By Aheli Moitra
If the government was to be believed, the Unique Identification Code (UID or Aadhar Card) could have sorted out all problems of a modern independent India. Based on this assumption, the government in New Delhi pushed for the UID to be made mandatory to avail essential government services. The UID would be based on data collected by the government of your iris and finger prints—biometrics. The State would then seek to overpower the citizen by creating a centralized database of every one of them, and control this database to its fantasy’s end—to give services, yes, but also to crush rights of certain citizens through targeted persecution, more than already being done.
The Supreme Court of India, on Monday, shot the UID down, thank your stars, and not before many social and civil rights outfits, alongside academics, activists and researchers raised a cry about the illegal (and bizarre) nature of collection of such data, available for only the State and its agencies to use however they deem fit. The card cannot be mandatory for availing government services, and the data thus collected cannot be shared with any other agency, noted the Supreme Court.
How on earth can details of your iris be compulsory to ensure that you get the gas cylinder entitled to you?
A large part of the data collection and the UID Authority of India’s bullying was made simpler because except the above mentioned few no one challenged it. This applies especially to the “educated” middle class which claims to be so full of intelligence, it could throw up intelligence—it had no clue what the UID was all about, and in its usual demeanor decided to enroll because the government says so. They know their number tables but naught their application in a real world where politics determine the final calculation. In a wild run for a cash economy, this constituency is happy to give up its political rights. As a reminder, unique identification was used in Germany in the 20th century to identify and wipe out populations as a whole. Forgetting politics could lead to forgetting history.
While certain crucial restrictions have been put on the UID project by the Supreme Court of India for now, it would do well to think of political processes and why we must engage in them. When people like us do not engage in political processes, they are inevitably handed over to technocrats, meritocrats or powerful people with aspirations and ambitions that do not reflect that of the people. In effect, our futures are handed over to irresponsible point persons who rarely have to run behind their right to life or profit. In this century, more people turning to activism and questioning States (and their governments) is telling of how abusive these structures have become, and the need felt in people to take over the reins of our collective future.
Today, we, the people, have the responsibility to change systems that have made governments and their agents much more powerful than us, the people. While there are persons we have elected to run this government, it is our duty and right to question them at every stage—this will come only with sustained engagement with the political system and lending our voice to political processes.
Suggestions to this effect may be sent to moitramail@yahoo.com