Imlisanen Phom
This is the second attempt to relate the dangers associated with Aadhaar. Hope more people will write in the coming days so that I don’t look like Sylvester Stallone in Rambo movie with his mean machine gun (one man army) and the only one concerned to death with the dangers associated with Aadhaar.
Under this program every Indian is to be issued a 12-digit unique identity number called Aadhaar number. It is considered as the world’s largest national identification project. I consider it the world largest illegal/ un-constitutional project “cunningly” made legal project. The National Identification Authority of India Bill which backed the Aadhaar project was introduced on 3rd Dec 2010 in Raja Sabha got the Cabinet’s approval but did not get the consent of the President of India. Still today The National Identification Authority of India Bill is pending at Raja Sabha. For ten years the Aadhaar program continued enrolling millions of people without any Act of Bill supporting it. After 10 years in March 2016 a new Aadhaar Bill known as “Targeted delivery of Financial and other subsidies, benefits and services Bill” was introduced as a money Bill in Lok Sabha by the present BJP government. One can understand why the BJP converted the Aadhaar bill into money Bill. That is because the first Aadhaar Bill Introduced in Raja Sabha was NOT a money Bill and therefore was stopped at Rajasabha. In order to make the present Aadhaar Bill unstoppable it was introduced as Money Bill. Once the Loak Sbaha passes a money Bill it is final, it cannot be stopped by the Raja Sabah or the President of India. The sad thing is it was passed in March 25, 2016. The good news is that as per section (7) of the new Aadhaar Bill 2016, Aadhaar number is not mandatory for availing govt schemes/ benefits/service.
Politicians are voicing out that the use of Aadhaar Bill 2016 as money Bill is complete misuse of the constitution and will soon erode the constitution of India. It would be interesting to know that when Modi was the CM of Gujarat he was the chairmen of committee overseeing the implementation of Aadhaar, later the same Modi when contesting for Prime minister criticized the UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance) for implementing the Aadhaar enrolment saying it is “unconstitutional”. Today the same Modi Government has made Aadhaar Bill “constitutional”. The same Modi has the audacity to stand in front of the whole Indians and talk about “commitment to the Constitution” and preaches to Indians that “the thought of tampering with the constitution is like committing suicide”. Is he not tampering the constitution of India by pushing the Aadhar program which he himself said was unconstitutional? It makes one wonder if he really honour the Constitution? His actions says that that Constitutional laws are just paper words and politicians can tamper with the constitution when the need arise. Aadhhar card is nothing but a secret public surveillance system to tag all its citizens and to eliminate any threat (people) in the name of National Security. Aadhaar program should be stopped immediately.
History has proved it again and again that Programs like Aadhaar are very dangerous. A very similar program like that of Aadhaar was first effectively implemented by the Nazi under Hitler’s rule in Germany. Hitler developed a system to identify and list all the Jews in Germany with the help of IBM Company. IBM was in the “census” business that included racial census in counting and identifying the Jews. We all know what happened latter, more than 6 million Jew were identified, separated and butchered by Hitler. Hitter could achieve this abomination because he had “the census system” which helped him to identify and separate the Jews from the others. Hitler saw the Jews as a threat and he had the “Census system” to eliminate them. In the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, there is an IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine which was used by Hitler for the census of 1933 which identified the Jews from others. Just recently in 1998 the Supreme Court of Philippines struck down the President’s executive order A.O.308 for “Adoption of a National Computerized Identification Reference System” which is exactly like the Aadhaar project in India. It insisted a biometric-based (finger print, Iris scan etc) national ID system. It was stuck down by the Philippines Supreme Court on two grounds,( i)that the right to privacy is one of the most threatened rights of man living in a mass society and (ii) that it gives the government the power to compile a devastating dossier (documents) against unsuspecting citizens. In United Kingdom an identical programs like Aadhaar known as the “National Identity Register” was scraped and discontinued. It was introduced in UK under the Identity Cards Act 2006 which required ten finger prints, iris scan and other details of every UK citizen. It was stopped after Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs repotted that l25 million records of people’s finger prints, iris scan, and other personal information were lost, vanished. The last remaining data were publicly destroyed by none other than UK Home minister Damian Green by feeding it to a giant crushing machine. UK Home Secretary latter explained that they were abandoning the project because it would otherwise be ‘intrusive bullying’ by the state, and that the government intended to be the ‘servant’ of the people, and not their ‘master’. Why won’t India learn from these countries? Many serious incidents have already happened in India which should be enough to completely shut down the Aadhar project. Over 1000 Fake IDs were generated at a UID enrolling centre in Bangalore. The state of Maharashtra has fined more than Rs.5.5 crore on various contractors it authorized for processing Aadhaar card data. 3.84 Lakhs Aadhaar numbers in Orissa were cancelled due to malpractice. In Seelampur, Delhi where a large number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants live, one can get aadhaar for Rs. 500 without any ID proof. It also revealed that for every 100 genuine Aadhaar card 10 fakes can be made. Many PIL have been filed in Supreme Court against Aadhaar, Retired Justice Puttaswamy who filed a PIL in Supreme Court, says Aadhaar invades the right to privacy, which is guaranteed under Article 21.
