[Reader-list] Is painting a currency note which can not be forged unless you act illegally?

[indersalim]

Dear Taha,
I guess we agree on most of what we are saying. But  as I suggested
earlier, the subject is vast and can be sorted out so quickly. But
thanks for many valid points and info.

I agree, that people can not be identified by numbers alone, there is
something more that a name, a colour, or religious identity which
makes an individual. That individual who has journeyed from ancient
times to the present day is still carrying forward some strange past
with her/him all the time, which we can't simply see through these
short cut solutions to identity problems. National identity is one
such identity which time and again falls short of ' a complete desired
identity' . We agree on most of other point which we discussed through
this exchange on fake/original thought.

I have already suggested that we can always separate fake from
original. But we need to intensity this exercise only if gives some
dividends to the our basic understanding of being a human being. If
that binary is imposed on us, we have every right to turn our tracks
and see what is good for us and what is not. That is why I said the
difference is a temporary one, which does not apply to all the
differences we have historically, but  we must be free to change a
fake to an original and vice versa. That is art even, life even.

Raza originals can be separated from Raza fakes, but that is not my
final destination. Similarly, we need a currency note which is not
forged, but we can question the State which behaves like a 'thug'
sometimes, if not the currency which it prints. So we can always
question those structure which define 'the state' even. We need not
mark an citizen as 'fake' who questions anything that qualifies as
'original' in the eyes of the sate.  So National Identity cards have a
limited function, as tokens to be possessed for day to day function
like a currency note, which again can be forged, by those who see
faults in the systems of Laws in their own unique way. There are ways
to dissent, albeit responsibility accompanies dissent, which is often
brushed aside. We need to learn, how difficult and profound it is, if
one takes a stand in favour of known fakes against known originals.

But some times is funny. I heard, there are some areas in Pune, where
Rs.7 currency notes are valued in the market. It is  half of Rs.5
currency note  glued to half of Rs.2 currency note which  becomes Rs.7
currency note. We have 1,70,000 crores of  fake currency in India, and
what I should do. The same ink and same paper is used to manufacture
them.  What I am supposed to do? The difference is vanishing very
fast.  With currency notes it is still different, but with paintings
the photography has entirely taken over, if one speaks conceptually.

Even a photograph as ones  true representative in a identity card is
questioned. So, I satirically suggested why not to have digital
designs of ones corneas implanted on identity cards, which again is
vulnerable to hackers and computer virus.

