[Reader-list] UID Card

[Bipin Trivedi]

Dear Taha,

Sorry to tell but your all the arguments I find irrelevant and nothing to do
with identity. What principal is doing in school for children any type of
compulsion for uniform or other things has nothing to do with this UID
project. These altogether different things related to education department.

I am not saying less than 1% is without identity or not registered with one
or more government notations, but less than 1% will be there who do not know
their DOB. Those who do not know DOB must have been allotted ration card
also and not necessary that they remain unregistered.

First of all if you want to blame anyone than blame government of India for
UID project and not Nilkeni, since he is appointed by GOI for this job and
Nilkeni did not forced to allot the project to him only. If you don't become
technocrat than learn to respect technocrat. All we are nothing against such
technical masters be it Sam Pitroda or Dr. Abdul Kalam and many more.

Yes you are right Taha is just name and your other aspect of identity will
be decided with your work. For ex. Dr. Abdul Kalam is known as his name and
as a space scientists. Your oppose for UID project for identity point of
view is proved irrelevant. However, if you want to know more about identity
in philosophical point of view than you we can discuss in that subject.

Thanks
Bipin




-----Original Message-----
From: Taha Mehmood [mailto:2tahamehmood at googlemail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 1:55 PM
To: Bipin Trivedi
Cc: sarai-list
Subject: Re: UID Card Doubts

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