[Reader-list] Is India Ready for a National Identity Card?

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All,

Taking the recent debates on the reader list as a point of departure. I wish
to open a new point of discussion. These debates are rooted in identity
politics located within a nation state. Over the last sixty years the Market
is trying to capitalize on the obsession of national and sub-national groups
to identity individuals, groups and communities. This has resulted in a need
to rely on documents to vouch for one's identity. Earlier the identity
documents were paper based, like Ration Cards.  Then new technology enabled
the use of paper with a photograph like the voter identity card. These days
it is usually a digital smart card. As India is gearing to introduce the
National Identity Card, the share prices of companies dealing with the
manufacture and distribution of identity cards is soaring.

Below is an essay that I have written as part of my work with Information
Society Project at Sarai. The essay engages with the question of identity
from a range of perspectives. Identity- is discussed with respect to
history, to popular culture, to sociology, and to contemporary governmental
thought.

Regards

Taha


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Fuzzy logics, double meanings and
ethnic ambiguities
Taha Mehmood

The present day 'terrorist' is a man who thinks. He is a planner. No one
knows his
name or his past. When and where does he come from? No one knows.
He could be anyone or no one. He could be the one sitting beside you in a
theatre or
a local train, or a bank's teller or a cigarette/tobacco vendor. He is
intelligent and
dangerous.
He has to be found.
(Fanaa 2006)

Introduction

The Indian Government is gearing up to prepare a national database of all
citizens
and distribute national identity cards to a billion people. This represents
a historical
milestone, and offers an opportunity to think about a whole spectrum of
issues of
technology, citizenship and governance. For instance, how does a modern
nationstate
grapple with issues of visibility and invisibility or identity and
anonymity?
What tropes of political and bureaucratic rhetoric does the state mobilize
to assert
its claim for initiating the processes of visibility? How do existing social
conditions
change in the face of such processes? What sort of transformations do these
processes of visibility inaugurate, especially between the state and the
individual?
What strategies does an individual engage to respond to these
transformations?
Through this chapter, I explore some of the above-mentioned questions,
specifically
with regard to the introduction of the proposed 'Multipurpose National
Identity Card' (MNIC) in India. The MNIC is the first citizenship document
of
its kind in the country, especially in its proposed comprehensive reach: a
national
register of citizens, a national register of non-citizens and a national
register of
residency.
Developments and shifts in the modes and meaning
of state surveillance
The history of the consolidation of the idea of the nation-state, especially
after
the French Revolution, and the resultant anxieties of national bureaucracies
to
demarcate and delineate land, to map and measure territory, to create and
sustain
archives, and to know and register its populations, have been extensively
researched. Ground-breaking work by various scholars, especially John Torpey
(Torpey 1999; Caplan and Torpy 2001), Valentine Groebner (2001), Jon Agar
(2001) and others, have opened exciting avenues towards in-depth
investigation of
linkages between information, documentation and governance. Their work has
been crucial to our contemporary understanding of the historical role that
identity
documents, such as passports and ration cards have played in the
organization of a
nation-state as a unitary body.
Historians of science and technology, particularly Simon Cole (2002) and
Chandak Sengoopta (2004), have focused on unearthing the sociopolitical
milieu
that produced the technology of fingerprinting. The notion of individual
identity,
especially 'suspect identity', was seen in a new light in philosophical,
legal and
bureaucratic discourses after the introduction of fingerprinting. The human
body
(re)entered the discourse of identification as an inalienable bridge
connecting societal
signifiers like name, age and gender to the selfhood of a person.
The work of Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues (1990), Ian Hacking (2001),
Theodore Porter (1996), and others has been hugely instrumental in exploring
the centrality of numbers in probabilistic statistical schemes that were
increasingly
adopted by many nation states during the twentieth century. Exploration of
popular 'social engineering' ideas of determinism, deviation, and mean, for
instance, has rekindled debates around the role of numbers in governmental
thought and policy.
Reflections by Gary Marx (1989), David Lyon (1994, 2002, 2003), Erving
Goffman (1999), and Manuel Castells (2000, 2003), among others, have
sustained
a debate over the ideas of individual identity and of identification
regimes. In its
wake, ongoing sociological scholarship has produced an invaluable amount of
literature.
Close reading of several texts and contexts has thrown up new frames of
reference for understanding the human condition. Through my research, I have
attempted to uncover the dominant fabula or story of individual
identification,
together with rather fragmented and discrete sjuzhets or smaller plots of
surveillance
assemblage, or what is called 'new surveillance'. This is where data-bodies,
DNA profiling, fingerprints and iris scans act as portals to a nuanced
scrutiny of
technology and body. This has resulted in what David Lyon considers a
'shift',
wherein the body has been reintroduced as 'a source as well as site of
surveillance'
(Lyon 2001: 291). The body can be used as a document.
Gearing up for the multipurpose national identity card
In this regard, it has become important to observe elusive changes happening
in the
Indian context. They are elusive precisely because of the conspicuous
silence of the
Indian Government on the topic of the MNIC, as contrasted with the
enthusiasm of
corporate media in announcing the arrival of a number of smart card
manufacturing
firms setting up production units in India. This dichotomy sets up a
critical duality
marked by official silence and unofficial excitement.
India's new ID card 113