Just recently Aadhaar caused the death of a High School student in AndraPradesh who committed suicide because he was denied Aadhaar because his fingers were joined together and he could not apply for Pre matric scholarship. If this was not unnecessary death what was it? If we don’t stop it now, next victim could be our near and dear ones. Just last year, In Nagaland,(Dimapur) 19 PMEGP applicants (2015-2016) were rejected because they did not provide Aadhaar number. Does it look like “financial inclusion” or is this a pure example of “financial exclusion”? Nagaland State Govt should be grateful that the 19 PMEGP did not seek any legal measures against the State.
The Aadhar project is converting many “rights” into “privileges”. “Rights” cannot be taken from us, but “privileges” can be. The only way to take away our rights is to covert them to privileges. Many Govt schemes are being converted to “privileges” by this Aadhaar. Schemes like PMEGP, MGNEGA,PDS,LPG and Students Scholarship etc, soon maybe even right to vote. The Supreme Court understands the ill effects of Aadhaar and Issued three orders (Dated September 23,2013/ Aug11,2015/Oct 15,2015) that no person should suffer for not having Aadhaar, and no ministry In India will make Aadhaar mandatory until it is finally decided. The Supreme Court has not given its final decision yet and the Interim order dated 23 Sep 2013 still stands today. The Supreme Court should stop this Aadhaar program for the greater good of the Public.
There should be mass “SAY NO TO AADHHAR” poster campaign in Nagaland. Student unions/ NGOs in respective Dist should participate in an awareness program with the dangers related with Aadhaar. All those who were denied Govt Schemes like PMEGP/Scholarship/opening bank account etc and other facility for not having Aadhaar in the past should come together take the concerned department/bank/Government to court. The Supreme Court of India should take out the Voluntary option for applying Aadhar and like the Govt of Philippines and UK put an end to Aadhaar by completely scraping the Aadhaar program. All data collected so far in India should be deleted, shredded, burned and crushed to powder. The remaining money to be invested in Aadhaar project should be invested on some “constitutional programs.”
The sad truth is that this year more than 20,000 Post matric students in Nagaland without Aadhaar number will be denied their post matric scholarship because the Ministry of Tribal affairs has made Aadhaar mandatory even when as per the latest Aadhaar Bill 2016 (Section 7)Aadhaar is not mandatory. What will the giant student unions in Nagaland like the NSF, DNSU, ENSU etc do for these students? What have they done yet?
We are giving too much power to system which cannot be trusted and which can be used against us. Later all the Govt have to do is just block our Aadhaar number which will result in no buying or selling. We have to voice against this abomination call Aadhaar. Who can guarantee that tomorrow there won’t be a leader like Hitler in India? Is the present Govt behaving like Hitler?
NGO’s/Church leader in Nagaland being silent over Aadhaar issue makes it even worse. They are either ignorant about the danger associated with Aadhaar or they have just given up the fight even before it has started. Just because other States are doing it does not mean it is right. We MUST know that the Constitution which is highest law in India, is the ‘will of the Public’, while a law/Bill/Act (Aadhaar Bill 2016) is only the creation of the ‘elected Politicians’ of the public, when, therefore, the ‘will of the political party’ as declared in the law/Bill/Act(Aadhaar Bill 2016) stands against the ‘will of the public’ as declared in the Constitution - the ‘will of the public” Must prevail. Aadhaar goes against the “will of the public” because it invades the privacy of an individual which is granted by Article 21 of Indian Constitution. Therefore Aadhaar program should be scraped, abandoned and stopped immediately before it creates more financial exclusion, headache, heartache and worst even death.
