After
submitting 3.57 crore signatures against Aadhaar/UID to the Prime Minister, now
Socialist Unity Centre of
India (SUCI)-Communist party’s journal denounces the Unique Identity
(UID) or Aadhaar scheme as ‘subversion of
democracy’ in its four page analysis. It had taken note of the severe
indictment of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) by the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in its report placed before
Parliament on December 13, 2011. According to the report, the UID/Aadhaar
project has been conceptualized “with no clarity of purpose” and
“directionless” in its implementation, leading to “a lot of confusion”. The
Standing Committee also observed that while framing of relevant law is under
way, the continuance of the project is “unethical and violation of Parliament’s
prerogatives”. The collection of biometric and personal data and issuing of UID
numbers do not have any statutory sanction until the Bill is passed by
Parliament. The journal endorses Parliamentary Standing Committee’s report saying, “There is every merit in this
observation.”
The latest April 2013
issue of Proletarian Era, the central organ of the SUCI (Communist) raises
pertinent questions debunking the need for UID/Aadhaar.
.
The
party holds that “In the absence of a Constitutional provision or legal
framework, all the actions of the UIDAI are technically unconstitutional and
illegal.”
It
observes “Nandan Nilekani, the current Infosys chief nominated by the
government to head the project, has been given sweeping powers.”
It
adds that if the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 “is not
passed for any reason and if Parliament is of the view that the authority
should not function, the exercise would have to be discontinued. Yet, the
Congress-led UPA II government which is now virtually reduced to a minority
following withdrawal of support by two of its main constituents has gone ahead
with rolling out the project which is envisaged to cost as high as Rs 1.50 lakh
crores roughly. This smacks of subversion of democracy. That is why there is
doubt what prompted
the
government to be in such a pressing hurry to launch such a crucial as well as
highly debatable scheme bypassing Parliament.”
The
party’s analysis infers that “the claim that introduction of Aadhaar would
cleanse the system from middleman intervention is not only hollow but deceptive
as well.”
It
apprehends that “The possibility that some such agencies (data collecting
entities) are aligned to communal and fundamentalist groups and thus having
ulterior motive in collecting non-mandatory information, cannot be ruled out.”
It
observes, “several countries including the US, the UK, Australia, China, Canada
and Germany have tried such projects but aborted them midway as impractical.
The US –arguably the most surveillance prone society in the world – passed a
Federal law requiring the States to allow the Federal Department of Homeland
Security to access State databases such as drivers’ licences and motor vehicle
registration but failed to implement the same.”
The
journal dwells on individual’s right to privacy and the biometric-based
national ID system as unconstitutional on grounds of invasion of privacy. It
recollects the decision by the European Court of Human Rights on the violation
of the right to privacy and citizens’ rights. The unanimous decision of judges
was that the “blanket and indiscriminate nature” of the power of retention of
the fingerprints, cellular samples, and DNA profiles of persons suspected but
not convicted of offences, failed to strike a fair balance between competing
public and private interests.
In a pithy
observation that merits the attention of all the political parties and the
peoples movements the journal observes, “In our
country where abuse of power for ulterior motive, spying on political
opponents, subversion of basic human rights, harassing activists of democratic
mass movements, crushing democratic mass movements by resorting to various
coercive methods including persecution of their core leaders and organizers in
a planned way and such other undemocratic acts are reported everyday in
swelling numbers, such empowerment to any nodal agency is bound to be viewed as
arbitrary, if not draconian. It is no more a secret that there was involvement
of the entire government machinery in mass carnage that happened in Delhi in
1984 and Gujarat in 2002. Tacit approval of the government administration
towards ‘encounter killings’, ‘custodial deaths’, abuse of special power by
police-military in eliminating political opponents is also a reality. While the
bourgeois government does have various methods to track the movements of
political opponents, with Aadhaar in place and most of the transactions
starting from booking of rail tickets, withdrawal of cash from ATMs to bank
credit of proposed food subsidy amount linked to it, such surveillance system
might be eased if run based on Aadhaar.”
Recalling
past, it says, “History would bear out such systems were indeed misused by
despotic and fascist forces earlier. German rulers used IBM Hollerith D-11 card
sorting machine in the census of the country in 1933 and since there was a
provision for identifying race and ethnicity, the Nazi rulers with the help of
IBM could conveniently count and identify the Jews whom they savagely butchered
out of racial hatred. One, therefore, cannot rule out the possibility of this
power being misused by persons in power to access private details such as
religious, racial, caste or even political profiling from Aadhaar data base to
serve undemocratic, illegal and unethical purposes for use in ways that may
pose a risk to the life or security of the person concerned. It is
noteworthy
that when quizzed on how they would prevent Aadhaar data base from falling in
wrong hands or enabling unscrupulous politicians to misuse for their benefit
and against the interest of the Indian people, Nandan Nilakeni who eulogizes
Aadhaar number as “ubiquitous” and even advised people to “tattoo it
somewhere,” lest they should forget it, was caught napping.”
Earlier, on
March 14, 2012, this party had submitted a memorandum with eight demands,
including a demand for scrapping of Aadhaar/UID to the Prime Minister with 3.57
crore signatures.
Citizens
Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) has been campaigning
against unregulated biometric, surveillance and identification technology
companies since 2010 and had appeared before the
Parliamentary Standing Committee, Finance in this regard. CFCL
has consistently underlined that the silence of the States which are quite
vocal about threats to federal structure from Union Home Ministry‘s National
Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) that
integrates 21 sets of databases in the matter of the creation of UID’s
Centralized Identities Data Register (CIDR) disregarding the fact that Planning
Commission’s CIDR and Home Ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) is
inexplicable.
For Details:
Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), Mb:9818089660,
E-mail:gopalkrishna1715@gmail.com
+ comments + 1 comments
Aadhaar is a very good scheme from the Indian government especially for the poor people from the country. The scheme has been accepted across the country with open hearts and we should appreciate government’s efforts for such type of schemes. The launch of Aadhar Card based Direct Cash Transfer scheme is an addition to benefits of the people as it will reduce the corruption involved up to some extent. The genuine beneficiary will get advantages of the welfare programmes from both the state and the central government.
Post a Comment