In April 2003, the Government of India decided to initiate a 'pilot project'
for the
introduction of the Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) in select
districts.
This decision was based on the recommendation of a Group of Ministers (GoM)
report on National Security. Some background on the GoM is useful here. The
GoM was formed in April 2000 on the recommendation of the Kargil Review
Committee (KRC), which had been struck in July 1999 to investigate the
causes of
the Kargil War. From May to July 1999, India and Pakistan engaged in a
bloody
conflict over the mostly barren but strategically important mountain peaks
of the
Kargil district. Kargil district lies on the Line of Actual Control facing
the Pakistan
border, which comprises the Pakistan Controlled Kashmir region of Baltistan.
It is
significant to note that the Kargil War was effectively what David Lyon
(2003)
calls – in relation to 9/11 in the USA – the 'big event' in that, far from
being just a
long-term process of bureaucratic accretion, stimulated certain specific
measures
to create a complete database of all 'Indian citizens'. The suggestions of
the KRC
mostly dealt with Indian defense and internal security policies. One such
proposal
was that 'steps be taken to issue ID Cards to border villagers in certain
vulnerable
areas on a priority basis, pending its extension to other or all parts of
the State.' The
KRC further urged that a policy like this 'would also be relevant in the
North-East,
Sikkim and part of West Bengal.' (For a detailed timeline regarding the
origins of
MNIC, see Appendix below).
Timelines and structure of the MNIC initiative
By April 2007, the 'pilot project' for MNIC was complete. According to an
official
press release, the 'pilot project' was needed 'to understand and develop the
processes for collection and management [of a] database of citizens'. The
management
of a citizen database will be done through 20 specially constructed centres,
one at each Tehsil/Block (sub-district) headquarters. These centres are
digitally
equipped and connected to a national online database. The back-end
management
of these centres is done by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The
personalization
of cards has been entrusted to the Consortium of Central Public Sector
Undertakings (CCPSU) comprising BEL, Electronics Corporations of India
Limited (ECIL) and Indian Telephone Industries (ITI). The design of the card
has
been prepared with the help of National Institute of Design (NID) at
Ahmedabad.
On 26 May 2007, the Registrar General of India, D.K. Sikri, who is also the
Registrar General of Citizens Registration, handed over the first MNIC to
Mishro,
a resident of the Pooth Khurd Village of the Narela District, of the
National Capital
Region of Delhi. This document, like many national identity card schemes
elsewhere,
has the following characteristics: fingerprint biometrics, photograph,
digital
memory, and standard identity signifiers like name, age, address, etc. The
data
were collected by asking 16 questions, each linked to a separate category. I
will discuss
the critical role played by the methodology of collecting data and its
relationship
to the larger idea of citizenship towards the end of this chapter. First,
however,
I will concentrate on the technology of smart cards generally, as well as
how this
technology has been rolled out in the MNIC.