Warmly
IS


On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Taha Mehmood
<2tahamehmood at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Dear Inder,
>
> Thank you for your response.
>
> Let me quote you first and carry on from there...
>
>>  See, it is only now that we see it like that, because the complexities of
>> times were not as heavy on their heads as they are now.
>
> To a large extent I agree with this position but at the same time I also
> feel that for every age this position must have been true. For instance, I
> would like to believe that in Aristotle's time his thought or general
> discussions around the nature of knowledge, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance
> etc would have been most advanced form of thinking precisely because no
> other arguments were present which could have counter argued, or build upon
> Aristotle's thought or that of his peers with as much of poignancy as
> perhaps people from other ages were able to do. Having said that, I also
> believe that coupling of time under a generic category of 'age' is not
> precise, it is always negotiated. One can never say it with precision that
> at such and such date Renaissance ends or Enlightenment begins.
>
>> I believe, European Wars necessitated the need for a photograph to
>> represent an individual, which gave shape to a formal pass port with a
>> regular photograph in it.
>
> On the contrary, it seems European Wars were an opportunity for the nation
> states to condense the debate around passports. Hence, crystallization of
> the notion of passport could be seen as an attempt to make the idea of a
> nation state more unarguable.
>
> Passports have a longer history, from whatever little I know, passports were
> called, 'Safe conducts' till 15th Century in England. 'Safe conduct' was
> basically a note, signed by the King or Queen requesting authorities of
> other lands to not to harm the person of the carrier of the note. What was
> interesting in this practice was, the King or the Queen could issue this
> note to anyone. There was no distinction or discrimination on the basis of
> nationality, so a fake citizen or an original alien could apply for and get
> a passport. Hence there has been quite a  change, in the last say, six
> hundred years; as, now passports have become a virtual marker of one's
> nationality. And normatively speaking today, it seems, only an original
> citizen but no fake alien or no fake citizen and no original alien would get
> a passport.
>
> (You may follow this url for a detailed time line on the evolution of
> passports in England, if you're interested-
> http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/about-history-overview.asp)
>
> The anecdote about Australian artist is excellent, because it, in a sense,
> questions a State's position about how are we to appear as our 'formal
> selves'. I think we need to probe further into the 'history-of-pose' to
> arrive at preliminary answers as to how and why are we asked to pose in a
> particular manner. Who are these people and what is their intellectual
> lineage which guides them to make us pose in a particular manner. This has
> also got to do with the idea that how 'official'/'formal' narratives of
> poses are constructed and manufactured.
>
> At times one wonders who needs who more, for in a way, the originals need
> fakes to be distinguished as originals and the other way round too. I think
> as a thought experiment it would be an adventure to think of a world where
> the imagination of fake does not exist. I think you were not entirely wrong
> to suggest in an earlier mail in this thread, that, 'the difference between
> original and fake is just a temporary one.'
>
> Historically too, we find narratives of fake and original being negotiated
> again and again. There is a non-permanence regarding original/fake in
> history too as you imply. Take the history of modern Indian policing for
> instance. Here too one finds ample evidence of a nervous and neurotic state
> power first appearing as 'illegitimate' then after a passage of time as
> 'legitimate' trying desperately to fracture in practices which we now see in
> the form of 'brands', of 'identification drives', of this market induced
> enthusiasm which might also be read as -frenzy- to inhumanly assign numbers
> to people, to regularize, to legitimize, to record, to verify and to
> classify. I referred the exercise to assign numbers to human beings as
> inhuman because we are still, in many ways are emerging from the un-sayable
> violence which practices introduced by Hitler, for instance wrought by
> marking Jews with numbers in concentration camps. If we ask any Jew who had
> been to Auschwitz, whether she liked that beautiful number on her forearm, I
> think, in her reply, we can perhaps know a lot more about this much valued
> relationship between a number and a human being. I wonder what is the moral
> argument for the Government of India to assign numbers to every Indian.
>
> Anyways, let us for a moment look at an instance in the history of modern
> Indian Policing with respect to this debate around original/fake or
> copy/original.
>
> One of the first move to systematize police procedures in India, was
> initiated by William Henry Sleeman later Sir Sleeman, during his campaign to
> eradicate, 'thugs' of India between 1829 and 1847. In 1947-a hundred years
> later, as we all know, India became a post colonial state.
>
> But Sleeman, as not many of us know, was born in 1788 in a little known
> Cornish village, his father Phillip was a supervisor of Excise who was given
> the responsibility of catching Smugglers/pirates. Sleeman's first home was
> Stratton which was a smuggling country and by many accounts, Sleeman's
> ancestors were involved this trade.
>
> Sleeman's bête noire was Feringeea who was born in 1800, he was a Brahmin, a
> twice born Brahmin at that. A Dvija. Feringea's father  Purusram was
> considered as a great thug leader of Chambal valley.
>
> Before Sleeman, it seems there were no systematic police archives which
> contained any personal information on 'thugs', like before MNIC there does
> not exist any systematic archives which contain personal information on
> citizens of India.
>
> Sleeman assigned an officer on every case and all the raw data was entered
> into a register which contained the names of every 'Thug' who was
> identified, just as the government of India has kindly proposed to make a
> National Register of Citizenship and a National Register of population which
> will contain the name and other information classified in sixteen different
> categories to be contained in these registers.
>
> Every 'Thug' was assigned a unique number, just as, all of us are soon going
> have our own National Identity Numbers. Against this number, Sleeman
> recorded information pertaining to his name, his location, details of his
> associates and the crimes for which his was accused,like, for all of us in
> India, we will soon have an interlinked database, wherein any official
> having our NIN number can have access to sensitive personal and financial
> information, of course for official purposes only. And I would argue that
> after having entrusted our information to the Indian Government, we must not
> offer 'surprise' as a reaction, in case this database containing our
> information find its way to a thrift shop on MP3, like it did, in case of
> data belonging to US army personnel recently. Because may be this is how
> things are meant to be.
>
> (Man 'finds US troop data' on MP3
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7853213.stm)
>
> While things were not meant to be in Sleeman's case, because there was no
> precedent, to begin with. He had to use his own intelligence to separate
> wheat from chaff, identify the original from the fake or its copy. He had
> all the legitimizing arguments working for him because he was dealing with
> criminals and murderers, like Hitler had all the legitimizing arguments
> working for him because he was dealing with 'Jews'. I wonder what is the
> ethical basis for the Government of India to argue that assigning numbers to
> every Indian is in the good of the nation. Sleeman's department after his
> campaign evolved into an all India police force, who were given the
> responsibility to gather information on Indian Nationalist groups and other
> potential 'rebel' leaders, but of course the department was officially
> called the Central Intelligence Office, its popular name was, however, the
> 'Thugi Dufter'.
>
> Thugs caught by Sleeman's gang were branded on the forehead or on the back
> with word 'Thug' marked by the process of Godna which is essentially
> tattooing through a needle in Hindi or in Persian characters.
>
> I think what we are witnessing in the process of MNIC is perhaps an act of
> 'closing-in' by a state of an experiment which was started by Sleeman to
> first garner information on a fringe population of criminals. Later this
> fringe population included nationalist leaders and 'rebels' and now it seems
> it is everyone.
>
> There is one more strand of thought, which emerges from this narrative which
> of course, pertains to the idea of Fake and Original OR Copy and Original.
> Sleeman's forefathers were Pirates i.e. they did not pay tax to the state
> while transacting goods. Sleeman,on the other hand, started his career as an
> enforcer of State's diktat, so one could argue that while his forefathers
> were engaged in illegitimate read 'fake' practices, he was in a legitiamate
> read 'original' practice. Sleeman found his greatest calling as a ruthless
> administrator while in pursuit of a man,who was an Indian but called himself
> Feringeea (meaning alien, or a Gora, a White, a non-native) and who was a
> Dvija or a twice born (so we can always debate, which birth of his was
> original and which fake). Sleeman was able to put a full stop to this debate
> by inserting a number which identified Feringeea as Feringeea forever or
> maybe not, for like Munch's Scream, as you point out, we do not know which
> one is the one or whether the one is really the one because, we are organic
> and we change slowly and subtly and consistently over time.
>
> I think, your examples from the pharmaceutical industry, from the art world,
> and from history point to a hesitation, a lack of belief or a conviction
> with which the larger social world around us views identity. I wonder what
> gives the Government of India so much confidence in the magic of a number,
> perfected by toils of colonial enforcers like Sleeman and by people like
> Hitler, which will  help crystallize identity of us Indians as Indians.
>
> Warm regards
>
> Taha
>
>



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