In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Showing posts with label Kiran Bedi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kiran Bedi. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

13410 - The norms of power: Need new mindsets THE ASIAN AGE.

Published : Apr 30, 2018, 12:29 am IST

The Supreme Court has specifically directed that benefits can’t be denied just because someone doesn’t have an Aadhaar card, for instance.

 Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb

Several leaders holding high office have betrayed their saffron mindset of late. Many are somewhat new to working in a democratic polity, and hence may find it hard to understand the need to be inclusive while holding public office. They seem to consign the values they profess on the path to power to the backburner. 

How else is Puducherry lieutenant-governor Kiran Bedi’s mindset to be explained? She issued an edict that the free rice distribution scheme for villagers would be conditional to certification that the village was free of “open defecation and strewn garbage and plastics”. In the face of public outrage, she withdrew the order hastily. She can’t punish people for what really is a failure of the government to ensure adequate toilets are built, and of the local authorities to ensure cleanliness. It’s no laughing matter to deny people food in her Marie Antoinette-style authoritarianism. 

State benefits like food and pensions for the elderly can’t be denied on the whims and fancies of rulers. The Supreme Court has specifically directed that benefits can’t be denied just because someone doesn’t have an Aadhaar card, for instance.

Madhya Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel, who’s no stranger to administration being a former Gujarat CM, seems to have forgotten she’s now a ceremonial head of a state, like an umpire or referee. She has no business instructing ruling party members on how to win elections. Her expertise on this isn’t meant to be passed on in this partisan way. Political appointees to gubernatorial roles may face some difficulty in understanding bipartisan values, but there were some like Pranab Mukherjee who showed as President how those values can be sustained.

However, once again, the BJP’s inability to inculcate the highest traditions of democracy in its followers and supporters may be ascribed to its relative inexperience as a ruling party.


Constant reminders, including a stricture from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, don’t seem to have worked with BJP leaders like Biplab Deb, Tripura’s chief minister, turning into a serial motormouth. He may have triggered much mirth with his comment that the Internet had existed at the time of the Mahabharat, the epic whose origins are thought to be at a time around 3,000 years ago. What the CM’s comments brought out was the BJP-RSS thinking that ancient India was good only because it was a “Hindu India”. 

While the virtues of such a halcyon era will never cease to be wondrous, the BJP’s leaders would do well to keep their thoughts to themselves rather than try to impose them on the nation. The same probably applies to the HRD minister’s views on the failure of modern education and his espousal of the ancient gurukul systems. It’s not just a matter of keeping mum with their views on everything, but about not betraying their mindset in public.

Monday, January 20, 2014

5062 - From Lokpal to poll funds: Challenges for the next PM by FP Staff - First Post




Notwithstanding whosoever becomes the prime minister after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the fact remains that there is a full fledged list of priorities for the top executive in the South Block to make India a better place to live in. An initiative by the Think India Foundation found that the nation genuinely believes that the new prime minister has to go to the root of many key issues in order to curb corrupt practices across the board. This was the issue addressed in the course of a panel discussion anchored by founder and editor, Network18 Raghav Bahl,  in which former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, author Gurucharan Das, professor of Sociology, Shiv Nadar University, Dipankar Gupta and Think India Foundation, CEO, Dhiraj Nayyar took part in. The panelists also put forward a host of suggestions that the next head of government would have to urgently address. Here are some highlights of the discussion: 

Kiran Bedi. Reuters 

Implementing Lokpal "Corruption can be handled in two ways — bottom up approach and top down approach as in by the law. We are beginning with the CBI which is a national body. The CBI is looking after millions of Indian government employees and very soon the Lokayukats will also come up. The eight-member Lokpal will be diligently chosen and all cases referred to them will be under their direct supervision," said former IPS officer Kiran Bedi giving her views on Lokpal law that was passed last month. 

Giving his views on Lokpal, author Gurucharan Das said, "My feeling is that it is a victory. We waited for 40 plus years since it was first suggested by the Santhanam Committee. My concern is it would be a proof of the puddding when it is able to convict people in public life. And our court system will now have to deliver." 

Professor of Sociology, Shiv Nadar University, Dipankar Gupta wanted even more teeth to the Lokpal. "If Lokpal has the powers to investigate and prosecute I will the happiest with that. There are some things to be ironed out. Like the KPK (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi) in Indonesia, people from CBI should be hived into Lokpal and let's say work for five years and go back to their parent organisation," he said. Think India Foundation, CEO Dhiraj Nayyar believed that it is important for the Lokpal to have its own officials. "Lokpal needs to have its independent cadre for officials to function properly," Nayyar said. 

On Aadhaar "I do not know if it has reached the common man like the Lokpal. I don't know if it was debated enough like the Lokpal for the common man to understand. That's why there are inherent defects leading into many controversies," Bedi said explaining why the Aadhaar mission is not as successful as it ought to be. 