The MNIC as a smart card
The MNIC is a 'smart card'. A smart card is a card with an embedded
microchip
that can be loaded with data. The card is equipped with a Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) chip, a data tag for storage and retrieval purposes.
RFID is a
system of Data Carriers and Base Stations. A Data Carrier can be any label,
tag, or
transponder consisting of an RFID Die, an antenna, and packaging. The
Carrier can
then be formatted into any plastic ticket. The Base Station acts as a reader
that contains
an antenna, a radio frequency receiver or transceiver, and a microcontroller
or
computer. The Base Station can be set up as a desktop, wall mount, or
portal. RFID
usually means a passive RFID. The transponder is powered by a radio
frequency
signal rather than a battery. The reader transmits the radio frequency power
to the
transponder. The transponder can do nothing unless it is near the reader.
Depending
upon the frequency band, the reader can communicate with the transponder
within
a range of 20–1,000 cm. The card's memory is a SCOSTA – Smart Card Operating
Software for Transport Application – based chip with storage capacity of 16
Kb.
With an active RFID, the transponder is powered by battery or fuel cell. The
reader
and transponders are basically radios that can detect each other within a
distance of
a kilometer.
The MNIC will be fitted with a passive RFID. In this regard, the card is a
breakaway
from earlier kinds of 'identity documents'. For instance, ration cards
issued
in India under the Public Distribution System (the Antyodaya card for the
poorest,
'Above Poverty Line, APL' and 'Below Poverty Line, BPL' cards for others)
are
tactile in that the markers of an individual's identity (such as name, age,
or gender)
were handwritten, thus susceptible to tampering by the user. This gave way
to
Indian Photo Voter Identity Cards: laminated cards on which a photograph and
identity markers (name, age, etc.) were machine printed.
Although this was an advanced form of technological use compared with the
good old ration cards, users could still fudge the documents with false
entries. The
transformation from manual and mechanical inscriptions of identity
signifiers to
digital processes shifts the idea of a document to a plane that lies at the
border
between heterogeneity and homogeneity. For all the data at its root would be
composed
of Boolean binaries – homogeneous in a way, yet distinct from each other by
the operation of a number – and individual personhood would be signified as
an
objective mark – a mark that could be stored, transmitted, linked, accessed,
manipulated,
shared and retrieved by what is regarded by their developers as the precise
science of a software program.
Theodore M. Porter, in his influential work Trust in Numbers, wrote, 'when
"philosophers" speak of objectivity of science, they generally mean its
ability to
know things as they really are' (Porter 1996: 3). Likewise, an 'objective'
individual
identity of a person – a person as he or she really is – may be a function
of 'a body,
a memory, and rights and responsibility' (Lyon 2001: 294), together with
locatability,
social categorization, symbols of eligibility/non-eligibility, etc. (Marx
2001:
312). In this respect, the number becomes useful, as it deconstructs
individuals
made up of many identities into a totally transparent being. The concern of
the State
India's new ID card
first to know its citizens before governing them results in a desire for
complete enumeration
(see, e.g. Scott 1998).
The rise of suspicion: Apopular culture and media backdrop
to the MNIC project
Before returning to the topic of the MNIC specifically, I would like to
explore some
elements of popular culture, literature and recent events that may
illuminate how
the Indian population may perceive the MNIC. To that end, at this juncture,
is useful
to consider the dialogue from Fanaa, a Hindi movie (2006), quoted at the
beginning
of the chapter. The lines are excerpted from a scene where Agent Tyagi, a
surveillance expert, is called in to assist an Anti-'terrorist' Unit to
track down an
alleged 'terrorist'. She explains to a colleague from the Ministry of
Defence methods
of discovering more about the alleged 'terrorist', whom they refer to as the
'mastermind'. Throughout the sequence, the characters voice anxieties about
not
knowing the 'mastermind's' name, location or history. Agent Tyagi repeatedly
states that 'no one knows' who he is. Of course, by 'no one' Agent Tyagi
means the
State. Unable to deal with the anonymity of the alleged 'terrorist', Agent
Tyagi conflates
it with a generic assumption. She says, 'He could be anyone or no one'. The
film's narrative, especially after this particular sequence, revolves around
determining
the identity and personhood of the 'mastermind'. As Tyagi says, 'He has to
be found'. The pertinent question here is: how can this particular person,
who could
be 'anyone' or 'no one', be found?
In the epic poem Ramayana, the trope on which the scene from Fanaa seems to
draw, there is an instance when Prince Rama's brother Laxmana is fatally
wounded
by Indrajeet, the son of rival King Ravanna. Laxmana could only be saved by
one
herb. Hanuman, the monkey god, is sent to fetch Sanjvani, the life-saving
herb from
the faraway Dronagiri mountain range. Now, Hanuman had no knowledge of herbs
and unable to select the right herb, he uses his divine strength to lift the
entire
Dronagiri mountain range and bring it to the battlefield in Lanka at the
southern tip
of the Indian subcontinent.
Agent Tyagi's dilemma is similar to Hanuman's. A 'terrorist' who is imagined
as a 'deviant personality' type as opposed to a 'normal or average'
law-abiding citizen
'has to be found'. Categories, such as 'deviant' or 'normal' seem
well-defined
so long as they are articulated within a general administrative or policing
context.
But these categories call for a closer scrutiny, because central to the
ideas of
'deviancy' and 'normalcy' lie a State's anxiety to render its population
into a visible
spectrum, where each hue suggests a particular category. Each category is
then
subjected to a slightly different legal framework. For instance in the
Indian context,
the idea of 'Scheduled Castes', 'Minorities', 'Scheduled Tribes', etc. is a
very sensitive
concern for millions, yet in the public domain, there is little reflection
on the
foundational logic of these categories. It is still not clear as to who can
lay claim to
be a 'Scheduled Tribe'. Even after 60 years of independence many 'Tribes'
are
still negotiating with the Government, often violently, to have their
'Tribe' to be
included in the 'Schedule Tribe' Category. In this regard, the use of the
word

