[Reader-list] Regarding the notion of signifier and signified.

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Taraprakash,

Thank you for your mail.

You wrote-
 I just wanted to maintain that it doesn't
> have to be a private firm issuing the cards.

I feel that it is highly unlikely that given the times we live in, the
Indian government can conduct such a grand exercise like issuing
identity documents to almost one billion people without the help of
private sector. The private sector will share a major portion of
responsibilities insofar as the production or manufacturing of the
cards is concerned and will perhaps share minor responsibilities as
far as distribution and maintenance is concerned. I say this from my
first hand conversations with various officials from the office of the
Registrar General and by following  news stories posted on the web
regarding MNIC in the last three years.

We do not know the exact nature of the involvement of private sector.
The primary reason being no such information is publicly available.
The only way we can make a conjecture regarding the scale of
involvement of private sector is by surveying technology related trade
journals and by closing watching the graphs of scrips of publicly
listed companies. We do know that the semi conductor division of
Philips called NXP, the Tata Consultancy Services and Bartonics, a
Radio Frequency Identification chip manufacturing firm based in
Hyderabad, have emerged as the main players. We also know that a Delhi
based firm called Shonkh Technologies was also involved in the
beginning. Shonkh Technologies unfortunately had to reconsider its
bidding options with respect to MNIC because of a Supreme Court
injunction which debarred its scrip to be traded. I also believe that
Shonkh Technologies was blacklisted by SEBI.

I think if the Government of India wants all of us to have a National
Identity Card and they have a policy in place and they have a time
line to follow to insure that such a card gets delivered then I do not
think that what you and I or few people on this list say or write will
have any bearing on that. I think if such a card is introduced then I
will have also have one.

Now having said that, the question then remains for us is Can we as
citizens of this country articulate the issue of documented individual
identity beyond the media inspired format of questioning, for
instance- Do we need a National Identity Card? Well 89% percent of our
viewers think that we do. And Sagarika smiles!! Before tossing the
Question of the Day to her Experts.

I think we can and it need not be dependent on expert knowledge. It
can be as commonsensical as you deem it to be.

All we have to do is to ask [?]

Basic and Fundamental questions. And search for their answers.

For instance if the National Identity Card is going to be an
individual identity document then we can begin our inquiry by asking
say for instance-

What Constitutes the identity of a person?

According to you it is the relationship between the signifier and
signified. Like you there are few more people out there who have
invested some part of their time thinking about the notion of
identity.

There is Rene Descartes, for instance, who believes that identity is
subject to ones consciousness of ones mind. He believes that there is
a duality between the mind and the body. And that identity is nothing
but the faculty to locate the self in consciousness. In other words
identity is the act of knowing we we are which must be independent of
the our bodily organs, including the brain. Descartes of course makes
a distinction between the brain which is material and immaterial
elements like the mind.

Leibeniz on the other hand presents a very simple notion regarding
identity, that is, he avers that identity is a numerical entity. Given
the apparent simplicity of this notion many people are charmed by it.
Leibeniz thinks that if X is identical to Y, then whatever is true of
X must be true of Y and vice versa.

In direct opposition to quantitative or numerical identity is
qualitative identity, where although x is as same as y because they
belong to the same type but they are not numerically identical. For
instance a tiger from Bengal will be qualitatively similar to a tiger
from Gir insofar as both are tigers but they will not be numerically
similar.

Furthermore identity is imagined in time or temporal dimensions, which
is called Synchronic Identity, for instance Manmohan Singh the Prime
Minister of India in 2008 is syn-chronically identical to Manmohan
Singh in 2006.

Opposed to Synchronic identity is Dichronic identity. For instance,
Ram played hockey with his friend Yuvraj when is was young was the
SAME Ram who played Chess with Saleem when he was young. Here one and
the same person is imagined in different stages of time.

To add to these views is metaphor of Ship of Theseus wherein the
argument is, if different parts of the ship are changed over period of
time to such an extent that all parts are changed over the period of
the time then would it be the same ship. So for instance, if
biologically speaking our body is constantly renewing and discarding
cells then are we the same person as we claim to be. Can we be
absolutely sure that there is no difference between us when we are
mere foetus, to when we were crawling, to when we young adults, to
when we became adults? If there is some difference and our self
perception was different then how can we be characterized as same
person?

The premise in any argument related to an Identity card is that we are
same people with the same body and same brain, that there is a
physical continuity over period of time. Is this premise valid?

John Locke, maintained that identity is a function of memory. That
personal identity is a criteria of memory. The possession of an
uninterrupted flow of self conscious awareness.

Then there are other narratives of identity which relate to identity
as sameness and identity as selfhood.

Paul Ricoeur maintains that idem is the Latin root which corresponds
to identity as sameness. And ipse corresponds to identity as selfhood.
Ricoeur also suggests that identity shares a distinct relationship
with character that is, character which is a set of distinctive marks
which permits the re-identification of a human individual as being the
same.

These are few ways in which identity have been imagined in the past.
Now given this we can think aloud about how has the Government of
India imagined identity? or What are the reasons which the officials
of the Registrar General have put forth to map us? Are those reasons
reasonable? If so how? We need to know them because they concern us?
If the Indian Government asks me share my personal details with them,
then, I would do it, unhesitatingly, because, I trust them, because at
the end of the day it is my Government too but at the same time I
would like to engage anyone who is interested in telling me as to how
has the current dispensation imagined individual identity? Is this
imagination just? Will it be justly used?

Warm Regards

Taha

N.B: All the above definitions of identity are gleaned from three
sources. They are- Critique of Pure Reason by John Locke, Discourse on
Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes and The
Princely Impostor by Partha Charterjee Chapter VIII, The Identity
Puzzle, pp 115-129












On 12/27/08, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all and Taha. As I said in my earlier mail that I am not speaking as an
> expert in this matter. Your claims are, I am sure, based on research and my
> assertions are based on what I think a common sense approach.
>
> My reference to US was not to argue that since US has such a system in
> place, India too must go for it. I just wanted to maintain that it doesn't
> have to be a private firm issuing the cards.
> It is in country like ours that we have to prove our identity to demonstrate
> that we belong  to the country we were born in. As I stated in an earlier
> mail that sometimes people have to prove that they are actually not dead or
> that their signifiers have been misappropriated by their relatives. I also
> said earlier that one multipurpose identity card (may be a passport issued
> at birth) can make all other identity cards redundant. But since I have all
> this andd I have nothing new to add, I must not waste the time of the list.
> Thanks for reading.
> Regards