Das praised the very concept of Aadhaar and said that the inextensive banking network is not an impediment to the execution of Aadhaar. "I think it is an execllent idea and it can really transform the delivery of services. I am not worried about the shortcomings in the banking system because it has been designed in such a way that it can be executed in a kirana (grocery) store. For example, Chhattisgarh has done a good experiment by executing it through the kirana stores," he said. 

Gupta allayed fears that Aadhaar is a medium of privacy invasion by the government. "The fear of invasion of privacy is overdone. The state should know about citizens so that can deliver. However, one lacunae is that Aadhaar card is useless when someone moves out of his/her house. Aadhaar should work all over the country," he said. Stressing on the positive uses of Aadhaar, Gupta said, "Paying wages as per data on Aadhaar to private workers will bring the unorganised sector into the organised fold." 

Nayyar concluded the discussion on Aadhaar saying, "Delivering government services through Aadhaar is a definite improvement." On natural resources "In this matter I would go by Gandhiji's concept of trusteeship. No natural resource can be owned by a political party, minister or bureaucrat. There should be a national ownership. Auction is the most transparent method so far available but there should be a sense of trusteeship," Bedi said offering a solution to preserve natural resources like coal blocks, airwaves, gas etc. from exploitation and corrupt intentions. 

Das also supported the idea of auction. "Auction is the right way to go. We have to remove discretions from the politicians and the bureaucrats. Safeguards should be build to remove the possibility of crony capitalism," he said. Gupta dealt with the matter of auction of natural resources to stop corruption a little more deeply. "Auction by itself is not a virtue. Auction is good up to a point. You have to make things work. For example, in the coal blocks an auction without the land being cleared for mining might lead to corruption as some people might think they have the leverage to make it happen. The government must have a puiblic policy function on the basis of which they should have an auction for coal bloacks, gas, sand etc.," he said. Giving hius views on the auction of natural resources, Nayyar said, "The motive of the auction should be mentioned clearly even before starting it so that it can be defended later. For instance, if revenue maximisation is not the motive then that it should be clearly stated." On land "In the developed economies we can buy and sell land online. We should also have everything online to end corruption," Bedi said offering a solution to stop corruption in real estate matters. Das felt that the stamp duty on land dealings should be abolished and the cirle rates should be equivalent to market rates. Gupta called "appetite for real estate as n insatiable desire". "It is the mother of all corrution," he said. Saying that land is a "daily corruption issue" but "without enough play", Nayyar said it is a primary agenda for the new prime minister to end graft in real estate dealings at all levels. On electoral funding Bedi mooted the idea that a'' political parties should have their funding details available online. Appreciating what Bedi said, Das felt that it was a great idea to have details online. "AAP should be congratulated for doing that for the first time," he said. While Gupta praised AAP for showing how transparency can trump non-transparency, he appeared averse to corporate funding. "Corporates should not fund political parties," he said. Nayyar said that there is nothing wrond with with corporates givinng money for electoral causes butit should be transparent. On judiciary Coming down hard on the judiciary, Bedia said, "Judiciary needs to clean its own house first." Author Das blamed the government for slowing down the judiciary. "The government is the biggest villain in judiciary. The number of government cases pending are 65-70 percent. The government should go for methods like arbitration etc. and should not always indulge in litigation," he said. Gupta chose to give the example of Punjab where except for 11 areas in the state there are no government cases pending in courts. "The case histoty of each person should be evaluated and if an individual have already crossed the maximun period of ounishment for his or her crime, he/she should be allowed to go. Moreover, judgements should not be beyond 20-pages," the professor said referring to the whole lot of bulky judgements made by the courts running into hundreds of pages. Cutting down time in trials is a key thrust that Nayyar gave to judiciary. "The judiciary should also get out of the business of executive and deliver judgements," he said. On e-governance "There should be E-governance and P-governance i.e., personal governance. This will allow people to come closer to government services even in places where the internet penetration is not sufficient. The bureaucrats must have time for a town hall meeting," Bedi said. Das said that e-governance removes the possibility of corruption and it may help in winning votes. Nayyar said that mobile phones can be helpful in fulfilling the gap where the internet hasn't reached enough.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

1698 - The Officer Raj by Shekhar Gupta - Indian Express

Posted: Sat Oct 15 2011, 01:38 hrs

On the last working day of September, the Nandan Nilekani-led UID Authority received a rather clinical-sounding communication from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), informing him that he was sending in a team to conduct a performance audit of UPA 2’s flagship programme. This was to be a performance audit. Now, UID was not due for audit this year, so this was some kind of special initiative. And sudden too. Because on the morning of the very next working day, October 3, Monday, the CAG team was sitting in the UID offices. It was almost like a tax or CBI raid.
 
Now, you could argue either way on the constitutionality or justification behind such a sudden move, particularly when there hasn’t been even a whiff of any financial wrongdoing on the part of the UID. Even in terms of performance, its work has hardly gathered pace, so it may be much too premature for audit evaluation. But while there are no charges of wrongdoing of any kind against the UID yet, it has been dragged into a bureaucratic turf battle with some sections of the Planning Commission, and it is no secret on Raisina Hill that the opposition to the project (and the relative financial autonomy given to it) is led by Sudha Pillai, a redoubtable IAS officer now serving as secretary to the Planning Commission. 

