[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-126

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Anupam

Thanks for sharing this info about the social networks which
constitute the so called 'think tank' called RAND.

With MNIC too we can find an oblique resemblance. In late nineties
when MNIC was introduced, curiously similar people who were debating
this idea were part of different committees. Each committee was being
formed and made redundant on the formation of the next committee. The
next committee was made on the recommendation of the former committee.
The next committee had some members of the former committee and some
new members and upon its constitution it took decisions based on the
proposals of the former committee.

In my essay titled, 'Notes From a Contested History of MINC Card' (
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2008-December/017068.html
), I have tried to re-trace the sociopolitical networks which were at
work.

All in all the members of Kargil Review Committee, National Security
Service Council, the Group of Ministers, Border Security Task Force
and so on were responsible for first introducing the idea of the card
for border areas only, then for some unexplained reason the idea of a
national identity card was conflated to a national scale. The reasons
for such an action of course do not appeal to any formal logic, but
surely it seems to appeal to an 'irrational' whim of power.

We still do not know why there is not even a single comprehensive
debate on and about national identity cards in India when there seems
to be a conscious acknowledgment of a fact that such a technology may
not fully deliver what it promises, especially in Western countries
like the UK?

Nor we, as citizens of India are made aware of the total costs
involved of initializing, operationalizing and maintaining such a huge
program on a long term basis. We don't know what is opportunity cost
of such an investment? Can we absolutely cannot do with a citizenship
token, we don't know? Isn't it high time when we start making noises
about a probable transfer of almost 27,000-30,000 crores of rupees in
the short run.

It is quite clear the MNIC appears as a legitimate front to transfer
huge amount of public money in the name of security, entitlement, ease
of services and so on. However, it is another matter that no where on
this earth there exists a precedent which unambiguously measures a
clear cor-relationship between the presence of national identity card
and erasure of illegal immigrants or for that matter presence of
national identity cards and minimization of corruption or an increase
in efficiency.

However there exists many instances of the practice of 'data creep' by
the Governments. For instance, during the WWII when rationing was
first introduced by the UK government's Department of Food and Civil
Supplies, the data gathered on UK citizens in lieu of giving food, was
used by twenty three governments departments to snoop on private
individuals and formulate policy when the government had tacitly
promised that this data will be used by three departments only.

It might be noted that during the latter half of WWII, a national
identity card was  introduced in the UK however such a card was
abolished within the next decade amidst growing suspicion about the
intentions of the government of the day and cost of running such a
program. It seems that in India, we are hell bent on first committing
an error then learning from it than spending some time to ponder and
reflect.

Warm regards

Taha