'normal' as an imagined category becomes significant. It refers to the idea
of
'norm' as advocated in a sociological context by Emile Durkheim. In Empire
of
Chance, Ian Hacking, reflecting on Durkheim, writes, 'A moral fact is normal
for a
determined social type when it is observed in the average of the species, it
is pathological
in antithetical' (Hacking 1990: 172) which in turn is marked by what is
wrong.
In light of such explorations of what is 'normal', it should come as no
surprise
that media coverage of stories of 'national importance' in India are marked
by narratives
of 'disruption of normal life' and followed by the rhetoric of 'restoration
of
normalcy'. This is accompanied by the usual sorting out of 'anomalies'. In
this
regard, Foucault's burgeoning list of excavations concerning the mad, the
recidivist,
the insane and the sick could have some notable additions in the form of the
'terrorist' and the suspicious-looking person.
For instance, the Delhi Police, which underpins its public presence through
the
endearing punch-line For You With You Always, launched a media campaign in
the
wake of an alleged 'terrorist' attack on the Red Fort in December 2000. The
campaign
'Let's Fight Terror Together' ran simultaneously with a massive tenant
verification
drive to register all tenants residing in the city. The seeming logic was
that
since the alleged 'terrorists' were outsiders to Delhi and had lived in the
city for
months prior to the attack, it was possible that some of them could still be
present.
The complementary media campaign ran as an advisory exhorting the citizen to
be
on alert and be on the lookout for potential 'terrorists'.
In a country such as India, where information superhighways co-exist with
potholed
lanes of misinformation and uncertainty, any advisory of the sort mentioned
above tends to result in a situation where the human ear starts competing
with the
eye to arrest any seditious developments. Much as novelist Ismail Kadare
writes in
The File on H, '… the ear never rests, for people always want to talk and to
whisper, what is said and especially what is muttered is always … much more
dangerous to the State than what can be seen' (Kadare 2006: 26–27).
One year later, in December 2001, in a classic case of tinnitus (a medical
term
connoting a buzzing sound that blocks all other sounds that is sometimes
heard in
one or both the ears), the Delhi police arrested a professor of Arabic in
Delhi
University on charges of waging war against the State. It was claimed that
he had a
hand in the conspiracy to attack the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001.
On
this eventful day, five alleged 'militants' drove into the Parliament
compound and
started firing indiscriminately. What exactly happened is still not entirely
clear, but
the Parliament CCTV cameras and TV cameras show an exchange of fire between
the police forces/security personnel and these men. All alleged 'militants'
were
killed in the shootout, and six arrests were made later.
It was alleged that these 'militants' attacked the Indian Parliament because
of
their dissatisfaction with the State for not granting 'freedom' to the state
of
Kashmir. The professor was sentenced by a High Court to death, but was later
acquitted and absolved of all his charges by the Supreme Court of India in
2003.
The sole 'evidence' for his arrest (which was later proved faulty) was
transcripts of
a 136-second telephone conversation between him and his 18-year-old
half-brother
India's new ID card
in Kashmir. The 13 December attack was termed by the Government and media as
'an attack on the heart of Indian democracy'. So far, out of the six main
accused,
two have been acquitted for 'lack of evidence' and one is on death row, but
there is
a sustained campaign for a 'fair trial'. What we have are five dead bodies,
and an
'event' that continues to raise questions among those who follow the news.
It is not my purpose to discuss the events of attack on the Indian
Parliament per
se. However, it followed close on the heels of the 11 September 2001 events
in the
USA, a 'big event' that led to a global overhaul as far as the passing of
new 'antiterror'
legislation, such as the Patriot Act. In India, the 13 December event
facilitated
the passing of draconian anti-terror laws, such as the POTA (Prevention of
Terrorism Act 2002).
Coming back to the 'Let's Fight Terror Together' campaign, a 'terrorist'
could
be any person acting 'suspiciously'. Specifically, this could be anyone
wearing
clothes unsuited for the season, or trying too conspicuously to blend in
with surroundings
by his dress and behaviour, or who is too fat or too thin. In other words,
to use Agent Tyagi's proclamation, he could be 'anyone or no one'. This
rhetoric
tends to produce a situation where, on one level, the idea of normality
becomes a
performance of that which is imagined as 'normal' and on another, creates a
perceptional
filter of what Gary Marx calls, 'categorical suspicion'.
Perceptional filters have a long history of helping governments to 'see'
things.
But with regard to the specific idea of 'normality', this filter works both
ways. That
is, whenever members of a nation-state try to 'see' its population through
lenses
that are made to 'register' only 'normal' and/or 'abnormal/deviant'
populations,
more often than not, people respond by becoming more 'normal'. Hence the
idea of
'normality' is constantly contested in this tug of war. As Hacking asserts,
'… few
of us fancy being pathological so "most of us" try to make ourselves normal,
which
in turn affects what is normal' (Hacking 1990: 2). What are 'normal
clothes'? What
does one mean when one is talking about 'blending in' with surroundings?
What
kind of contingent idea of 'normality' does this give rise to? Can one
differentiate
'normal' from 'suspicious' behaviour?
The MNIC as proof of 'normality'
The case of a national identity card stretches the idea of 'suspicion'
further.
Affirming one's trust in the state is a two-fold process. First, one must be
aware of
one's personhood, or be in possession of a document that can vouch for one's
claim.
Second, one 'should' have a document that contains a fingerprint, or what
Agamben calls 'the most private and incommunicable aspect of subjectivity …
the
body's biological life', to be not only enumerated but recalled and verified
in an
instant. Further, through the MNIC, a 15-digit National Identity Number
(NIN) will
be allotted to each citizen. The state will only recognize a person as him
or herself
if the memory of personhood as contained in his token matches exactly to a
trace of
his identity as indexed by the State archives. The link between the name,
the person,
and his memory is constituted by a number.
The NIN would become mandatory for a range of transactions. Here the
'multiple-purpose' of the national ID card would emerge. From a railway
journey
to bus travel, from gaining admission to a school to registering property,
or from
obtaining a driver's license to opening a bank account – for each of these
transactions
the card-carrying citizen would have to fill in a form and quote his or her
NIN.
According to an official estimate, the Government of India currently has
more than
100,000 different forms pertaining to various departments. Because of
increasing
pressure by different private lobby groups, the Government has given the nod
to
mid- and large-sized software companies to actively participate in and share
the
burden of processing this 'national' information.
Incorporating these parameters and functions, the MNIC may precariously
waver towards, as some scholars argue, the 'demeaning' of the identity of an
individual.
The argument is that personal identity stands to be 'demeaned' as it
becomes an 'ersatz-identity', bereft of subjectivity and composed of
numbers. As
Richard Sobel (2002) explains in his exhaustive essay 'The Demeaning of
Identity
and Personhood in National Identification Systems', 'NIDS demeans political
and
personal identity by transforming personhood from an intrinsic quality
inhering in
individuals into a quantity designated by numbers, represented by physical
cards,
and recorded in computer databanks'.
However, any identity document gives a lot of 'meaning' when an individual's
identity is documented. The urge to acquire identity cards underlines some
fundamental
assumptions, one being the legitimate claim to State benefits, irrespective
of
whether one is qualified or not. Beyond these 'benefits', to be unrecognized
by the
State, to be stateless is, not something that many would desire. Long queues
outside
Government offices for ration cards, voter ID cards, etc. show a need to be
'acknowledged'.
The coming together of public and private on the MNIC project entailing the
sharing of information marks another first. It is the first time the Indian
State will
allow its memory to be accessed by non-state players. 'G to B' (Government
to
Business) has emerged as the newest mantra in the rhetoric of e-governance.
The
State, of course, stands to reap significant benefits if this works out.
Instead of a
multitudinous array of identity documents bearing different identification
numbers,
ranging form the Voter ID card to the Permanent Account Number (PAN)
Card, driver's licences, and credit cards, it will have to manage only one
document
with just one identity number.
The MNIC in practice
In the absence of any contemporary or historical evidence of a workable
implementation
of a national identity card scheme, it is still unclear how successful this
initiative will be in the long run. However, we do have strong evidence of a
historical
tendency by governments to rely on numbers. There seems to be an umbilical
relationship between statecraft and the magic of numbers. At this stage, the
idea of
numbers can perhaps provide us with a suitable point of departure from
thinking
about numbers from the perspective of government and a governing mentality,
of
census and unique identity and of traceability and inventorying. To
complicate the
India's new ID card
argument further, it would be worthwhile to think of events and conditions
when
numbers, in all their idiosyncrasy and abstraction, cannot perform their
basic function.
That is, when they cease to be unique.
Portuguese novelist Jose Saramgo's All the Names is a case in point. It is a
riveting
account of the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths. The novel
deals with the disappointments, delusions and frustrations of a clerk, Señor
Jose,
who lives in a single room attached to the Registry. The story is set in a
city which,
to borrow Fanaa rhetoric, could be any or none, goes like this: Señor Jose
works in
the Registry during the day and 'by night, he ferrets for facts about the
famous,
compiling his own archive of births, deaths and marriages. One day he
chances
upon an index card of an ordinary woman whose details hold as much
fascination
for him as any celebrity's … Jose starts to track the woman down'. After
much trial
and tribulation he reaches the conclusion that the woman had committed
suicide.
But his conclusion turns inconclusive after he pays a visit to the cemetery.
Señor
Jose re-tells his experience: 'I walked through the general cemetery to the
section
for suicides, I went to sleep under an olive tree, and the following morning
when I
woke up, I was in a middle of a flock of sheep, and then I found that the
Shepherd
amuses himself by swapping around the numbers on the graves before the
tombstones
are put in place' (Saramago 1999: 243).
The historical desire of a nation state to identify an individual from
cradle to
grave through the agency of an identity document has taken a new turn. With
the
emergence of the digitally enabled national identity card we are moving
towards
the paradoxical specter of opaque transparency: as the citizen becomes more
and
more transparent in the eyes of the State, the State recedes behind a
plethora of
alphanumeric archives and databases. For instance, a Public Distribution
System or
PDS shop would have electronic kiosks instead of personnel from the Food and
Civil Supplies Ministry who until now have been sourced locally. The
operation
and maintenance of the PDS shops would be subcontracted to various private
vendors,
while only those citizens who are eligible to for the category of BPL (below
poverty line) would have access to subsidized food. Their claim would of
course,
have to be validated through the smart card.
The fabricated image of a person, together with other alphanumeric
signifiers,
contained in a digitally re-writable, retrievable memory embossed with a
national
emblem and laminated between transparent sheets, brings to mind the metaphor
of
a key. Like any key, the MNIC would enable its user to open locks and access
various
schemes and services. The MNIC will be just like this key, albeit a
doublesided
one, for it will allow both the State and the citizen to enter into each
other's
realms.
However, there is a caveat in this meta-narrative, and I am reminded of
poet–philosopher Gaston Bachelard's assertion that 'the lock doesn't exist
that
could resist absolute violence, and all locks are an invitation to thieves'
(Bachelard
1994: 81). How will this play itself out in the case of the MNIC? Will the
MNIC be
able to function as a 'key' as it is made out to be?
A notch gives an outline to a key. It lies on the periphery of a key and
forms a firm
boundary to a key. The NIN would similarly act as a crafted notch or groove
to this