To be fair, she has been open in questioning certain aspects of the way the project is being run. And it is probably only a coincidence that the current CAG, Vinod Rai, not only happens to be her 1972 batchmate, but also shares with her their parent cadre of Kerala.
 
We have no evidence at all of the two working in concert in any way, and so let us simply presume that each one has been acting on his/ her own, driven by bona fide doubts about the project. But what is evident is that each of them is at least individually challenging a programme so precious not only to this government, but also to the UPA’s top leadership, the Gandhis. Let’s not take a position on whether this is a good or a bad thing. Let us simply say that such things are nearly unprecedented in New Delhi.
 
If you’ve been observing our politico-bureaucratic complex closely over the past few months, you will find many such things that were hitherto unthinkable, or at least extremely rare. Some examples:
 
On July 29, Ashwani Kumar, minister of state for science and technology, threw a dinner party in honour of the new cabinet secretary and CVC, to which other senior political leaders and even top diplomats were invited. Now, how often have you seen ministers holding parties to welcome new bureaucratic appointees? In the British system we follow, in fact, the cabinet secretary is the clerk of the cabinet.
 
Just a fortnight back, the Indian Coast Guard took out advertisements (including in this paper) announcing the launch of two new ships. One of these was launched by the wife of the secretary, defence production, and the other by the wife of the joint secretary. So far, you thought these ceremonial, publicised launches were the privilege of the political class. With the politicians hiding in bunkers now, came the bureaucrats. And now their wives have joined the party too.
 
Almost every day now, you see civil servants, particularly those from economic ministries, on your TV screens. From finance to power to coal to oil and gas, almost all key economic ministries have seen their top civil servants emerge as their most visible spokespersons. On top of this bureaucratic star cast was, of course, our former home secretary G.K. Pillai. In fact, the only truly invisible civil servant is the seniormost of them all, the cabinet secretary, who, such a nice, self-effacing man, will most likely tell you that that is the way it is meant to be.
 
This government is under a legal assault of sorts from more civil servants retired from top positions than any in India’s history. At least three former chief election commissioners, one former cabinet secretary, 17 former Central government secretaries or equivalent and four former DGPs are in court, mostly with PILs, against this government. 

This list also includes a real surprise, a former air chief, Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy, who has joined a PIL questioning the appointment of directors to SEBI. And as this is being written, a group of former high-ranking government officials, led by former Union cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, and including former CEC N.

Gopalaswami among others, have filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010. It seeks a stay on all proposed nuclear plants till a safety reassessment of all nuclear facilities in India and a cost-benefit analysis of nuclear plants are carried out.
 
As they would say in bureaucratese, this list is by no means conclusive, or even exhaustive. But it does give you the picture. That with the weakening of the political authority of UPA 2, with its ministers hiding in fright rather than going out to explain, support and be accountable for their decisions, our civil services are enjoying a golden era of unfettered, unquestioned power. They are controlling their ministries, with the political bosses afraid of questioning any bureaucratic input as it would later be seen as a scam by a regulator or anti-corruption watchdog (CAG, CVC, even the CBI), all totally manned by brethren in the same civil service. The result is indeed an unprecedented civil service coup.
 
You may also want to add to it the fact that most of the civil society groups — on all sides — are led by former bureaucrats (N.C. Saxena, Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander of Sonia Gandhi’s NAC; Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal of Anna’s team; and E.A.S. Sarma, B.D. Sharma and others of the anti-big project opposition loosely built around Medha Patkar). From all formulations it now also seems that the new Lokpal, whatever the nature of the final bill, would also be mostly manned by former bureaucrats, selected by a committee with a preponderance of their own former colleagues.
 
Can you blame the bureaucracy for this? Maybe not, because they are simply walking into a vacuum left behind by a political leadership which is not willing to stand up for its beliefs, convictions, or even bona fide decisions. This is the main reason it has got itself into such a jam on the 2G scam. 

With no real centre of gravity in UPA 2, its ministers are caught in an every-man-for-himself mindset. It’s been ceding ground which legitimately belongs to an elected government, to all claimants: the judiciary, civil society, RTI leaders, and now its own civil servants. The net result is this creeping acquisition of state power by the civil service. The state of this government is best characterised by that brutal, if sexist, old saying from the Hindi heartland: garib ki joru, sab ki bhaujai (a weak man’s wife is everybody’s sister-in-law).
 
Is this is a good thing, or a bad thing? Many, in fact most, of these civil servants are probably honest, well-meaning Indians — so what is wrong if they displace our bumbling politicians?
 
I am reminded of a story that former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill says he would tell routinely to his students at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Bureaucrats, he said, were like doctors and nurses in the emergency ward of a hospital. When a patient was wheeled in, their job was to follow Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and wait for the specialists (the political leaders) to arrive next morning. The politicians would then decide what to do with the patient, and the bureaucrats would, in turn, implement those instructions. 

