Cover Story: The Politics of Identity
Section: Top Stories
Author Name: Shyamanuja Das
Author Email: shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
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Recently, Google released its annual Zeitgist for 2011, that gives an idea of what people searched online globally and in a particular region throughout the year. Among the top 10 searched news/events in cricket crazy India were, not surprisingly, IPL and World Cup 2011. Events such as Japan Earthquake, F1 and Osama Bin Laden did occupy some of the other top spots, along with Lokpal and CBSE results.
And then, there was the Aadhar card a phrase that came into existence only a year earlier. With no glamour of an IPL or an F1 accompanying it, or no shock value of Japan quakes and Osamas death associated with it, this government programs popularity just reflects how desperately Indians long for an identity that would last a lifetime!
It is not that they do not have a proof of identity. In fact, they have too many of them. Yet, every time they go to open a bank account or get a passport, they are faced with the stark reality: Despite staying in the country from your birth, voting and even paying income tax for a few decades, you still have to struggle to establish that you are a citizen of India who stays in so-and-so address!
The expectation from Aadhar is that it would put a stop to all that hassles.
Whether the project has been able to meet that expectation with whatever implementation progress that it has madeis, surely, a matter of debate. And that debate is healthy in a democracy, despite the extra amount of time that it adds to the rollout.
With the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance sending back the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, in its present form to the government, that debate has entered the public domain. This essay contributes its two cents to that debate.
With the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance sending back the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, in its present form to the government, that debate has entered the public domain. This essay contributes its two cents to that debate.
But to say that the program is undesirable, redundant and the project has been rejected (as opposed to sent back in its present form) is gross misrepresentation of the truth. As the Google data shows, people are looking for it. It is not a sensational issue that people just want to read about. Like CBSE results, it is something that is of use to them. The fact that it is not Unique ID or Unique ID bill or even Aadhar but specifically Aadhar card that they are searching for gives us a clue to what they actually are after.
The debate, hence, is not about whether we need a program like this but how to go ahead implemeting it so that national effort is not duplicated, there is an optimized utilization of resources, and yet we achieve the dream.
But what exactly is the dream?
The Politics
For sure, it is not to build a big database. That is, if anything, a means to achieve the big dreaminclusion. The promise on which the UPA came to power. Many of the steps and stances of the UID project that are being questioned and debated can be understood much better, if seen in that context.
The UPA government understood that achieving social inclusion without achieving financial inclusion would not be practically possible. Whether it is the aggressive push by RBI to reach out to the unbanked by PSU banks, establishment of the business correspondent model to help achieve that or the Unique ID project, they are all part of the bigger plan of inclusion. The Unique ID project is the most ambitious manifestation of that dream.
Dataquest, in its issue dated January 31, 2010 (that is about two years back) had pointed this out in a cover story and noted clearly that the Unique ID project has to be seen in that context.
There can be a citizen database with an entire different objective as well. In fact, the whole concept of the Unique ID project, in the way it is being envisaged/rolled out now is just about three years old.
It is only on November 4, 2008 that the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by the then external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherji, with ministers of home, IT & communications, Law and Panchayatiraj as members, approved the establishment of a Unique Identity Authority, under the Planning Commission. UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani, who was outside the government at that time, had been speaking about the need for such a database for a long time.
Almost a year prior to that, on December 11, 2007, on the Dataquest Annual Award Night, Nilekani, the chairman of the Dataquest Jury, in his address had passionately talked of an urgent need to create a national identity system in India. Most part of his speech was dedicated to this topic.
But the concept of a national citizen database is much older. It originated during NDA rule. Way back in August 2003, an empowered council of ministers, headed by the then home minister L K Advani had agreed to create what it called the Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC).
But the objective was entirely different.
A press release issues on August 21, 2003, parts of which were reproduced by Dataquest in its January 2010 story, makes it amply clear.
Illegal migration has assumed serious proportions. There should be compulsory registration of citizens and non-citizens living in India. This will facilitate preparation of a national register of citizens. All citizens should be given a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and non-Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and non-citizens should be issued identity cards of a different color and design. This should be introduced initially in the border districts or may be in a 20-km border belt and extended to the hinterland progressively. The Central Government should meet the full cost of the identity card scheme.
A URL, http://mnic.nic.in, which was created for the purpose was there well onto 2010. BJP again included it in its IT vision documentpart of its 2009 poll manifestoand accused the UPA government of sleeping over it.
The most prominent point that the Standing Committee, headed by Yashwant Sinha, a senior minister in the NDA government, has raised just brings out that old question.
The Committee have received a number of suggestions for restricting the scope of the UID scheme only to the citizens and for considering better options available with the Government by issuing Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) as a more acceptable alternative, it notes. MNIC was the NDAs version of the Unique ID project.
The primary objectives of the two projects, though their means are the same, are completely different. To measure one with the yardstick of the other, is not just unfair but would never yield any result.
The problem statement for NDA was India was facing a lot of illegal immigration problem. MNIC was its solution to that.
The problem statement for UPA was Rajiv Gandhis observation two-and-a-half decades back that every one rupee spent by the government results in the desired recepient receiving only 15 paise. Unique ID project is the foundation stone on which its solution to that problem is based. The Dataquest cover story in January 2010 pointed this out unequivocally, calling the UID project as the governments primary vehicle for financial inclusion.
The idea in this essay is not to go into evaluating which is a more worthwhile issue to tackle but to point out that the two problem statements are separate. And hence the two solutions have to be different. We will not go anywhere trying to measure the succcess of one with the other objective in mind.