key called MNIC. Its unique sequence of numbers will distinguish between the
standardized memories of personhood, which acquire legal currency by being
valid, and other memories which are too personal, too complex, and too
multilayered
to be grouped into any category of time and space or sorted into any form of
document, but nevertheless form the basis of who we are. The NIN, according
to the
proponents of the MNIC, will act as a virtual border between the State
machinery
and the citizens. Along this border, assuming the system works as planned,
any act
of transgression would be immediately noticed, no stealth or subterfuge
could be
practiced, and all acts of masquerade would reveal a hidden identity. This
stands in
stark contrast to the real frontier, characterized by razor wire fencing and
checkposts,
where the idea of territory is contested by security forces on a day-to-day
basis, and where people may have lived and moved across an ever-changing
line for
years, where the terrain is marked by negotiated crossings, dealings with
middlemen,
farewells and promises of return.
At the borders of identity
The physical frontier becomes the space where the State confronts its
biggest
dilemma. How to sort individuals out? How to decide who is who? How to
ascertain
the truthful claim about an identity? How to gauge if the lungi clad person
is
from this side or that? Perhaps the answer is being looked for in the MNIC
card.
In the case of Indian borders, like most others, the problem is compounded
as the
line between an alien and a citizen is very fuzzy. Border posts are places
where
identity documents assume hyper-significance, where a heightened state of
alertness
is the 'norm'. These are locations where 'anyone' can be asked to prove his
or
her identity, and where a lack of an identity document quickly transforms
the presumption
of innocence into a presumption of guilt. India shares a 2,912 km border
with Pakistan, a 4,053 km border with Bangladesh, 1,690 km border with
Nepal,
and a 3,380 km border with China. There have been border disputes with
Pakistan,
China, and Bangladesh. There have been three wars with Pakistan, and one
with
China. Borders lie on the edges of a nation-state. What kind of an
imagination of
lived experience would result if one were to think of a nation without a
centre –
where the distinction between the centre and the periphery collapses, where
the
centre becomes the border, where presumption of guilt is 'normalized' and
where
the 'citizen' needs to be distinguished from the 'alien' through a smart
identification
card?
'Border Management' is a chapter of a highly influential report on national
security
entitled 'Reforming the National Security System-Recommendations of the
Group of Ministers'. It reads, 'In fact, barring Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Delhi and Haryana, all other States in the country have one or
more
international borders or a coastline and can be regarded as frontline States
from the
point of view of border management'. Quantitatively speaking, according to
this
report, out of a total of 28 states and seven Union Territories in India,
all but five
states, for all administrative and political purposes, are to be regarded as
a 'Border'.
This may well transform to a situation where citizens may be seen as
potential
India's new ID card
immigrants (read 'aliens') by the state. With an internal collapse of the
periphery,
the idea of the hinterland merges with notion of the border. In its wake,
the selfsustaining
myth of inside and outside is engulfed. Particular ethnic, religious and
political identities are overtaken by an affective national identity
underlined by a
document.
Furthermore, the report puts the blame on illegal immigration. 'Illegal
migration
has assumed serious proportions. There should be compulsory registration of
citizens
and non-citizens living in India. This will facilitate preparation of a
national
register of citizens. All citizens should be given a Multi-Purpose National
Identity
Card (MPNIC) and non-citizens should be issued identity cards of a different
color
and design'. For the illegal immigrant to be marked and verified, the
citizen has to
be stabilized, and for the citizen to be marked and verified, the illegal
immigrant has
to be stabilized. For all purposes and unless stipulated otherwise, the
not-soapparent
dichotomy between the legal citizen and the illegal immigrant is sorted
out, and the state would find itself sinking deep in self-demarcated
tautological
quick-sands.
The national identity card appears as a desperate attempt to bolster what
Arjun
Apadurai argues is 'a fundamental and dangerous idea behind the very idea of
the
modern nation state, the idea of a 'national ethnos' (Appadurai 2006: 3).
While in
the act of taking off the ballast involving a whole set of other identities,
the state
seems to be prescribing a unitary identity, to keep its wobbly boat afloat.
The rhetoric
of one nation, one land, one border, one citizen seems to assert itself
through a
dreamlike gaze of the state underwritten by – highly technologized – ideas
of
modernity.
Given the internal haemorrhage that the MNIC may potentially have initiated
between the fringe and the core, albeit at a very minute scale, it is
interesting to note
how subtle changes in the syntactic structure of this minutely calibrated
grandiloquence
has helped push the dreams of mobility beyond national boundaries. This
was evident in the misreading of the Hindi language title of the MNIC by the
people
of Pooth Khurd, the village north-west of Delhi. Pooth Khurd was earmarked
for the pilot project of the MNIC scheme. The erstwhile farmlands of this
village
have been transformed into urban clusters following the rapid expansion of
Delhi
and the absorption of the frontline rural/semi-urban areas into the
metropolis.
Malls, multiplexes and high-rise apartment blocks have appeared.
Compensation
money for the displaced farmers was supposedly 'adequate' but when I visited
this
village in 2006, the dominant narrative was one of lack of livelihood.
Former
agriculturalists were finding it difficult to move into newer occupations
and work
cultures. I conducted a series of interviews with a group of men from this
village.
One of them complained: 'We don't have work, but this does not mean we are
poor'. This was evident in the range of new cars parked along the
yet-to-beconstructed
pucca roads of the village.
When I asked them about the MNIC, their faces lit up. They all remembered
the
day when the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) came to their village and told
them
about a 'Hara Card' or a 'Green Card'. Many people told me how they would
take
foreign tours; some also said that their dream of settling abroad would
finally come