But you can imagine what would happen if people trained to follow SOPs took over the job of the specialists in a country as challenging to govern as India. The result would be a government in deep freeze, incapable of taking decisions, running on mere SOPs. In brief, a government in the emergency ward, which is as good a way as any to describe UPA 2 today.
 
sg@expressindia.com

Friday, September 9, 2011

1590 - The Utopian Instinct – Aflatoon, Kiran Bedi and Nandan Nilekani: Taha Mehmood - Kafila

by Aditya Nigam

Guest post by TAHA MEHMOOD

A pilgrimage to the cave

One day Cleinias, a Cretan invites Athenian and Megillos, a Spartan for a religious pilgrimage. Cleinias proposes to visit the cave of Zeus, just as Minos used to do. Minos was the legendary Cretan king. Every nine years Minos would walk along a path to the cave where he will hear revelations on the laws from Zeus. Perhaps the act of a man going to the cave to seek revelations from God was part of an ancient Cretian tradition. In the island of Crete Minos played the role of a Lawgiver, in Athens– Zeus, while in Megillos’s state Sparta this role was played by Apollo.

Magnesia: The last idolum of Plato

This was the setting of the last dialog of Plato. He called it The Laws. In this dialog Plato tries to define the legal framework of an imaginary state named Magnesia. Throughout his life Plato was preoccupied with the question of how to name and define things. He believed one could even name abstract entities like numbers and define it as even or odd. In this dialog Plato makes an attempt to name various types of laws and define it.

The space

During the journey Cleinias tells the Athenian how Crete has given him responsibility to found a city-state called Magnesia and asks Athenian to help frame its laws. Magnesia was a land locked country. Athenian proposes Magnesia to be divided into twelve sections. Each citizen must have two dwellings one near the center and one at the country side.

People

The Athenian suggests Magnesia should not have more than 5,040 citizens. The population of slaves and foreigners could vary but that of citizens must remain constant.

Registration of foreigners

A foreigner could come to Magnesia and settle for twenty years but he should register with the magistrates. When he leaves he was free to erase all entries regarding his stay from the register. Likewise all the details of any children born to foreigners should be registered and all their details could be erased upon their departure. However if a citizen were to bear a child his\her birth should be recorded in a family shrine under the heading ‘born’. And after their death such names should be expunged.

Land, wealth and public service
Furthermore the Athenian proposes that every possession and piece of land of every man be publicly registered with the magistrates whom the law appoints. The underlying idea being there should neither be extreme poverty nor extreme riches in Magnesia. The legislators must decide the limits to poverty. That state must have knowledge of wealth of its citizens. So if anyone is found with property that is not registered or have excess property it could be confiscated. All those who serve Magnesia must serve without receiving gifts. If anyone is convicted against a law ‘Do no service for a bribe’, he must simply die.

Trade

Athenian was of the view that commercial activities must be carried out either by foreigners or alien residents. A citizen should not engage either in retail trade or in money lending. No one was obliged to pay interest on money taken on loan. Plato ends The Laws with a scene where the Athenian suggests Cleinias to take a chance and establish Magnesia.

Political system

The Athenian did not prefer democracy. He believed God would watch over a council of guardians who will frame laws together with a benevolent dictator who will rule over Magnesia.


Tihar: And the rise of Kiran Bedi as a Platonic benevolent dictator

When Kiran Bedi first entered Tihar as Inspector General Prisons, she felt like ‘entering an organized township.’[i]  For all we know, she may have been referring to an imaginary city state like Plato’s Magnesia. Kiran Bedi, the retired Indian Police Service officer, is universally credited for reforming the largest prison complex in Asia Pacific region- The Tihar prison. In 1999 Kiran Bedi wrote a book, It’s always possible: one woman’s transformation of Tihar Prison, about her experience of managing the Tihar prison complex as Inspector General Prisons between 1993-1995.

How Tihar came into existence

The prison complex is located in North-west Delhi on a plot of land at a village called Tihar. In 1951, the Government of India invited a UN specialist Dr. WC Reckless to make suggestions for improving prison administration inIndia. Dr. Reckless, a university of Chicagotrained criminologist, submitted his report a year later. As a response to that, in 1958, Tihar prison was built. Tihar started functioning under the government of Punjab. In 1966 the administrative control of Tihar was transferred to the Delhi Government.

Type of prisons in Tihar

In Magnesia Plato devises three types of prisons for the state. A general prison can be located near the marketplace, a ‘House of Reformation’ near the nocturnal council and the last one should be constructed in some desolate region of the state for grave offenders. The assumption appears to be that a prison must cater to only one type of offenders. Like in Tihar, which back then in 1993, was used to house inmates for a variety of reasons. The prison complex was divided into four sections. Each section had several wards. Inmates were lodged alphabetically except Women and foreign prisoners who were lodged in Prison 1. Convicted prisoners were lodged in Prison 2. Accused related to Terrorists Activities Disruption Act were lodged in Prison 3 and the inmates of Prison 4 were under-trials.

