12693 - Who Is Running the ‘Orchestrated Wine And Cheese Campaign’ Against Aadhaar in the SC? - The Wire

Who Is Running the ‘Orchestrated Wine And Cheese Campaign’ Against Aadhaar in the SC?

BY ANOO BHUYAN ON 18/01/2018 • 10 COMMENTS

Defenders of Aadhaar have called opposition to it an organised campaign stemming from paranoia. But a look at the petitioners proves it is anything but.

One cannot confirm if any of these petitioners, who have all submitted bulky petitions, do in fact drink wine or/and eat cheese. Credit: File photo

New Delhi: Just last week, UIDAI’s former chairman Nandan Nilekani called the opposition to Aadhaar, an “orchestrated campaign”. A few days before that, an editorial in an Indian news portal said the opposition comes from “activists of the upper crust, upper class, wine ‘n cheese, Netflix-watching social media elite – mostly of the Left”.

And in an interview with The Wire last year, former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said, “This paranoia is coming from a few people in a country of 150 crore.”

Nilekani, the architect of the Aadhaar project, has also spoken at length in reference to a major story in The Tribune that took on global resonance on how India’s entire Aadhaar database is being breached and leaked through various vendors.

Among the more prominent faces at the helm of the fight is one Padma Shri awardee, three Ramon Magsaysay awardees, three former Indian army personnel, a retired high court judge, a parliamentarian and the entire government of West Bengal.

And yet who are these people who apparently “drink wine, eat cheese”, and also make a commitment to the Supreme Court to spend money and time (over six years for some), only to spite Nilekani’s Aadhaar project?

The protesters

A look at the 30 challenges filed before the Supreme Court and the people behind them casts doubts on the accusations that the ‘wine and cheese’ lot have no understanding of base realities.

In fact, by simply looking at the various sections of society those opposed to the project belong to, it becomes clear that this isn’t an organised and ‘orchestrated’ campaign, but a motley bunch of individuals who have been tagged together by the Supreme Court on a now bloated Aadhaar petition. The earliest petition (by retired Justice Puttaswamy) has been plodding along for six years, since 2012, and 11 others out of the 30, joined the fight the very next year.

Also read: Aadhaar Isn’t Just About Privacy. There Are 30 Challenges the Govt Is Facing in Supreme Court

One cannot confirm if any of these petitioners do in fact drink wine or/and eat cheese, but from reading their bulky submissions, they appear have committed themselves to a cause that they truly believe interferes with the lives of the Indian people.

Justice (retired) Puttaswamy: At 92, Puttaswamy is one of the oldest living petitioners in the Supreme Court, and the oldest petitioner in the Aadhaar case. He was born in 1926 and enrolled as an advocate in 1952. By 1977, he was appointed a judge of the Karnataka high court. His challenge, a path he put himself on in 2012, is the first challenge to the Aadhaar case. The now historic privacy judgement delivered in August 2017, takes its name from his challenge.

Bezwada Wilson: Wilson has been the driving force behind India’s efforts at providing dignity, security and emancipation to manual scavengers who risk their lives while cleaning drains and latrines. Manual scavengers, who largely belong to the ‘lower caste’ in India, face stigma and exclusion. Wilson is not new to long-fought and hard-won public interest litigations and has fought a case which led to the government to pass laws for the prohibition of the employment of manual scavengers. In 2016, he received the Ramon Magsaysay award.

Major General (retired) SG Vombatkere: Vombatkere retired as a major general of the Indian Army after 35 years of service. He is now over 70 was awarded the Visishta Seva Medal by the President of India in 1993. He is a key petitioner in this case along with Bezwada Wilson. Their submission says it is “wider” than Puttaswamy’s and calls for the Aadhaar Act to be declared a violation of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian constitution and asks that no one be denied any service on account of Aadhaar. They have also asked the court to direct that all data collected under Aadhaar by the public and private sector be destroyed. They have challenged the National Population Register and Aadhaar’s link.

Shantha Sinha: Shantha Sinha was the first chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and served two consecutive terms (2007 to 2013). She has also been on various other government committees on national integration, right to education, mid-day meals and adult education. Her work on the ground in Andhra Pradesh was directed at rescuing children from child labour and admitting them to government schools. She also received the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2003 and the Padma Shri in 1998.

