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

Friday, July 14, 2017

11601 - Aadhaar: My body, my rights

Thursday, May 11, 2017


The bad news is, it’s not just about the Aadhaar-PAN linkage.
(Published on May 6, 2017 in Business Standard)

‘Dear Govt.. Can i have my left hand back please.. Need to scratch my head.’ (sic)

This one tweet beautifully mocked two arguments made in the Supreme Court by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi. The AG said that a) citizens do not have an absolute right over their bodies, and therefore can be compelled to give their fingerprints and iris scans to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI); and and b) that you “cannot import conceptions of privacy” into India, because, he said, on a train in this country, people will tell you their life stories within five minutes.

The facileness of these statements is breathtaking, even from a government as super-nosy as this one.

A vigorous anti-Aadhaar campaign is being conducted by people driven by precisely those two ideas: Bodily integrity, and privacy. They represent a very large number of Indians who value their bodily integrity and autonomy, and privacy, very much indeed. We value it because we’re free adults—a fact that escapes the tiny-minded officials who constantly censor our books and movies, and tell us, among other things, whom to love and where, and what to eat and why.

The case in the Supreme Court will determine whether or not taxpayers must mandatorily link their Aadhaar numbers with their PAN cards in order to pay their taxes. Petitioners challenging the government’s order say it can’t be made mandatory since Aadhaar is a purely voluntary system, targeting subsidy beneficiaries. The arguments have been rivetingly live-tweeted for days. The Centre refused to allow arguments based on the idea of privacy, since the court is separately deciding whether Indians have a fundamental right to privacy. The petitioners therefore argued for informational self-determination and bodily integrity, saying that you cannot extend the doctrine of Eminent Domain to the body, nor coerce people into parting with their most personal, irreplaceable, unchangeable data.

The Aadhaar-PAN linkage is a matter of tax law. On most days I would rather stab myself repeatedly in the heart than think about tax law. But I am riveted, because it scares me to to death that we have to argue tax law in terms of our fundamental constitutional and bodily rights, and that we’ve gotten to this point so awfully fast. The question of linking Aadhaar with PAN numbers is only the tip of a very large conceptual iceberg. As the petitioners’ advocate Shyam Divan put it, “If we fail here, the impact it could have on civil liberties in the country could be huge.”

The impunity of the government, and its assumptions, are staggering. How dare a democratically-elected government treat its citizens with such contempt that it can argue that they have no right to privacy? How dare it treat its citizens’ bodies as commodities that can be sold to private companies? How dare it perpetrate such a colossal bait-and-switch, advertising a purely voluntary subsidy targeting mechanism, and delivering something that coerces people into letting it into all parts of their lives—and sneaking these coercive laws in on the back of the Finance Bill? How dare it brand honest critics of Aadhaar as anti-nationals with something to hide, even as it draws shrouds of opacity over political funding, and renders the Right to Information toothless?

It is my view, and that of many other Indians, that the central government is systematically eroding constitutional liberties and working to institutionalise the dreary, joyless, regimented, unequal societal order beloved of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It is my view that everything it says and does springs from the assumptions of majoritarianism, and that it does not understand or like individual rights. It is my view that it has an uneasy relationship with choice and freedom, preferring structure and predictability. It is my view that it has an intrusive, micromanaging attitude that treats citizens like sheep to be supervised, herded, and monetised. 

But even if you take a less sinister view of things—the best view, in fact—the way that Aadhaar is being shoved into all the nooks and crannies of a citizen’s life suggests, as the petitioners’ advocate Arvind Datar put it, that the whole project “is like building a bridge and then looking for a river. It is hunting for problems to make itself relevant.”

Choice and consent are at the heart of self-determination and dignity. Many Indians recognising the coercive nature of Aadhaar are waking up to the full import, meaning, and emergent need of that famous feminist and human rights cry: My body, my rights. (Better late than never.) The government wants to remove choice and consent in the matter of the Aadhaar-PAN link. It may sound like a silly detail, but it will set the tone for many of our civil liberties.


They are currently in the hands of the court.