Tihar, says Kiran, ‘was going to be my destiny’.[ii]

State of Tihar before Kiran joined

Just a year before Kiran joined, Tihar was in chaos. Riots had erupted in the prison resulting in death of some prisoners. The food, water, housing, sanitation and general administration systems at Tihar were in chaos. Even mental and physical hygiene of prisoners were severely affected. All this was compounded by non-functioning prison bureaucracy. The conditions were so bad that between 1988 and 1992, 120 prisoners had reportedly committed suicide.[iii]

Tihar was heading towards a hyper chaotic state but Kiran Bedi was not deterred by such a sight, as she mentions, ‘I was there to make Tihar a respectable human dwelling’[iv]. How did Kiran Bedi transform Tihar from a dystopic society to a functioning utopia? What steps did she take, as the highest-ranking officer of that space, to make its system work?

The magic of a petition box

Kiran Bedi explains, ‘running a prison proved to be a massive exercise in housekeeping’[v]. Housekeeping involves replacement of chaos with order. Every morning at 09:00 hrs Kiran Bedi would walk around the prison complex and take notes. In these notes Kiran Bedi would enlist those aspects of the prison that were not functioning properly together with the title of the person under whose jurisdiction it could be corrected. She inquired about action taken by prison authorities, by casually chatting everyday to groups of inmates assembled in front of the prison to go to court. These informal conversations provided her with a subsequent follow-up list of actions. After each round she would upgrade her lists.

Slowly, according to her, the prisoners began to open up, but the fear of prison authorities was still there. In order to counter that fear Kiran Bedi introduced a mobile petition box system. The petition box was to be used by prisoners to lodge complaints against all aspects of this organized and unique town that were not functioning according to the laws.

The petition officer

A petition officer was made the guardian of the petition box. The petition officer did not belong to the prison staff. He was from the Delhi Administrative Secretariat Services. There was only one key to the petition box and it was with the petition officer. The role of the petition officer was to log petitions, categorize and prioritize them and bring it to Kiran Bedi who would take the final call. She writes, ‘These petitions, along with rounds, became the basis for reforming the prison’.

According to her the petition box became a magical object where prisoners could whisper their complaints. The petition box for her was an information box, an audit box and a response box all rolled into one. She writes, ‘nothing was hidden anymore’.

An information flow was established which enabled Kiran Bedi to know what was going on and take corrective action, gather feedback on action taken and take further action. A chain of command and action was established. All complainants were given a pink card as an acknowledgement and some were given a green card after action, on their complaint, was taken. Tihar began to change. A council of guardians comprising of Jail Warders, Superintendents and officers were collaborating with Inspector General to introduce new practices for the good of all. Time was indeed ripe to introduce elements of democracy.

Kaidi Panchayat

The Athenian wanted democracy to flourish in Magnesia under the watchful eyes of its benevolent dictator. Elections were order of the day. A dazzling variety of officials were elected. For instance elections were held for the post of magistrates, city and market wardens, examiners, superintendents and judges of the court. Even the army would elect its Generals. However only those who carry shields could elect a Brigadier.

Likewise in Tihar, by an order issued in June 1993, just three months after she took absolute control of the prison complex, Kiran Bedi introduced the concept of Prisoner Panchayat System. Two staff members – a lambardar and a munshi were part every ward panchayat. The first type of panchayat was at the ward level. From the ward panchayat various types of elected bodies grew like the teachers panchayat and literacy panchayat. Kiran wanted a school to be opened in her city state. Other panchayat evolved like the medical panchayat, mess panchayat, sports panchayat, cultural panchayat, nai punja, legal panchayat, PWD panchayat, patrolling panchayat and so on.

On 25th Septmeber 1993, Kiran Bedi summoned a mahapanchayat. 400 elected representatives from four prisons gathered around Inspector General of prisons at Tihar to discuss participatory self-governance. The question was, how to utilize the potential of masses. In Tihar was no shortage of people. If Plato’s Magnesia had 5040 citizens, by 1993 Tihar, which was originally built for 2500 inmates had close to 8000 inmates. Kiran Bedi saw overcrowding of prison population its greatest strength, as she suggests, ‘In fact, the jail itself housed the greatest strength—human resource. The human beings confined within the four walls had all the time, energy and the professional skills, which constitute the foundation of any vibrant society.’[vi] The idea was to train prisoners in vocations and allow them to work. The problem was authorities didn’t remember who was who. They had a general idea of the population but specifically the identity of a person was difficult to gauge beyond the immediate confines of a ward.

The 8,000 inmates
Documenting individual identity of all prisoners is crucial to establishment and smooth functioning of any prison system. Tihar was no different. Plato’s Magnesia identity was not articulated through numbers. In Plato’s view Identity flows from essence. And essence excludes sameness. Plato was deeply troubled by questions pertaining to sameness and difference. I’d imagine a person like Plato would have a lot trouble naming and defining a person in terms of a number.

