Cargo Cult Civilization
India has never been able to understand or internalize Western civilization. Plundered from and by the West while it was on an entirely different and incompatible civilizational path, it developed a spectacular hybrid schizoid form of social and political organization that have been flailing away for centuries.
Central to Western civilization (no matter what Gandhi thought about it) is precise documentation. Central to the Indian condition is improvisation, aka jugaad. No two strategies could be farther apart. The West wrote down chamber music to be played to the exact note and bar and they are played that way centuries later. In Indian classical music, no raga is performed the exact same way twice, even by the same artist. These can both be useful and consistent strategies, and it is foolish to look down on either. But mixing them up leads to anything between comedy and annihilation.
Indian law was laid out by the British and large parts of that has persisted through independence. If India wants running water in pipes and indoor bathrooms and antibiotics and mobile phones, it is probably better for Indians to get along with the program and embrace Western styles of statecraft, including the separation between the executive, legislature and judiciary, the undesirability of spitting on roads, the virtue of paying (fair) taxes, etc. Those, however, have proved to be elusive long shots.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, said in 2013 that Aadhaar is a number, not a card. Despite plenty of warts around Aadhaar even then, this was a welcome statement, because cards Indians had in plenty, even back in 2013.
On 2015/08/11, the Supreme Court directed that the production of "Aadhaar Card" will not be a condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen. Since Aadhaar is "not a card", from where did the possibility of "production of Aadhaar card" enter the collective pate of the Supreme Court? I am not picking nits, the apex judges of a country need to be very precise in their speech and writing. They are anything but. And, as the Aadhaar case is demonstrating, they are anything but supreme.
On 2016/11/30, the government declared that Aadhaar is not mandatory for availing subsidy, benefits. There is a subtle catch in interpreting this story. In response to the above Supreme Court order, the Minister of State for IT and Electronics P. P. Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha that "Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act provides that if an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service."
This means if you have, for some reason, acquired (oops, too active a voice; should be "been assigned") an Aadhaar number, you are then required to provide it for all the above purposes.
The national discourse has gravitated toward two concerns around Aadhaar:
The government continues the glib talk, and the Supreme Court maintains its affected pomp, but none answers who will pay when (not if) identities are hijacked or confounded. The answer is implicit and clear: the hapless souls who drew the short straws.
And all this while powerful lobbies show Aadhaar and related attempted reforms a big middle finger.
So, by August 2017, through a series of back-and-forth between the government and the Supreme Court, the discourse has now transformed to "Deadline for mandatory Aadhaar to avail social benefits extended to December 31".
Such blazing success for UIDAI did not come easy, or cheap. In a Forbes interview, Nilekani said publicly and brazenly:
This interview is chilling in how candid it was. Nilekani admitted that he "built a massive coalition of agencies allied to our cause, like central ministries, state governments, the RBI, banks, oil companies, and even device vendors" (emphasis added). But of course, device vendors. The bedfellowship with mobile operators was still work in progress, presumably. As of 2017, Nilekani is shouting from rooftops how Aadhaar has saved 9 GUSD for the government. Not once does he mention the time and money cost to the people.
Central to Western civilization (no matter what Gandhi thought about it) is precise documentation. Central to the Indian condition is improvisation, aka jugaad. No two strategies could be farther apart. The West wrote down chamber music to be played to the exact note and bar and they are played that way centuries later. In Indian classical music, no raga is performed the exact same way twice, even by the same artist. These can both be useful and consistent strategies, and it is foolish to look down on either. But mixing them up leads to anything between comedy and annihilation.
Indian law was laid out by the British and large parts of that has persisted through independence. If India wants running water in pipes and indoor bathrooms and antibiotics and mobile phones, it is probably better for Indians to get along with the program and embrace Western styles of statecraft, including the separation between the executive, legislature and judiciary, the undesirability of spitting on roads, the virtue of paying (fair) taxes, etc. Those, however, have proved to be elusive long shots.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, said in 2013 that Aadhaar is a number, not a card. Despite plenty of warts around Aadhaar even then, this was a welcome statement, because cards Indians had in plenty, even back in 2013.
On 2015/08/11, the Supreme Court directed that the production of "Aadhaar Card" will not be a condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen. Since Aadhaar is "not a card", from where did the possibility of "production of Aadhaar card" enter the collective pate of the Supreme Court? I am not picking nits, the apex judges of a country need to be very precise in their speech and writing. They are anything but. And, as the Aadhaar case is demonstrating, they are anything but supreme.
On 2016/11/30, the government declared that Aadhaar is not mandatory for availing subsidy, benefits. There is a subtle catch in interpreting this story. In response to the above Supreme Court order, the Minister of State for IT and Electronics P. P. Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha that "Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act provides that if an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service."
This means if you have, for some reason, acquired (oops, too active a voice; should be "been assigned") an Aadhaar number, you are then required to provide it for all the above purposes.
The national discourse has gravitated toward two concerns around Aadhaar:
- "We worry about the disenfranchised." --- If people living on government handouts are forced to get Aadhaar, they can be politically mined and exploited. (Well, that happens to the handout demography whether or not Aadhaar exists.)
- "(The Western notion of) privacy is at stake." --- Here the government really got it half right: not only are the sans-culotte not entitled to privacy, but they are not too bothered about privacy either.
The government continues the glib talk, and the Supreme Court maintains its affected pomp, but none answers who will pay when (not if) identities are hijacked or confounded. The answer is implicit and clear: the hapless souls who drew the short straws.
And all this while powerful lobbies show Aadhaar and related attempted reforms a big middle finger.
So, by August 2017, through a series of back-and-forth between the government and the Supreme Court, the discourse has now transformed to "Deadline for mandatory Aadhaar to avail social benefits extended to December 31".
Such blazing success for UIDAI did not come easy, or cheap. In a Forbes interview, Nilekani said publicly and brazenly:
"We felt speed was strategic. Doing and scaling things quickly was critical. If you move very quickly it doesn’t give opposition the time to consolidate."In the post-truth finale of human affairs on this planet, even the pretense of innocence is no longer needed.
This interview is chilling in how candid it was. Nilekani admitted that he "built a massive coalition of agencies allied to our cause, like central ministries, state governments, the RBI, banks, oil companies, and even device vendors" (emphasis added). But of course, device vendors. The bedfellowship with mobile operators was still work in progress, presumably. As of 2017, Nilekani is shouting from rooftops how Aadhaar has saved 9 GUSD for the government. Not once does he mention the time and money cost to the people.
