[Reader-list] A note on imagining the current NID program as a form of 'slavery'.

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All,

The argument that UID is good because it will create jobs is doing
rounds. This argument is directed at middle class audiences. I think
in a country where there is a paucity of jobs, an initiative which
promises jobs must be given due consideration. The intent behind it-
is nice. We need jobs. However I wonder whether should we allow our
money to be used for any initiative which promises to create jobs?

Should we not look at UID from a broad level and try to find whether
the existence of such an institution is morally just and good?

I understand that if we were to scrap UID ( given the problems it is
facing it might be sooner than we think ) then it will cause a lot of
distress, emotional duress and strain just like the hundreds of
thousands of middle class people who were working for various
corporations in England had to undergo a lot of distress, duress and
emotional upheaval when the slave trade was abolished.

This is of course not to suggest that UID is like slave trade, that
would be ridiculous, but could we not think that,  just like slave
traders used to forcefully capture Human beings and turn them into
commodities to be bought and to be sold and to be enslaved and to be
shipped and to be restricted in their movement, so too, in its
'modern' Avataar, is there not something deeply sinister about the
role which UID is playing?

Is it not that UID is engaging in an act of capturing not Human beings
but an aspect of Human beings, i.e. their personal identities, either
by diktat (you will have to register) or by economic seduction (you
will get an 'incentive' of 100 rupees) or by threat to use force ( if
you do not register, then you may have to undergo difficulties).

Will UID not  shackle our identities and put it behind digital cages?
Just like slaves used to be tossed around the world without their
consent will the people behind UID not ship our personal identities
across networks in India and possibly abroad and toss it here and
there without our consent? Just like a slave ship had an economic
value so too, will this digital ship of identities not have an
economic value? Just like a slave was the property of a slave owner so
too, will not our individual identities become a property of UID? Just
like slave ships were subject to attacks by pirates so too, will not
these digital ships carrying our identities be subject to constant
attacks by digital pirates like hackers? Just like slaves could be
bought and sold so too will not our personal identities be bought and
sold? Just like slavery snatched the dignity of human beings so too
will not this enslavement of personal identities not snatch away the
dignity of who we are? Just like slaves were used as lab rats for all
sorts of psedu-scientific experiments like Phrenology and Intelligence
Quotient to produce a mis-measure of man will not the data gathered
from harvesting our individual identities not used for policy
experiments to produce a mis-measure of our identities?

In the course of some other research work which I am pursuing for
sometime, I came across a petition filed by the manufacturers
belonging to the City of Birmingham arguing against the abolition of
slave trade. This petition was filed in 1789.

Petition Against the Abolition of Slave Trade:

A Petition of the Manufacturers of Goods, calculated for the Trade to
Africa, in the Town and Neighborhood of Birmingham, was presented to
the House and Read; Setting forth that the Petitioners observe, by the
Votes, a Resolution of the House to take into Consideration the
Circumstances of the African Slave Trade, complained of in Certain
petitions, presented to the House for an Abolition of the said Trade;
and that a very considerable part of various Manufactures, in which
the petitioners are engaged, are adopted to and disposed of, for the
African Trade, and are not saleable in any other market; and that
several thousands are employed in, and maintained by, such
Manufactures, and the Petitioners are fully persuaded, should the said
Trade be Abolished, the Petitioners will be injured in their Fortunes
and their Property, to a very alarming Extent, and many Thousands, who
depend on them for Employment or Subsistence, be brought into Poverty
and Distress: And therefore Praying the House to take the Premises
into their most serious Consideration and to adopt such Measures for
the Preservation of the Said Trade, as to the House shall seem
expedient.

http://old.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/images/slave_routes/pictures/uk-petition2.jpg

Please have a look at the language deployed to formulate the argument,
please look very carefully at the manner in which this appeal is
calibrated and then please reflect about the nature of UID and the
role it is playing. I may be completely wrong in questioning UID in
this manner and therefore I would welcome any comment to set me on the
right track.

Warm regards

Taha