In Tihar every prisoner was given a number. A number often defines a prisoner. The personal identity of 8,000 prisoners was mapped. Practices such as taking thumb impressions and identification of prisoners by body marks were used to allow prisoners to access various spaces within the complex. The problem was in keeping records. Tihar was suffering from memory ailments. The jail staff was not adequately educated and the record room was in a bad state. Earlier all security related book entries were done manually. Few educated life-termers used to work in record and administrative sections. The storehouse for records was infested with rats, snakes ‘acting as deterrents to human entry’. Kiran passed an order for immediate computerization of all convict records[vii]. It was important to know the prisoners before they could be harnessed as a resource.

The factory

During Kiran Bedi’s tenure, KC Shroff of Excel industries became the first entrepreneur to collaborate with Tihar[viii]. He started a waste disposal unit that gave employment to 40 prisoners. Earlier a factory was located at Prison number 2. Prison number 2 was used to house life convicts. Before Kiran took over, factory was just as scam ridden as other places at Tihar. Kiran Bedi started asking Non Governmental Groups to help train convicts in vocations. By the time Kiran Bedi completed her tenure 300 NGO’s were imparting various training programs to life convicts and inmates[ix]. These programs help turn undertrials and life convicts to skilled laborers who could produce paper products, bakery, furniture products, male and female apparels, handloom and textiles. I do not have any access to sales data covering 1993-95 period however data covering the period from 2003-04 to 2009-10 is publicly available. By 2003 the Tihar Jail factory had a turnover of around $ 0.5 Million which increased to $ 2.3 million by 2009-10[x]. The Tihar Jail Factory has been branded as TJ’s. As of now, according to information given at the Tihar webpage, 700 inmates work full time in the factory. We do not know how many inmates are causally employed or work on a contract basis. We also do not know whether an inmate  continues his practice with the vocation learned at Tihar. One of the mission statements of TJ is to provide ‘opportunities of reformation to prison inmates by channelizing their energy towards productive work’. There were only four jails at Tihar during Kiran Bedi’s tenure however by 2008 five more jails were added housing over 11,000 inmates. Products from TJ’s are bought by member of general public, various institutions of Government of India and some private corporations.


Hijli:  The story of a space from Jail to Campus
Not all jails provide opportunities of reformation to prison inmates by channelizing their energy towards productive work. Some jails of pre-independent India, for instance, were used for detention purposes only. A case in point is the Hijli prison. In an impromptu literature survey regarding Hijli prison I found, it is variously described as a cellular prison, a detention center, a jail, a concentration camp and a penitentiary.

The Hijli jail was located in the district of Midnapore. It was active between 1921 and the end of WWII. M.M. Das, the parliamentary Secretary to the first Minister of Education of India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, describes the jail as ‘a vast concentration camp of the political prisoners in Bengal’[xi]. After independence the jail was shut down. Nehruvian technocrats reopened the jail as an academic campus. Hijli was where the first Indian Institute of Technology came into being. A jail where authorities opened fire and killed two inmates to quell a prison riot in 1931 was reopened as an academic campus in 1951.

The word campus has an interesting origin. It was first used to denote the landscape and buildings of the College of New Jersey that later became the Princeton University. Nassau Hall, a three story stone structure with a basement was the first built structure at Princeton University. Robert Smith, an architect, designed this building between 1753-56. Twenty years later he went on to build the first prison of America called the Walnut Street prison. Robert Smith used many features of Nassau Hall like the façade, the –U- shape halls, community residential areas to construct the Walnut street prison. The Walnut Street prison was designed to reflect a fundamental quaker belief that the purpose of imprisonment was ‘labor, silence and penitence’[xii]. Anyways, in post 1951 India, four more IIT’s were opened at Bombay, Madras, Delhi and Kanpur. New kind of academic campuses were being planned to channel out ‘old pattern of engineering education which laid exclusive emphasis on technology’ and introduce a broad based education. The idea was to plan a campus that could generate ‘engineers equipped with a sense of national purpose’[xiii].

One such institute was established in Powai, a suburb of Bombay. Nandan Nilekani, the Chairman of UIDAI passed out of IIT Bombay in 1978. He joined Narayan Murthy’s company Infosys in 1981. In early 1990’s the Infosys company established the first Information Technology campus of India in Bangalore.

Campus: Some views about an organized township

John C Stallmeyer, a professor of architecture, explains how Infosys campus evolves to project the idea of a corporate identity. The realization of corporate identity in terms of campus depends on variables like time and cost. A Silicon Valley imaginary is influencing the architecture at Infosys. An underlying transnational image is at the work here. Infosys Campus was designed to look like any other technology-park anywhere in the world. It could be any office. The building was designed to appear ‘as spectacular objects in the landscape, while their interiors remain essentially warehouses for software workers in their cubicles’[xiv].

