microchip implanted today, or a card issued could easily, in theory, be misused in the future in ways far more invasive than you and I can imagine. Think. Do you really want that to happen? You want to be a bot?
