Aadhar Card Compulsion is Modi Government's Attempt to end Welfare Schemes
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
The Modi government’s attempt to make Aadhaar mandatory for all social welfare schemes and even for the existing mobile phone users will be scrutinised by the Constitution Bench formed by the Supreme Court. The five-judge bench will see the constitutional validity of making Aadhaar mandatory for social-welfare schemes and scrutinise the legislation under the lens of the landmark judgement of 24 August, where the apex court upheld privacy as one of the fundamental rights of an Indian citizen. The reluctance of the Modi government to back-off from its position on Aadhaar has created severe chaos in the rural India, where numerous people, including a 10-year-old child, starved to death as their ration cards were not linked with Aadhaar and it prevented them from getting their ration supply from village fair-price shops, the centre of dependence for the poor.
Millions are awaiting the death due to starvation due to the same reason and a lot of people stand the chance of losing their mobile number due to a whimsical diktat from the nodal body of mobile operators, TRAI, which calls for mandatory linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar of the consumer, by misinterpreting a Supreme Court order that said only new mobile connections must be verified against Aadhaar. The disconnection of millions of mobile connections will help Reliance Jio, owned by Modi’s principal funder, Mukesh Ambani, to reap huge benefits at it will have the highest amount of compliant customers and can provide a jolt to the other operators in the market by offering new price cuts and bigger offers to poach the customers of other networks.
Millions are awaiting the death due to starvation due to the same reason and a lot of people stand the chance of losing their mobile number due to a whimsical diktat from the nodal body of mobile operators, TRAI, which calls for mandatory linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar of the consumer, by misinterpreting a Supreme Court order that said only new mobile connections must be verified against Aadhaar. The disconnection of millions of mobile connections will help Reliance Jio, owned by Modi’s principal funder, Mukesh Ambani, to reap huge benefits at it will have the highest amount of compliant customers and can provide a jolt to the other operators in the market by offering new price cuts and bigger offers to poach the customers of other networks.
It must be remembered that the BJP in general and Narendra Modi, in particular, were staunchly against the concept of Aadhaar when the Congress-led UPA II regime mulled and later rolled out the programme. The BJP even promised to reverse the Aadhaar upon coming to power. However, as on everything else, Narendra Modi did a volte-face on the question of Aadhar too and ensured that the unique identification system, involving the biometric identification, is imposed as a draconian burden on the people of the country and they are forced to jeopardise their privacy by switching to Aadhaar, which will eventually help the regime to garner a huge cache of data on the personal life and preferences of its citizens. This data can also be shared or sold to the big corporations, to help them develop better market intelligence, by analysing the personal data of prospective customers.
The Digital India campaign by Narendra Modi in Silicon Valley, CA, USA, in connivance with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and owner of Facebook, was intended to build up a huge data sharing and selling arrangement between the Indian government and some of the world’s largest private data collectors and sellers. The warmth with which Modi government’s Digital India programme was welcomed in the US, showed that the big corporations there were reasonably happy with the amount of profit they are allowed to extract under this huge data-selling scheme launched by the government. The linking of Aadhaar for everything, including mobile connections, when smartphone is the device used by the majority of Indians to browse internet, clearly indicates that the government can intends to map the internet browsing pattern, search queries and other private details of the citizens with their biometric identity and can share them easily with third party marketers or organisations like Google and Facebook, enabling them to sell the data further to unscrupulous marketers who would know not only the online identity of the user but will also know a lot more about the personal preferences, views, health condition, income, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, marital status, food habits and medical condition of these netizens.