There was something else. May be a deeper desire to move away from chaos. Stallmeyer wrote a letter to Mohandas Pai, the CFO at Infosys to inquire about the mindset of the management team and know why the campus is built in a particular manner. Mohandas Pai’s reply was as follows:

‘Whenever the clients come, they walk in, they walk through this chaos, [and] they are confused because they see…coming straight at them, they see the cattle on the road. You see people crossing the road; you see the buses going helter-skelter, you see the road is crowded, you see the dirt on the road and you are confused. You don’t know where you have landed, and they come here, and suddenly, they see order, they see beauty, they see aesthetics, they see a lot of well-dressed people moving about. There is order here. And then they believe that there can be quality and software here. But, you know, we are dealing with someone who lives 8,000 kilometers away in a different culture where there is order, where there is high quality, as they perceive it, and less disorder and chaos.’[xv]

Mohandas Pai’s words to Stallmeyer seem to reflect what The Athenian tells Cleinias during their walk to the cave of Zeus. The Athenian says, ‘if you order rightly the city of the Magnetes, or whatever name God may give it, you will obtain the greatest glory; or at any rate you will be thought the most courageous of men in estimation of posterity.’ The Athenian imagines Magneisa as an ordered space away from the chaos of Hellenes.

India: A land of chaos

In 2008 Nandan Nilekani wrote a book, Imagining India: Ideas for the new century. In Nandan Nilekani’s imagination India sometimes appears as a land where chaos reigns unfettered.

Dehli, for instance, comes across as follows, ‘In Delhi…. it is chaos.’[xvi] ‘Political chaos soon returned to Delhi’[xvii]. ‘Delhi’s riot for water and of course the inescapable chaos of traffic snarls’[xviii].

Nilekani remembers Bombay of 1979 as, ‘the decline of the city was already well under way, and the urban chaos was clearly visible’.[xix] He summarizes his disappointment about land market in Bombay as follows, ‘The chaos in our land markets has fed on itself’[xx]. Later in the book Bombay also appears in Nandan’s imagery as a ‘fertile chaos’.[xxi]

Chaos seems to be so much present in Nilekani’s imagination that even other people speak to him in the language of Choas. When Nandan Nilekani met Jaffery Sachs to talk about the state of Indian cities, Jeffery reportedly said following, ‘The broken pavements, the chaos of the roads endanger the causal pedestrian’[xxii].

Contemporary India, in Nilekani’s view, is suffering from a crisis. Where the states are forced into action by market pressure building up. This response led strategy has made ‘chaos the rule in our crumbling cities’[xxiii].

When Nilekani offers a sweeping history of railways in India, he does it through chaos. Nilekani carefully takes out 9 words from a book by Rajan Balachandran to explain how the British officers viewed the newly constructed fortified railway stations in India around 1870’s. In one sweeping sentence, Nilekani describes the railway stations as ‘protective Edens, against which,’ and then comes words form Rajan’s book, ‘the chaos of India beats, outrageous as a sea’[xxiv].

Nandan Nilekani considers the constant churning of electoral democracy in India, where some type of elections is taking place almost every year, as ‘chaos’. Infrastructure projects and investment in public goods, in his view, is therefore unsuited for this ‘chaos’[xxv].

When Mahesh Rangarajan speaks with Nilekani about the challenges to single market even Mahesh apparently uses the word chaos. Mahesh, as quoted in Nilekani’s book, says, ‘we are going through a period of some political chaos. And the impact it will have on single market reforms is pretty difficult to predict’[xxvi].

He urges policy makers of India to not to define policies by ‘the context of colonialism or capitalism. Instead we should focus on results and rational outcomes’ and then Nilekani adds a fragment from the famous speech delivered by a US Army General and later Secretary of State, Geroge C Marshal, at Harvard, when he was outlining a plan to rebuild Europe after WWII. In Marshal’s view policies must not focus on ‘any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos’[xxvii]. The Marshal plan called for removal of trade barriers and massive modernization of industry for reconstruction of Europe. This flight of capital, from America to Europe in the eyes of commentators like Chomsky, was key to the establishment of large transnational corporations and  therefore it laid the foundation for an umbrella of US power[xxviii].  I wonder whether Nandan Nilekani wants Indian companies to play the same role in years to come. Is he suggesting that a small cluster of big corporations together with thousands of big, medium and small NGO’s may carry out the painful task of governance inIndia.

Imagining India: Nilekani’s Utopia

So how would India figure out in the mind of a man who says  ‘I spend a good amount of time in planes, and the view of our largest cities from a height of 3000 meters is an exhilarating experience’[xxix]? To answer this question we have to dream the dream, which Nandan Nilekani dreams.

My favorite line of the book comes at the very end. During the course of researching the book Nandan Nilekani met a large number of people. One of them was Jaideep Shani, whom Nilekani describes a ‘boyish script writer of films like Bunty aur Bubbly and Chak De India.’[xxx] These films project a narrative of aspiration. The lead characters of these films move from the village to the city in the hope of realizing their dreams. In one film they end up working with the state to root out unlawful people, in the other film they end up harvesting glory for the state by winning at the games.

