[Reader-list] Is Kasab a Pakistani?

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Pawan,

Thank you for your mail. I think I agree to the larger premise of your
argument, that most people in India are sometimes insecure but is a national
identity card the only possible solution we have to address this insecurity?
If so then can we be absolutely sure that after the introduction of a
national identity card, India will never ever have to bear the ills of
illegal infiltration? Why and on what basis do you feel that the Government
of India will be able to map all the people with the national identity card?
When for instance we already have a process in decennial census which was
started in 1870's and even after almost a hundred an thirty eight years the
officials of the census bureau get perturbed registering  the gender of
members of the trans-gender community primarily because we have only two
categories male and female and there is no box to be ticked for a
trans-gender. The point being, that I strongly feel, that we in India must
have an informed debate about the introduction of a national identity card
before say ten years down the line we realize that this was yet another
exercise in futility. Like we seem to have with the ration card, PAN card,
Voter Identity card, BPL card etc.

Warmly

Taha


Dear Taha,

The only reason I support the introduction of this card is for security
reasons , and at the same time i do agree that the introduction is not fool
proof.

We have had example in Jammu & Kashmir that an inflitrated Pakistani Citizen
managed to even contest elections and we have another example from North
East . These two examples whould have been fool proof , but we failed.

I also feel once the cards are created , Govt should owe more responsibility
towards the citizens in terms of security ,insurance etc.

Pawan