The Digital India campaign by Narendra Modi in Silicon Valley, CA, USA, in connivance with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and owner of Facebook, was intended to build up a huge data sharing and selling arrangement between the Indian government and some of the world’s largest private data collectors and sellers. The warmth with which Modi government’s Digital India programme was welcomed in the US, showed that the big corporations there were reasonably happy with the amount of profit they are allowed to extract under this huge data-selling scheme launched by the government. The linking of Aadhaar for everything, including mobile connections, when smartphone is the device used by the majority of Indians to browse internet, clearly indicates that the government can intends to map the internet browsing pattern, search queries and other private details of the citizens with their biometric identity and can share them easily with third party marketers or organisations like Google and Facebook, enabling them to sell the data further to unscrupulous marketers who would know not only the online identity of the user but will also know a lot more about the personal preferences, views, health condition, income, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, marital status, food habits and medical condition of these netizens.
Moreover, the Aadhaar linking will not only earn the government dirty wealth from foreign corporations, it will also help it to save on funds required for social-welfare schemes, including the NREGA, mid-day meals, women and child welfare schemes, rural electrification, LPG connection and food supply programme to the poor through the crippling Public Distribution System. The Modi government is not interested in removing bottlenecks that prohibit the projects and schemes of the government from reaching the poorest of the poor; it’s least bothered about the poor at all. Rather, the Modi government is trying to ensure that the least number of people can actually claim benefits under the government’s different schemes so that it can save a huge amount of money allocated for the social-welfare programmes in the budget and then divert that money to bail out corporate houses in crisis or to provide the comprador and crony capitalists huge amount of tax sops and incentives.
The Modi government can show a downfall in budget deficit by doing this exercise and also can magically reduce the total number of people living below the poverty line, thereby pat its own back in public, to laud itself for alleviating poverty that its Modi-fied statistical system will sweep below the carpet. Aadhaar will be much helpful for the BJP in for this type of forgery and it’s therefore willing to take the project to its conclusion, even when the party itself levelled serious allegations against the implementation of the project when it was in opposition.
The Modi government can show a downfall in budget deficit by doing this exercise and also can magically reduce the total number of people living below the poverty line, thereby pat its own back in public, to laud itself for alleviating poverty that its Modi-fied statistical system will sweep below the carpet. Aadhaar will be much helpful for the BJP in for this type of forgery and it’s therefore willing to take the project to its conclusion, even when the party itself levelled serious allegations against the implementation of the project when it was in opposition.
If Narendra Modi government loses the case in the Supreme Court (chances are less that it will), even then too the government can pass a legislation in both houses of the parliament, where the BJP and its allies have a brute majority, to nullify the judgement and make Aadhar superior to privacy rights. As Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, filed two separate pleas before the Supreme Court, questioning the logic behind the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with all social-welfare projects and for making Aadhar linking with mobiles mandatory, the issue got a new dimension and the toady press of the Modi government has plunged to save the government on the issue by carrying out slanderous and libellous propaganda against Mamata Banerjee and her government.
We remember how the Republic TV claimed that 57 crores illegal Bangladeshis live in India when the total population of Bangladesh is mere 16 crores and that of West Bengal, the state which Arnab Goswami accused of sheltering the 57 crores, has a population of only 9 crores. The lie was peddled by Arnab Goswami and his ilk to incite Hindutva jingoism and thereby attack and humiliate Mamata Banerjee and her government in the state with a propaganda with extreme communal tonality, to realise one nefarious goal - accuse the West Bengal government of appeasing Muslims, which is an old allegation levelled by the RSS-led Hindutva camp to portray West Bengal as a state that immediately needs a Hindutva resurgence.
Mamata Banerjee went to the apex court against the Modi government’s decision of imposing Aadhaar as a mandatory identity proof to avail the welfare schemes meant for the people, because the Modi government’s decision has rendered a large section of people in West Bengal out of the ambit of government’s welfare schemes and by using the Aadhaar linking excuse, the Modi government is duping the state government of its due amount, the money that was supposed to go to the poor people in the state. The non-availability of the funds is not only hurting the poor but also troubling the Trinamool Congress’ government, which will face a huge existential crisis should it fail in arranging the fund required to run the welfare schemes for the poor of rural West Bengal, whose discontent can topple the government of Mamata Banerjee.