Had Plato seen Chak De, I’d assume he would be amused not because of the narrative of aspiration or because of the redemption narrative but because he suggests citizens should practice war- not in time of war but during peace. And any city magistrate, who has any sense, must provide provisions in order to summon all the youth of the city for games and competitions. City Magistrates must distribute prizes and confer honor to victors and must blame those who lost. Sports for Plato was a tool to make the citizens remember the city-state and identify with it.

Anyways, perhaps based on his interactions with a Bollywood dream-merchant Jaideep Sahni and by his own psychedelic experience of viewing Indian cities from a height of 3000 meters and getting exhilarated over and over again, Nilekani concludes ‘a majority of Indians now believe they can leave their village behind, and there will be something better waiting for them, round the corner, in the next town, in the big city’[xxxi] and with an afterthought he adds—‘perhaps even in their village should they return’.

A comparison of Utopias as Nandan Nilekani, Kiran Bedi and Plato projects in their book

While reading Plato I often wonder why did he dream of an ideal space in a city setting. What is it about a city that is luring policy makers in India to make a case for urbanization? Why is urbanization the preferred goal of people like Nandan Nilkekani? Surely there is nothing modern about cities. Society in Plato’s time was highly urbanized. What is Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian war if not a tale of tens of cities fighting with each other over a fear that Athens could dominate over Hellenes.

Nandan Nilekani’s utopia seems to be located in the next town or the big city where Indians can find something ‘better’. He visualizes towns and cities to be a site for entrepreneurship and growth. The state will give every citizen a number and therefore will possibly exercise control over knowledge of personhood in society. NGO’s and corporations will provide solutions to day to problems of governance. Politicians will take care of ‘chaos’ of democracy. In this respect his view does not seem to differ from Kiran Bedi’s experience at Tihar where NGO’s were called in to help run a system, private entrepreneurs chipped in and life convicts were happily working at the factory. Nilekani’s version differs from Kiran Bedi’s version in the distribution of power. For Kiran Bedi’s utopia seems to be functioning electoral democracy under the watchful eyes of a benevolent dictator holding the keys to a petition box. A vibrant society that is perhaps based on what she terms as a 3C system of governance (a collective-corrective-community). I wonder how does an upright former Inspector General of Prison feel whenever she looks at the Indian Parliament, where roughly one fifth of the elected members are accused under various sections of Indian Penal Code?

And Plato thought a city-state like Magnesia should be a site for reason and virtue. But who gives a fiddler’s fuck about a bone dead, boy-lover and a buck chowd- right??

Endnotes

[i] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-8, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[ii] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-11 Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[iii] U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 1994, INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1993, url- http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/1993_hrp_report/93hrp_report_sasia/India.html

[iv] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-4, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[v] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-144, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[vi] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-217, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[vii] The order to computerize all convict record was passed as an effect of observation made during her daily rounds. Her Note- Computerization of Convict Record should be introduced (Action, Superintendent Jail No 1 and DIG (PJ). She notes the jail staff at Tihar were not happy with this order.

Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-139, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[viii] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-211, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[ix] Bedi, Kiran. 2005, Its Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, p-xvi, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

[x] The Factory at Tihar-  http://tihartj.nic.in/the_factory.asp

[xi]  Āzād, Abūlkalām & Kumar, Ravindra. 1992, The selected works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Volume 9 Kumar, p-250, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

[xii] McShane, M.D & Williams, F.P., 1996, Encyclopedia of American prisons, p-407, Taylor & Francis

[xiii] Āzād, Abūlkalām & Kumar, Ravindra. 1992, The selected works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Volume 9 Kumar, p-251, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

[xiv] Stallmeyer, J.C, 2010, Building Bangalore: architecture and urban transformation inIndia’sSilicon Valley, p-60, Taylor & Francis

[xv] Stallmeyer, J.C, 2010, Building Bangalore: architecture and urban transformation inIndia’sSilicon Valley, p-60, Taylor & Francis

[xvi] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-34, Penguin Press HC

[xvii] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-185, Penguin Press HC

[xviii] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-195, Penguin Press HC

[xix] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-205, Penguin Press HC

[xx] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-206, Penguin Press HC

[xxi] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-239, Penguin Press HC

[xxii] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-208, Penguin Press HC

[xxiii] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-267, Penguin Press HC

[xxiv] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-220, Penguin Press HC

[xxv] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-223, Penguin Press HC

[xxvi] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-261, Penguin Press HC

[xxvii] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-26, Penguin Press HC

[xxviii] Chomsky N, 2003, The Umbrella ofU.S. Power: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Contradictions ofU.S. Policy, p-9,10 Seven Stories Press,

[xxix] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-195, Penguin Press HC

[xxx] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-159, Penguin Press HC

[xxxi] Nilekani, N. 2009, ImaginingIndia: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, p-462, Penguin Press HC