Before joining Indian
National Congress, Mahatma Gandhi had opposed biometric identification-
fingerprint based registration of Asians in general and Indian and Chinese in
particular. In his book, Satyagraha in South Africa, he describes
Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of 1906 and the Transvaal Asiatic Registration
Act under which finger printing of Asians was attempted as a "Black
Act." The Black Act was resisted on the grounds of the safety of Indian
and Chinese community of South Africa and to resist an intolerable humiliation.
Gandhi’s first Satyagraha
was in opposition to British Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of 1906 and
Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act of 1907. Under the Act every male Asian had
to register himself and produce on demand a thumb-printed certificate of
identity. The Act required the re-registration of Indians who were currently resident in the colony. The registration documents required photo identification and a full set of fingerprints, and these documents were to be carried at all times, and to be made available to police on demand. Unregistered persons and prohibited immigrants were to be deported without a right of appeal or fined on the spot if they fail to comply with Act.
In many respects, this law amounted to a rational review of existing legislation in the aftermath of a total regime change, and did not, in and of itself, represent unusual discrimination for times, nor unreasonable demands on the population. Gandhi, however, made a repeal of the Black Act a central pillar of his early political activism, which in turn set the stage for a confrontation between the Transvaal Indian Community and the colonial government.
One of the lessons from
the Satyagraha and freedom struggle is that law seeking biometric
identification of Asians must be resisted. There is a logical compulsion for
the Supreme Court to factor in this part of our history.
It must also be
factored in that in South Africa, both Indians and Chinese were required by law
to register their presence in the Transvaal by giving their fingerprints and
carrying their passes. In response to such legal requirement, Gandhi encouraged
Indians and Chinese to burn their passes. By this yardstick, it emerges that no
political party In India qualifies to be deemed an opposition party unless they
burn, boycott or bury the scheme that issues biometric identification slips
carrying unique identification (UID)/Aadhaar numbers.
It appears that
the Chinese have remembered their historical lessons not only from their
subjugation through opium wars but also how as community of shared fate they
had opposed finger printing together with Indians in South Africa. Dr. M
Vijayanunni, former Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India
underlined other reasons for China giving up a similar exercise on Rajya Sabha
TV on February 2, 2013. Indians on the other hand appear to be addicted to
forgetting lessons of their consistent defeats (in the battle fields and off
the battle fields).
Among the
defeats of Indians, the date of June 23, 1757 stands out. At page no. 502 of
his book Imagining India, Nandan
Nilekani provides ‘A Time Line of Key Events’ in India. Under the title ‘Seeds’
the first date he mentions is 1757. He describes the event of the year saying,
“The Battle of Plassey, where Robert Clive, commander of the (English) East
India Company’s army and renegade (he would later be tried in Britain for
looting Bengal treasury) overthrows the Nawab of Bengal. It is a battle won
through both money –bribing the Nawab’s loyalists- and the military.”
It seems that acting
like a modern day Clive, Nilekani has managed to somehow take the heads of key political
parties, their beneficial owners and their loyalists into confidence. Court’s
verdict on UID/Aadhaar is likely to decide whether Clive and his loyalists will
win once again or not.
By 1750, the Indian empire
was in a state of collapse as a result of a permission given by Indian Emperor
Jahangir to an Ambassador of English Emperor King James for setting up of a
base by English East India Company in Surat, Gujarat in 1615. By 1690, this company
had factories all along the West and East coasts of India with the main centres
at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. The company started to protect its trade with
its own armies and navies.
History repeats itself
in simple ways. Capt Raghu Raman, who was the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), Union Ministry
of Home Affairs had proposed creation of private territorial armies by
commercial czars in his earlier incarnation with Mahindra
Special Services Group as part of his previous work titled “A Nation of Numb
People”. But the State seems to have gone ahead and has started
providing Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), world’s biggest industrial
security force to the commercial czars on rent. At this rate how long will it
take for the commercial czars to hire Indian Army, Navy and Air Force? In any
case they are hiring them post retirement or poaching them in their
pre-retirement phase itself. The publications of industry associations have pointed
out that NATGRID and UID/Aadhaar are linked. Unless the Supreme Court is alive
to the writing the writing on the wall its ramifications are bound to unfold
and make their democratic rights redundant.
