[Reader-list] In RTO, a licence for corruption

[taraprakash]

Dear Taha and all. You have raised very valid questions in your mail.
"Why is it that everyday millions of poor of our country have to bribe in perhaps millions to get that piece of paper? If our State is a welfare state, then why do we, even in the middle-classes, have to undergo bouts of insecurity, apprehension, fear in the absence of identity documents? When we know who we are or do we? When as far as our subjectivity is concerned, we can be pretty sure and confident in telling others about not only ourselves but histories of our families?" 

I wish I could answer those questions. In an ideal society all this should not be the case, but we are not living in an ideal universe. A friend of mine from Pakistan has many anecdotes about his amnesiac grand father. He had 24 sons. To differentiate his sons from other kids in the neighborhood, he had got tatooed the names on their hands. I wish the modern states were not as large as they are now. But since we are, I believe all the children need to remind our amnesiac father that they too belong to the family and therefore, need being provided for.

Yes sadly we have reached in the state of "mere apne mere hone ki nishani maange" (my own people ask for my identity" 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Taha Mehmood 
  To: taraprakash 
  Cc: reader-list at sarai.net 
  Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 10:05 AM
  Subject: Re: [Reader-list] In RTO, a licence for corruption


  Dear Taraprakash, 

  Thank you for your mail. 

  The question is not whether you agree or disagree with me. Please do not consider my posts as an exercise in public persuasion. Far from it, I would rather think of them as an exercise in public questioning. If we are a democracy then as citizens of a proud country we have a duty and an obligation in following the rule of law. If a National identity card is introduced then I will accept it. But as citizens we also have a duty and an obligation to engage in public processes. Hence if the Government of India has proposed that it intends to issue a National Identity card then I believe all of us must think about it. And talk to each other about the nature of that process, its history and so on. Reader list gives us this space. And there is no harm in talking about it. 

  Having said that, please allow me to say that I share your anxiety regarding the need to have an identity document rather than not having one. 

  Have you ever wondered that when individual family histories of most Indians out date the history of independent India by many years then why do we sometimes feel this insecurity or fear if do not have a piece of paper, a token really, certifying who we are? 

  Why is it that everyday millions of poor of our country have to bribe in perhaps millions to get that piece of paper? If our State is a welfare state, then why do we, even in the middle-classes, have to undergo bouts of insecurity, apprehension, fear in the absence of identity documents? When we know who we are or do we? When as far as our subjectivity is concerned, we can be pretty sure and confident in telling others about not only ourselves but histories of our families? 

  Why is it that when we have in India a fairly rich history of the failure of the State to capture all Indians under some sort of a documentation regime, that goes back last one hundred and thirty years, that we still seem to have faith in the Idea of a passport or an identity document some sort?

  Maybe if we start asking even more rudimentary questions about the history of the passport or history of the ration card then we could perhaps have a more distilled understanding of this need, which sometime seems inevitable isn't it, to have an identity card rather than not have one. 

  Warm regards 

  Taha 


  On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 1:05 AM, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:

    Now, I agree with you there for sure. Corruption is really a big problem of the country. I don't read much discussion on this kind of corruption on this list. In fact corruption does not seem to be part of any intellectual discourse these days.
    Still I don't consider corruption to be a good enough reason to outrightly reject this plan. As your mail suggested it is possible to make fake passports and driving licences but still the driving license and passport regime is on and we can't think of an alternative to it. Moreover, as far as I know, it is not a norm but an aberration. And finally I believe it is safer to have multiple (even fake) identities than to have none. Such an identity card regime will be useful to remind the state of the existence of the forgotten multitudinous citizenry.

    Regards

    ----- Original Message ----- From: "Taha Mehmood" <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
    To: <reader-list at sarai.net>
    Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 5:00 PM
    Subject: [Reader-list] In RTO, a licence for corruption



      Dear Taraprakash,

      I am still not convinced about giving competence of data gathering
      agencies. Please read the story below for more.

      Best

      Taha


      http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Nagpur/In_RTO_a_licence_for_corruption/articleshow/3898438.cms
      The Times of India. Nagpur Edition
      In RTO, a licence for corruption
      27 Dec 2008, 0111 hrs IST, Vijay Pinjarkar, TNN


      In the year 2000, MLA Devendra Fadnavis had exposed the corruption at
      the regional transport office
      (RTO) Nagpur when he 'managed' to get two
      driving licences issued. The first was in the name of a dead man. The
      second licence — intended to be a political barb — was made for the
      then chief minister, without the CM being present for the mandatory
      driving test.

      However, a sting operation by TOI in August revealed that things have
      failed to change even after eight years. The trail of corruption
      continues in a more organised way in the RTO office which has been
      virtually taken over by touts, enabling any person to obtain as many
      number of duplicate licences by bypassing all rules.

      In the second week of July, my boss called me and narrated a mishap in
      Mumbai in which three persons were crushed to death by a rashly driven
      truck. When the driver was arrested, police seized nine driving
      licences from him. This exposed the corrupt affairs in Mumbai RTO
      office. Taking a cue from this incident, he asked me to check if I
      could get a duplicate licence issued in my name even though I very
      much had the original licence.

      When I went to the RTO office, I was greeted at the entrance by a
      tout. I told him that I wanted a duplicate licence and lied that I had
      lost my original one. He asked me to bring a copy of the police
      complaint for the misplaced licence. "If that's not possible," he
      said, "it would cost you Rs 500." The official charges to get a
      duplicate licence are Rs 200. I protested that Rs 500 was too much.

      The broker gave me a neat break-up. "If you stand in the long queue,
      it'll take time and the RTO staff will ask you copy of FIR. If you go
      through me, it'll be easy. Out of Rs 500, I hardly get Rs 100, after
      paying Rs 150 to the woman at the counter for out-of turn clearance of
      forms. Rs 200 is paid towards smart card
      fee besides Rs 50 to the computer clerk at the thumb impression
      counter for early processing of cases."

      I trusted the broker, who has a pucca shop at the RTO gate, and gave
      him Rs 500. He promised to deliver the licence in two days and asked
      me to come around 4 pm for the thumb impression and photograph. Due to
      load-shedding, I had to visit twice for this. The RTO staff hardly
      works for four hours as the office doesn't have a generator.

      The next day, the broker made me stand in a long queue despite
      promising otherwise. But even then, it took him almost 25 days to get
      me the licence as against the couple of days he had sworn.

      Frustrated by the affairs, I finally told him I was a journalist and
      that I would now take my duplicate licence directly from the RTO. The
      broker was shocked. He grabbed me by the hand and took me to the woman
      clerk, who issues licences and told her about me. Stunned, she said,
      "Why did you approach him? You could have directly come to me."
      However, all said and done, I got my licence in 10 minutes. The next
      day, I went to officiating RTO Raj Bagri and offered to surrender the
      duplicate licence. He returned it saying it was of no use to the RTO.
      I told him the entire story. He laughed and could only say, "It's a
      worrying factor."

      There were brokers who were ready to issue even more than two licences
      to me. In the huge scale of corruption in our country, getting a
      duplicate licence issued fraudulently may not seem like a big deal.
      Until, that is, you remember that the hijackers of the Air India
      flight from Kathmandu in 1998 had also obtained their bogus passports
      on the strength of the driving licence procured through touts.

      Scary, isn't it?

      (While covering transport, Vijay Pinjarkar often goes the extra mile)

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