true in the near future. This narrative, though somewhat odd, was a
recurrent theme
in all my subsequent visits to Pooth Khurd. Still, the connection between
the MNIC
and going abroad was unclear. Many visits later, while I was listening to an
illiterate
farmer talking about places he would visit in England, I chanced upon the
possible
link. I was admiring the jute presented to him by the SDM, on account of his
role as responsible community elder. The farmer had mobilized over 50 people
to
share their biometric and other personal information with the officials of
the State.
The letters 'MNIC' were inscribed on either side of the jute bag in English
and
Hindi. MNIC, in Hindi, reads as Bahu-uddeshye Rashtriya Pechan Patra or
Multipurpose National Identity Card. But what the people of Pooth Khurd read
was
Bahu deshye Rashtriya Pechan Patra or Multi 'Nation' National Identity Card.
Phonetically, there is little difference between Bahu Deshye and Bahu
Uddeshye.
But semantically, it inverts the very idea of a national identity card with
its notions
of fixed citizenship and singular national identities.
Much has happened since that particular visit to Pooth Khurd. A whole range
of
smart cards have surfaced, from biometric passports to smart health cards
and smart
cards for access to subsidized food grains under the Public Distribution
System.
There is talk of an Integrated Smart Card, which will collapse these other
cards into
the MNIC. And according to a Planning Commission Report of January 2007,
recommendations
are being put forth to include children within the smart card project.
Creating membership: Taking everyone into account
'How to take children into account?' This is the predicament the Government
of
India seems to be grappling with. A report entitled 'Entitlement Reform for
Empowering the Poor: The Integrated Smart Card' deals with problems
pertaining
to the distribution of benefits under various governmental schemes. This
peculiar
quandary has arisen as the MNIC would only be given to persons who are 15
years
of age and above, thus depriving a lot of children of benefits. The report
recommends,
'the biometric information of all family members needs to be in-built into
the smart card'. On the question of citizenship status, the report suggests,
'The creation
of a data base of residents and assignment of a unique ID to each resident
is
much easier than the creation of a data base of citizens, because of the
difficulty of
authentication of citizenship and the legal implications that it may have'.
The idea of the MNIC began as an attempt to mark all citizens permanently
and
accord them with formal national membership – a membership which would
surpass
other memberships denoted by filial relations, region, religion, language,
gender,
caste, community, locality, etc. and result in a creation of a unitary club.
Significantly, the project failed to take into account the complex praxis
that exists
between the idea of an individual identity as imagined by the State and an
identity
as lived by people. To complicate matters further, the Planning Commission
Report
(January 2007) makes it abundantly clear that the Government is tinkering
with
the idea of collapsing individual identities into group identities. This
move would
create new membership pools within a larger sea of already existing sets of
memberships.