The Court may recollect
that Indians were taken into “uncharted waters” by unelected persons. UID-aadhaar
and related schemes are meant to engineer the electoral system for good.
The surveillance regime
based on UID/Aadhaar is rewriting the political geography of the country by
employing biometric and other intrusive automatic identification technologies. The
resident numbering project took citizens for a ride by promising that the UID/Aadhaar
is voluntary. Such deception ended up coercing people through rules and orders by
denying services. In a reply to RTI query, UIDAI replied "There is no way
of verifying the country of origin of the companies" when asked about the
involvement of transnational companies as contractors. It indulged in fibbing. The
fact is that UIDAI has been hiding the details of these contractors who are
linked to foreign intelligence firms and agencies.
Disclosures and
revelations widely reported underline how these technologies have put even heads
of governments reveal that there is paucity of capacity to monitor or regulate
these technologies within the Government. If this is the plight of the governments
and technologically challenged political class, the threat for citizens can
easily be understood.
Court must make the government
review its capacity to regulate an emerging technology regime that is
undermining democracy and sovereignty and should not be misled by unelected
cabinet ranked officials who say, “Technology has no history and no bias, it
treats everyone the same way.” History of technologies reveals that it is their
owners who are true beneficiaries especially when it is used for social
control. There is a compelling need to urgently assess the claims and risks of
biometric and surveillance technology and how some companies made UID/NPR politically
persuasive for the ruling party and intertwined the systems of technology with
crying need for governance.
Democratic mandate of
2014 was against turning India into a market democracy where executive and
legislative decisions are driven by profit mongers not by public interest. It was
a mandate against assault on democratic rights and diluting federal structure
of the country. Given the fact that the electoral
verdict of 2014 was against the proponents of UID/Aadhaar project, it remains intriguing
as to why a political leader and a Prime Ministerial candidate who opposed it
in September 2013 at a BJP Youth Conference rally in Trichy and on 7th
April 2014 at a Bharat Vijay rally in Bangalore and who tweeted on 8the
April 2014 saying that Aadhaar has no vision, it is only a political gimmick,
changed his mind after a closed door meeting between him, Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley and Nilekani in late June 2014. Nilekani succeeded in getting the
endorsement for the Aadhaar project.
In such a backdrop, the
key questions facing the Constitution Bench are:
Is it the case that the
biometric databases of Indians have already been sold in the futures market and
the powers that be have got their shares in the booty which makes it
‘irreversible’ as is being claimed, despite electoral reverses?
Why are opposition
parties taking starkly contradictory positions by implementing UID/Aadhaar
number scheme even as they express their opposition to it?
What
would Government of India and Parliament of India do when cyber and biometric
invasion into the privacy of Indians happens by foreign entities?
Did
the citizens’ database that was handed over by Hosni Mubarak regime to the
Government of USA prior to its fall facilitate the overthrow of democratically
elected Morsi regime in the coup by the military in Egyp and the repression of
Egyptian citizens there after?
What
will application of judicial mind mean when the Court has sufficient evidence
to infer that beneficial owners of meta data collecting and automatic
identification technologies have overwhelmed Government of India resulting electronic
and biometric invasion by foreign entities?
What
is the lesson from Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to biometric identification?
The way all the agencies
are linking demographic and biometric information with identification of citizens
it is apparent that a permanent Emergency architecture is unfolding. The
electoral database is also being converged. The idea is to make citizens
transparent before the all mighty Government so that Government, their servants
can remain opaque to safeguard the interests of undemocratic and ungovernable
social control technology companies.
The author had appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that examined the Aadhaar Bill and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution that examined the Consumer Protection Bill. He is editor of www.toxicswatch.org and is the convener of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties which has been working on UID/Aadhaar issue since 2010.
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