Kalyani Menon Sen: Sen is a feminist scholar and has been an activist for women’s rights for over 25 years. She has worked with the United Nations Development Programme, advising on gender related issues. Sinha and Sen are co-petitioners in their case. Some of their prayers are similar to Wilson’s and Vombatkere’s. They’ve also moved court seeking that “accounts of current bank account holder will not be made in-operational and future applicants will not be coerced to submit their Aadhaar numbers.” They’ve petitioned the court similarly for the government’s order on linking mobile numbers to Aadhaar.

Aruna Roy: Roy was briefly a bureaucrat in the Indian Administrative Service (1968 to 1975) but resigned and is now known for her nearly 40 years of work with the rural poor in Rajasthan and ‘Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’ which she runs. She was also a key figure in the movement which led to India passing the Right to Information Act as well as the Right to Food. She was a member of the UPA’s National Advisory Council for five years and was instrumental in the passage of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. Along with Wilson and Sinha, Roy has also received the Ramon Magsaysay award.

Nikhil Dey: Dey is a long-time colleague of Aruna Roy, a co-founder of the ‘Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’ and a co-petitioner with her on this case. With Roy, he too has worked on the right to information, food and employment in India. Their petition saw every state and union territory of India being made a respondent. “The present experimentation would undoubtedly result in social exclusion by depriving persons of the fundamental rights and also putting at stake vast sums of tax payer’s money,” says their petition.

Major General (retired) SCN Jatar: Jatar served with the Indian Army from 1954. He commanded an engineer regiment in India’s 1971 war in the Poonch Sector (Jammu and Kashmir) and was the commander of infantry brigades in the Kashmir Valley and Rajasthan dessert, from 1977 to 1981. He has been appointed to several government committees and was also the Chairman at ONGC Videsh Limited and Oil India. His petition saw the Election Commission and Reserve Bank of India appear as respondents.

Colonel (retired) Mathew Thomas: Thomas, who is around 80, retired as Colonel from the Indian Army and has seen military action in Nagaland, China and Pakistan. In 2014, he was invited to address a BJP parliamentary panel, where he explained various issues around the Aadhaar scheme. He has asked the court to direct an investigation into the role of foreign and private companies in the collection of biometric data of Indians.

Supporting material in the form of research has been submitted to the court by Reetika Khera (professor at IIT Delhi), Jean Dreze (co-author with Amartya Sen of An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions), Jude Terence D’souza (securities system specialist in Mumbai), Anand Venkatanarayanan (data security expert in Bangalore), Samir Kelkar (security consultant) and Anumeha Yadav (journalist, formerly at Scroll.in).

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11869 - Right to Privacy: ‘Verdict ensures everyone is born and dies with this right’ - Indian Express

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/right-to-privacy-verdict-ensures-everyone-is-born-dies-with-this-right-aadhaar-4812294/

• Right to Privacy: ‘Verdict ensures everyone is born and dies with this right’

"This historic, unanimous judgment was triggered by the preposterous claim by the government that the “right to privacy” was not a fundamental right."

Written by Seema Chishti | Updated: August 25, 2017 12:14 pm

Right to privacy: Six citizens whose petitions challenged Aadhaar

Kalyani Menon-Sen, GurgaonThe Indian Express speaks to some of the citizens whose petitions challenging Aadhaar led to Supreme Court examining the right to privacy and ruling it is a fundamental one

Activist

Kalyani Menon-Sen

‘Because I don’t reveal, how can you deny me access to my own bank account?’

“For me it was a case of ensuring that nobody vulnerable, whether old, a child or disabled, is denied welfare benefits, because of a technology fetish and the state’s desire to intrude into my privacy. We cited lots of data to show where technology was not working, and large parts of the population were vulnerable to losing benefits. The arguments of government that coercing everyone to reveal date would “reduce leakages” and ensure “100% access” are both [expletive]. There is such a high failure rate on the ground. The government is an arm of the state, whose duty is to protect the Constitution and ensure this right. Because I don’t reveal everything, how can you deny me access to my own hard-earned money, my own bank account? So the recognition of the right to privacy as an intrinsic and inviolable right is brilliant. The government arguing that only the rich need the right to privacy and that it is a luxury is so wrong. This judgment now ensures that each citizen is born with this right, and it is there till his/her life ends.