In a country with a documented history of mass internal migration, a
national
register of residency would facilitate the creation of hitherto unimagined
membership
pools – unimagined because these pools will tend to push valid citizens
without
a formal residency status towards the brink of illegality, while genuinely
'illegal' immigrants would try to mask their existence by acquiring all
available
tokens of legitimate identification.
Blurred borders among 'citizens'
The creation of newer sets of membership would create fresh categories for
identification.
Together with existent categories, the emergent categories will tend
towards an amorphous idea of national group membership where at least some
of
the members will be neither totally included in nor excluded from the group.
In the
absence of distinct forms of identification, the ongoing experimentation is
producing
a somewhat 'Fuzzy Logic' of national identity. According to Lotfi Zadeh,
mathematician and co-author of Fuzzy Logic, Fuzzy Truth is something which
represents
membership in vaguely defined 'sets' and not a result of an event or
condition.
Fuzzy Logic allows for 'set membership' to range from – 'Slightly' to
'Quite'
to 'Very'.
In a frontier-like situation, a national identity card would create a
'universal set'
of Indians, but as the Planning Commission Report (January 2007) suggests,
this
'set' may have many of 'subsets'. For instance, the state of Kerala has its
smart
cards for Commercial Sex Workers, the Indian army is considering a proposal
to
issue health smart cards for HIV-positive soldiers, and car drivers have
smart
drivers' licences. Subsets around occupations, health conditions, and mode
of
transport are just a few of the many that may arise. The Fuzzy Logic of the
MNIC
will make 'Indian-ness' an attribute dependent not just on the document, but
also on
one's projected image of being a 'normal' Indian. The contestations for
claims to
national membership through the MNIC card will arise in the domain of truth
claims. They will be marked by attempts to look like or furnish proof of
evidence of
'Indian-ness', which would make one 'Slightly Indian' or 'Quite Indian' or
'Very
Indian'. Depending on the success of an individual's claims, a person would
get a
Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) or a Multi-purpose Residency
Card
(MRR).
In the not-much-talked-about case of 400 Iranian immigrants to the small
town
of Murshidabad, in the state of West Bengal, the logic of Fuzzy Logic
becomes
apparent. These people settled in Murshidabad 80 years ago – well before the
independent
Indian nation-state was formed. The MNIC survey party failed to accord a
single one of them Indian citizenship status. So what are they:
Persian-speaking
Indians or Bengali-speaking Iranians? Are they 'Slightly', 'Quite' or 'Very'
Indian?
The 16 categorical questions in the Government Performa for MNIC, mentioned
earlier in the essay, must be answered not through a straight tick or a
cross but by
giving information supported by evidence. This evidence is then turned over
to a
verification team headed by a supervisor. The verification team will
ascertain the