What about creating something that would address both the issues and more? The National Population Register (NPR) is a step towards that direction.
That would be a mega database with all the information. While that has its own questions associated with itsuch as privacy, who has access to information, how do you collect reliable information, what is the cost associated with itit is surely something worth exploring seriously. As a developing nation, we need to esnure that we do not overspend and work out avoidance of duplication of efforts. There may be cost-requirement trade-offs in certain cases that need to be decided on a case-to-case basis.
But that is not reason enough to wait till we get answer to all our questions so that we can create a perfect system. That would be neither be good governance or good politics. That would be Utopia.
The Gaps
But that does not mean that the Unique ID project enrolment for which has started has been all smooth. In fact, far from it.
There are many issues that have not been properly addressed. Anyone who has been to an Aadhar enrolment camp/office would know that. The process of enrolment has been outsourced to some agencies, some of which have further subcontracted it. There are long queues (as in any process in India) and more often that not, the process is as efficient as the operators want. If an operator comes late, everyone has to wait. The machines work too slowly. And the entire process is very slow. On probing, the operators tell you with their wisdom that it is because it is so secure, it has to be slow. You may have heard some other pieces of wisdom. The experince in a government owned voter ID registration is much better. The agencies say it is primarily because the machines are slow. Many operators complain they get too little to do the work.
But the bigger problem is, the process is not in any any manner more reliable or convenient than any other such process. Biometrics is the only differentiator.
And those who have managed to get the number wake up to the reality that it is just another number. This writer, while trying to help the bank account of someone opened with the card, was told sternly by the bank officer that it is yet to be accepted. On insistence, he agreed to accept it as an identity proof, not a residence proof. This bank has signed MoU with UIDAI to be a registrar for the project!
While one can still give some benefit of doubt as far as enrolment is concerned, because it is a new process using new technology, the non-acceptance of Aadhar as the only thing needed to open a bank account , the big promise on which it has been marketed to people, is a letdown. If banks, which are supposed to be more progressive, as compared to government departments, act this way, what can one expect from babus in the government?
Even if temporary, that is the big challenge before the UID projecthow to ensure that its big promise is kept. Else, what is the point creating yet another identity card?
Myths & Fallacies
But all the gaps mentioned aboveand there may be more such implementation issues still do not negate the basic raison dtre of the UID project. It still is one of the most important projects of the government, promising to create a system that will bring millions of Indian citizens to the financial systems, and ultimately to be active contributors to and beneficiaries of the national economic progress and wealth creation.
Some of the fallacies have to be called out while some myths have to be busted. Here are the most important myths that are doing the round and why they should be rejected decisively:
UK has scrapped it. So we must be doing something wrong. This is an argument many politicians and academicians alike have put forward. In an article in The Hindu, R Ramkumar, an associate professor in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, called the UID project to be based on a platform of myths. His essay started by comparing the UK and India projects and concluded that since UK has scrapped the project, India has good reason to follow siut. Without going into too many technicalities, it must be pointed out that the UK system did not have clarity of purpose and right from day one, people never liked it. On the other hand, the UID project has not been an objective by itself but a platform to achieve a clear cut objective of inclusion. And the popularity of the project among common people has been decisively proved by Google Zeitgist data.
But interestingly, the coalition government has started work on a similar project again. So, it is even fallacious to argue that UK has scrapped the national identity project. It has just scrapped Blairs version of the project.
Biometrics identification systems are not fool-proof. This is not an incorrect statement. But it is like Churchills famous assertion that democracy is bad except that it is better than all other forms of government. Biometrics has failure rates. But it is still the best known identification system today. According to International Biometrics Group studies, depending upon which biometrics system you are using, the failure rates are anywhere between 0.01% to 6.5%. For example, IRIS scores over palm vein when it comes to false acceptance rate (FAR) but it has a higher false rejection rate (FRR) as well. So, typically, a combination of two or three systems are used. The UID project too is doing that. The only other option is to wait till such a time when a perfect system comes.
Private agencies are involved and hence the cost goes up for the end user. The standing committee too makes this claim. It is not a UID specific reality. While we have no way of knowing if that is true or not, we need to then question the entire PPP model in everything. Toll roads charge money. Earlier, roads used to be free. CSCs also charge money. Almost every government service is today being provided at a price but are far more efficient. People seem to like it. UID is just another project, which follows the model.
UID project has no clarity of purpose. As argued above, it is all about a very clear objective. Inclusion.
UIDAI has gone ahead without legislative sanction. As clarified by the Planning Commission during the forming of UIDAI, till the time the authority has no statutory powers, the specific laws would apply to defaulters. It would make the entire process a little slower but there is no legal gap. The bill is not for UID project but giving statutory power to the body, which would make its functioning smoother.
Critical Issues
The Parliamentary Standing committee has raised a few very important questions while returning the bill to the government in its present form.
Since the two projects, NPR and UID have a lot of things that can be combined, we, as a nation, must not duplicate efforts and cost. That has to be optimized. If money needs to be spent because we need something absolutely, that must be a decision. But just lack of coordination should not be the reason for duplicating efforts.
The Standing Committee has also pointed out that National Data Protection Law, which is at draft stage, with the government must be a pre-requisite. One could not agree more. The legislation should be speeded up.
Endnote
Many are using the Parliamentary Standing Committes non-acceptance of the Bill in its current form as a thumbs up to their opposition to the project itself. That is clearly not true. The committee has not asked the government to scrap the project. And that must be very clear.
