Jug Suraiya
Oct 21, 2011, 12.00AM IST
The sarkar has a problem: how does one figure out India?
Literally figure it out. Some 1.21 billion Indians make up India, and this figure keeps on increasing every day. And there seem to be more of us Indians than there actually are. Because, unlike in other places where people are more or less similar to each other in terms of language, food habits, etc, in India everyone seems to be different from everyone else, making it seem as though there is not just one but many Indias, populated by a multiplicity of Indians, each one having more than one identity.
For instance, while all of us are Indians, some of us are Punjabi Indians, some are Bengali Indians, Tamil Indians, Nicobar and Andamanese Indians, Kashmiri Indians (though Pakistan might say that these are really Pakistani Indians) and so on and so forth. There are Indians who are Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, atheist, communist, Maoist. There are Indians (very few) who live in skyscraper buildings with helipads on the roof called Antilia and Indians (too many) who have to make do with less than 32 a day for roti and kapda, never mind non-essential items like makan, education and basic healthcare.
How do you figure out all these Indias, all these Indians? How do you give each one of us a numeric method of identifying ourselves to the sarkar? That's when the sarkar hit upon the wheeze of giving each and every one of us a 12-digit Unique Identification Number. The sarkar reckoned that by doing this it could both metaphorically as well as literally figure out India, the many Indias, and the multiple Indians who inherit these manifold Indias.
Once the Unique Identification Number (UID) programme is complete, the sarkar will have got you and me numerically tagged. For instance, so far as the sarkar is concerned, you will no longer be, say, a Bhojpuri-speaking, English-knowing vegetarian kayasth Sufist earning 25,000 a month as a computer operator in a design studio who reads Deepak Chopra and Chetan Bhagat in her spare time, but a 12-digit number instead which will be your official ID, your identity as an Indian citizen. And the sarkar can justifiably say: Gotcha - we've got you all figured out.
But has it? Has the sarkar got us all figured out with its UID scheme which is expected to cost some 1,50,000 crore to implement? We Indians, all Indians, have perhaps one thing in common: an innate genius for what might be called a creative reinterpretation of all rules and regulations. Be it traffic rules and regulations, taxation and other financial rules and regulations, or any other rules and regulations you care to name, we will find innovative and ingenious ways to get around, under, above, behind and through them with an agility which would do an Olympic gymnast proud. Will we do this with the rules and regulations pertaining to the UID as well?
What happens if a numerologist informs a client that the UID assigned to the client is an inauspicious number that spells doom and disaster for the client? Will the said client get the unlucky number officially changed by deed poll? Seek recourse to the black market of fake UIDs that will spring up as black markets have sprung up for fake ration cards, driver's licences, passports, voter cards, you name it? How do you tell a fake UID from a real one? By holding it up to the light to see if it's got a black thingummy through it like bank notes do? Biting it like you do with gold to see if it's hard or soft? Flipping it in the air to see if it makes a dull or a ringing sound when it lands?
The possibilities are endless. And as i think about them my mind, already numb, becomes - what else? - even number.
For instance, while all of us are Indians, some of us are Punjabi Indians, some are Bengali Indians, Tamil Indians, Nicobar and Andamanese Indians, Kashmiri Indians (though Pakistan might say that these are really Pakistani Indians) and so on and so forth. There are Indians who are Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, atheist, communist, Maoist. There are Indians (very few) who live in skyscraper buildings with helipads on the roof called Antilia and Indians (too many) who have to make do with less than 32 a day for roti and kapda, never mind non-essential items like makan, education and basic healthcare.
How do you figure out all these Indias, all these Indians? How do you give each one of us a numeric method of identifying ourselves to the sarkar? That's when the sarkar hit upon the wheeze of giving each and every one of us a 12-digit Unique Identification Number. The sarkar reckoned that by doing this it could both metaphorically as well as literally figure out India, the many Indias, and the multiple Indians who inherit these manifold Indias.
Once the Unique Identification Number (UID) programme is complete, the sarkar will have got you and me numerically tagged. For instance, so far as the sarkar is concerned, you will no longer be, say, a Bhojpuri-speaking, English-knowing vegetarian kayasth Sufist earning 25,000 a month as a computer operator in a design studio who reads Deepak Chopra and Chetan Bhagat in her spare time, but a 12-digit number instead which will be your official ID, your identity as an Indian citizen. And the sarkar can justifiably say: Gotcha - we've got you all figured out.
But has it? Has the sarkar got us all figured out with its UID scheme which is expected to cost some 1,50,000 crore to implement? We Indians, all Indians, have perhaps one thing in common: an innate genius for what might be called a creative reinterpretation of all rules and regulations. Be it traffic rules and regulations, taxation and other financial rules and regulations, or any other rules and regulations you care to name, we will find innovative and ingenious ways to get around, under, above, behind and through them with an agility which would do an Olympic gymnast proud. Will we do this with the rules and regulations pertaining to the UID as well?
What happens if a numerologist informs a client that the UID assigned to the client is an inauspicious number that spells doom and disaster for the client? Will the said client get the unlucky number officially changed by deed poll? Seek recourse to the black market of fake UIDs that will spring up as black markets have sprung up for fake ration cards, driver's licences, passports, voter cards, you name it? How do you tell a fake UID from a real one? By holding it up to the light to see if it's got a black thingummy through it like bank notes do? Biting it like you do with gold to see if it's hard or soft? Flipping it in the air to see if it makes a dull or a ringing sound when it lands?
The possibilities are endless. And as i think about them my mind, already numb, becomes - what else? - even number.