citizenship status of each individual. If evidence is unavailable, the
decision of the
verification team and the sub-divisional magistrate would be crucial in
granting citizenship
to a hitherto undocumented individual. Thus, by its very nature the MNIC
questionnaire generates slippages within categories. For an individual to
arrest
these slippages and be verified correctly he must either produce evidence or
show
by some other means that he is 'Very Indian'.
Hence, cases like those of the Iranian migrant community discussed above,
with
their 'slightly Indian' features, clearly escape the bureaucratic exercise
of rendering
an individual into a citizen. In order to belong to a nation, an individual
must
conform to categories anchored by questionnaires, certificates, oaths, and
affirmations.
Non-conformance results in new categories, which in turn produce narratives
of illegality and suspicion.
Likely consequences
In the scenario discussed above, 'under-represented' sections of the Indian
society,
like the 'undocumented', the 'poor' or the 'minorities' could be subjected
to discrimination.
Although at this stage this proposition might be regarded as a conjecture,
it underlines the importance of a priori evidence made necessary to be
granted
a MNIC card. Unfortunately, millions of un-credentialed Indians do not have
an
evidence of their existence. MNIC card project proposes to create a
centralize database
linked to individual card holders, which would then be connected to social
benefit schemes. Hence a non-possession of the card on account of lack of
evidence
needed for its procurement might result in denial of services to the very
people it
was meant to be in the first place.
Another important aspect of the MNIC debate is a moral one. It is still not
clear
as to how the data garnered by the MNIC will be used. Who will access this
database?
A report by Human Rights Features cautions the idea of storing personal
information of an entire country in 'one database'. The report suggests that
MNIC
card may infringe on the privacy of individuals as there is a 'possibility
of corruption
and exploitation of data'.
The proposed data gathered through the MNIC project would concretize
existing
categories. However, the right or the privilege to belong to these
categories is still
being disputed by people. 'Categorical suspicion' by the State is deeply
contested
by 'categorical affirmation' by a large chunk of society, which regard
legible identity
documents as the only vehicle for legible citizenship. Far from a scenario
of
total surveillance by a 'Big Brother', the Indian experiment with identity
documents
is a case of the fuzzy logic of membership.

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126 Mehmood

Appendix
Timeline of MNIC
a 26 May 1999: Kargil War with Pakistan begins
b 26 July 1999: Kargil War ends
c 29 July 1999: Government of India appoints the Kargil Review Committee
(KRC) through Order No. 361/6/4/99-TS
d 7 January 2000: The KRC submits a 228-page report to the Prime Minister.
One of the key recommendations of the report is to take steps 'to issue ID
Cards
to border villagers in certain vulnerable areas on a priority basis, pending
its
extension to other or all parts of the State'.
e 17 April 2000: On the advice of the KRC, the Indian Government forms the
Group of Ministers (GoM) through an order No.141/2/1/2000-TS.
f 22 December 2000: Red Fort in Delhi attacked by alleged 'terrorists'.
g January 2001: Delhi police launches 'Tenant Verification' drive – the
first ever
compilation of data on 'Tenants' in Delhi.
h 26 February 2001: The GoM submits its report to the Prime Minister. A
paragraph
in Chapter V of the report, entitled 'Border Management', reads, 'There
should be compulsory registration of citizens and non-citizens living in
India.
This will facilitate preparation of a national register of citizens. All
citizens
should be given a Multi-Purpose National Identity Card (MPNIC) and
noncitizens
should be issued identity cards of a different color and design'.
i 23 April 2003: Pilot Project on Multipurpose National Identity Card is
initiated.
j 26 May 2007: RGI DK Sikri hands over the first tranche of National ID
cards
to the villagers of Pooth Khurd.
India's new ID card 127