[Reader-list] UID Card Doubts

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Bipin,

Thank you for your mail. I am trying to ask one question. This
question is this: What does one mean by identity?
and I am sorry, your extremely articulate answer: Taha-is-Taha does
not satisfy me at all. Because -Taha- is just a name. It could have
been -X- also. And name is just one aspect of a person's identity. So
yes you are answering. But those answers does not satisfy one beyond a
reasonable doubt.

When I read your mails. I get rattled. So I have to ask more questions
to clear my dumb head. Say for instance in your last mail you mention:
Can you give percentage in India about unaware of their birth date.
Very
> negligible or merely less than 1%. So, for this small fraction of population large section remain deprived and should not go ahead.

Now let us assume that you are correct. Let us assume that 99% of
Indians have identity documents. Lets us, for the sake of
understanding also imagine the following:

Let us imagine a community school which is situated in an island. This
is the only school in that island. A hundred students are enrolled in
this school. Most of the students come from extremely underprivileged
backgrounds. Some come from okay back grounds. Few come from very
privileged backgrounds. This school has a principal. The principal for
some reason wants to give education to children coming from the island
only. Fair enough. So he orders a colored dye to be purchased from
market. He wants to dye the clothes of all his students in one unique
color. He wants to educate only those students who are wearing clothes
which are dyed in one color only.

Scenario one: Lets take your claim that 99% percent of Indians have
identification documents to be true. So in our school situation it
would mean that 99 children would come to school in some form of
clothing. Right.

In this case, I am wondering why is the principal wasting so much
money to buy dyes. Why not give children more food or books or
scholarships. Does the school principal have some sort of an
understanding with the dye makers? Will the principal gain something
to impose this sort of a rule.

Scenario two: Lets take your claim to be false, in fact, lets assume
that 99% of Indians do not have Identity documents. So in our school
situation, it would mean that 99 children do come to school in no form
of clothing. Right!

In this case wouldn't you think that it is stupid on behalf of a
principal to even think of dyeing the clothes of children when most of
them do not have any clothes.

Now let's go back to you claim. Could you please direct me to a
source, where I can verify this claim?

 It's interesting you know what you are saying, because it would make
a person of the stature of Mr.Nandan Nilekani look very very stupid.
Because he is being the one who is suggesting that if we don't have
documents, then it's not a problem because UID people will verify our
identity by asking someone, who has a paper trail to vouch for who he
is, to tell them who we are.

Why is Mr. Nilekani taking all this trouble if you are claiming that
99% of Indians have some sort of identity documents? Is Mr. Nilekani
committing some sort of mistake?

Warm regards

Taha