Aadhar, the Solution to so Many Problems

Imagine someone wicked who wants to inherit a relative’s land. Imagine further that the person has some qualms… so he can’t get himself to kill off the relative in question. What does he do? This isn’t a thought experiment. Turns out that in UP, plenty of people bribe the authorities to declare the person to be dead! Once the paperwork is thus arranged, inheritance follows.

One such zombie, a man named Lal Bihari, fought back… to get himself declared alive. But how? A court case would take decades; and government officials wouldn’t undo things since that would trigger an enquiry into how the man was declared dead in the first place.

He decided to make a spectacle of himself. By adding to his name “mritak” (dead man) to his name. He then created a group called the Mritak Sangh, an association for all such zombies. With no way to contact others, however, the Sangh didn’t get any members. He tried to get himself arrested to draw attention, but that didn’t work. He registered as a candidate against former PM’s; and then filed an application against himself saying he was dead. To no avail; it drew some attention, but nothing changed.

Until 1999, when a TIME magazine article on the man shamed the UP High Court to initiate an inquiry. Ads were put up asking other such people to come forward, kind of like what is called a “class action lawsuit” in the US (i.e., multiple victims join together and file a common case. Apart from sharing costs, it also draws attention to the huge number of victims). As a result, many including Lal Bihari were finally declared alive. Though investigations continued officials involved in the practice without any conclusions…

It’s easy to be cynical about such practices continuing. But I feel there is hope after all, based on this recent incident where a lost 14 year old boy was reunited with his family. The kid was from Rajasthan, got lost in 2015, and was found by the Ludhiana police. Since the kid couldn’t tell anything, they had no way to send him back to his parents. When his new school tried to register him for Aadhar in 2017, the system said he was already registered! And thus they found his address, and reunited him with his family.

I wonder if Aadhar can be used by future Lal Bihari’s to prove they are alive since it is after all a biometric ID? It’s as they say: once you build systems like Aadhar, the benefits start flowing in ways that you can’t even imagine when you design the system. No wonder then that there is such a large number of people who fight Aadhar: any foolproof ID system like this is a threat to them at so many levels.

Here’s hoping all attempts to reduce the scope of Aadhar are defeated in the courts and via legislation.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarSeptember 29, 2017 at 6:22 PM

    Already the Aadhar identity is mandatory for pension accounts, which ensures that cheats cannot keep siphoning out the pension, that only the pensioner is entitled for, but who is no more hence stoppage is the right thing. It is a happy thing. Mobile phone misuse to the point of terrorist going on rampage is curbed too by compelling Aadhar identity. Good again.
    ==================
    What can one say about the finish line of the blog" reduce the scope of Aadhar are 'defeated' in the courts and via legislation"? Often it is not the people but the politicians who want things defeated, particularly if the other party gains. So let's leave that out for now.

    As far as people are concerned, they would like to be assured that proper precautions are taken against both misuse and outright criminality. If asking for these assurances is looked upon as people wanting to unreasonably defeat or any other accusative term to describe them, would that be fair? For example, if people do not want corruption / kickbacks etc. and ask questions, are they bad guys? In political administration too, things can and do go wrong; if people ask questions about administration, are they bad guys? Or, could it be as simple as, "bad guys are those who don't tow my line!"

    As to legislation, what is there to blame people? Those at the parliament are the ones who legislate. If they fight and obstruct, is it people's fault? Recently, Jaitley remarked to the effect, when the court ruling came, "It's Congress failure to legislate. They are the culprits". Fine, that is the way of political talk.

    Now that BJP is holding power everywhere, opposition is spineless-toothless-speechless, media is subdued, court is not blocking but only made a mention of the safeguard, mighty Modi's push stops at nothing, polarized people in the population ensure that neutral people have to keep their mounts shut too.etc., everything is miraculously slanted in BJP's favor. If they can't bring to fruition through legislation, one can only ask this: "Who is that someone out there to defeat the motion - a motion whose purpose cannot stand arguments?"

    Let the politicians do it and win our praises. Even after accepting that people certainly can do better in many ways, I have no doubt that they will acknowledge good work. Let's learn to respect them for that.

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