Bezwada Wilson, Delhi

Magsaysay Award winner & head, Safai Karamchari Aandolan

Bezwada Wilson

‘To reveal identity or not to do so is my choice’

“For me, working with Safari Karamcharis, I know that we regard the right to privacy to reveal or not to reveal identity as central to who we are. It is my choice. The state cannot use this information in its hand and own it, using it when and how it wants to. No one can enter my privacy. On the one hand, you say end the caste system; on the other hand, you have devices saying ‘no privacy’ when you use identity information to brand and typecast me. I must have a choice not to reveal it. Humans are not toilets or a car, cannot be reduced to just one number. Humans are citizens and must enjoy full sovereignty. If citizens are not sovereign, how can the country be sovereign? “My deepest concern is this cleavage between citizen and the state, this split between the two. In a modern democracy, we must see ourselves as one. But now, the state is coercing — ‘have to’ do this or that. This worries me.”

Nikhil De, Rajasthan

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan

Nikhil De

‘Govt wanted unbridled powers to collect, use data’

This historic, unanimous judgment was triggered by the preposterous claim by the government that the “right to privacy” was not a fundamental right. This claim was made and used because the government wanted to claim unbridled powers to collect and use data for its Aadhaar project. Our work with the poor has shown its mandatory use has led to massive exclusions of the poor and vulnerable. We hope this chapter of enormous distress, caused by coercive state requirements of authentication, will come to an end. There are far greater implications on the commercial and surveillance use to which data can be put. Many parts of this judgment will become part of interpretation in subsequent cases, but after this judgment establishing the fundamental right to privacy, the state cannot gather mass data and information through coercive means, or enable the use of citizens data for purposes of mass surveillance or commerce. Mandatory Aadhaar should come to an end.

Setup Timeout Error: Setup took longer than 30 seconds to complete. Suresh Vombatkere, Mysuru Retired major general, Army Sudhir Vombatkere ‘If they had their way, India would have turned into a surveillance state’ “For me, it is personal. The judgment affirms our Constitution and fundamental rights. I have had great respect for both as a child, and an intimate connection. My father, V G Row [vs State of Madras], won in 1952 when the Supreme Court affirmed the right to association and expression. My father was detained for his Society for People’s Education, a forum for educating people. The court upheld his right and reversed his incarceration. If he had been jailed — I was just 10-11 — my life would have been different. “The government made truly ludicrous arguments. The A-G said we don’t have rights to bodily privacy. If they had their way, India would have turned into a surveillance state. The court has unanimously upheld this right as fundamental. This is what B R Ambedkar meant when he said Indian citizens within We the People need dignity, freedom and liberty. This has now come into its own, finally. “This judgment has implications for India and the world. The Supreme Court has made international history.” Shantha Sinha, Hyderabad Former head, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Shantha Sinha ‘Safeguard against state invasion of self-hood’ “The right to privacy is of each Indian. The Supreme Court declaring this as a fundamental right, integral to life and liberty is historic. It provides safeguards against state invasion of self-hood and risks thereof. “It strengthens our democracy. It is not only of the rich but all citizens can claim this right and also to get entitlements.” Dr Anupam Saraph, Pune Rashtriya Chetna Manch Anupam Saraph ‘It will help us be more respectful society’ “Respect for others is enshrined in a society that protects privacy as a fundamental right. Indians can be proud that this respect has been upheld by the highest court. I am sure this should help all of us with the cause to build a culture that will value dignity, liberty, justice and equality. It will help us be a society that is more humane and respectful. “I became a petitioner as Aadhaar has removed identification and consent from business processes. It has removed liability and traceability of fraud from business processes. Aadhaar has removed identification and consent from business processes and replaced it with an outsourced process it calls authentication. It has outsourced authentication and replaced responsible parties with those without legal liability or responsibility. This not only results in legal and real confusion but enables crime and corruption. It destroys business processes, governance and national security. “Aadhaar is a project that doesn’t understand governance or business processes. It is merely technology in search of applications and business. It neither adds any value nor serves any useful purpose to the user of a business processes. That is why it has had to be coercive and exclusionary.” “Despite serious concerns and consistent opposition from RBI that Aadhaar serves no use for banking and in fact destroys banking, Aadhaar is being forced on all bank customers. Aadhaar-enabled payment systems are run by a non-government company and cause the money trail to be destroyed. Anyone who wants to protect the country and its people from all of this would challenge the use of Aadhaar. Anyone who believes in the promise of the Preamble would oppose Aadhaar. Anyone wishing to ensure that India is not digitally colonised by private interests driving Aadhaar would oppose it.