The public spat between Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi isn’t new, but the magnitude it has reached through the slanderous campaigns against the West Bengal chief minister by the BJP and its sycophant Hindutva hate-mongering media, signals that the Modi government is brutally vilifying even the slightest and the constitutional opposition raised by any power against its misrule and tyranny. Even a long-time BJP ally and RSS fan like Mamata Banerjee is now publicly bashed by the Hindutva camp, even when the BJP has secret understandings with her government.
We remember how the Republic TV claimed that 57 crores illegal Bangladeshis live in India when the total population of Bangladesh is mere 16 crores and that of West Bengal, the state which Arnab Goswami accused of sheltering the 57 crores, has a population of only 9 crores. The lie was peddled by Arnab Goswami and his ilk to incite Hindutva jingoism and thereby attack and humiliate Mamata Banerjee and her government in the state with a propaganda with extreme communal tonality, to realise one nefarious goal - accuse the West Bengal government of appeasing Muslims, which is an old allegation levelled by the RSS-led Hindutva camp to portray West Bengal as a state that immediately needs a Hindutva resurgence.
Mamata Banerjee went to the apex court against the Modi government’s decision of imposing Aadhaar as a mandatory identity proof to avail the welfare schemes meant for the people, because the Modi government’s decision has rendered a large section of people in West Bengal out of the ambit of government’s welfare schemes and by using the Aadhaar linking excuse, the Modi government is duping the state government of its due amount, the money that was supposed to go to the poor people in the state. The non-availability of the funds is not only hurting the poor but also troubling the Trinamool Congress’ government, which will face a huge existential crisis should it fail in arranging the fund required to run the welfare schemes for the poor of rural West Bengal, whose discontent can topple the government of Mamata Banerjee.
The public spat between Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi isn’t new, but the magnitude it has reached through the slanderous campaigns against the West Bengal chief minister by the BJP and its sycophant Hindutva hate-mongering media, signals that the Modi government is brutally vilifying even the slightest and the constitutional opposition raised by any power against its misrule and tyranny. Even a long-time BJP ally and RSS fan like Mamata Banerjee is now publicly bashed by the Hindutva camp, even when the BJP has secret understandings with her government.
Modi government favours a police state in India, especially when it comes to the opposition. The recent intelligence raids on a Congress leader’s hotel room in Gujarat, the constant trolling of opposition leaders, journalists and activists by the BJP’s IT Cell members, the abuses and threats hurled at the critical voices by the Modi government’s ministers and their sycophants, the impunity with which the ministers of Modi government are spreading communal vitriol over internet and in the real world, can together testify that fascist rule is overtly established in India and the institutions validated by the Constitution that stands today are all but turned into puppet organs of the Modi government, with only one goal - to endorse the decisions of the governments.
The mandatory Aadhaar linking and the huge cache of biometric database mapped with individual preferences and other personal data that will accessible to the government will allow the latter to snoop on the citizens anonymously and then track their political beliefs and intentions so that the people can be gagged from speaking against the regime. Modi and Amit Shah were accused of stalking a woman in the past by using high tech snooping tools and the help of the IB and other state organise. The Modi-Shah duo can do it better and on a larger scale, if they can lay their hands on the huge cache of data of the Indian people, hosted by private parties and are even taken to offshore locations.
The mandatory Aadhaar linking and the huge cache of biometric database mapped with individual preferences and other personal data that will accessible to the government will allow the latter to snoop on the citizens anonymously and then track their political beliefs and intentions so that the people can be gagged from speaking against the regime. Modi and Amit Shah were accused of stalking a woman in the past by using high tech snooping tools and the help of the IB and other state organise. The Modi-Shah duo can do it better and on a larger scale, if they can lay their hands on the huge cache of data of the Indian people, hosted by private parties and are even taken to offshore locations.
The Aadhaar linking issue is more than a legal battle the Indian government and the people of the country are fighting with each other. It shows the desire of the government to snoop on people and then sells off their data to whoever pays the highest amount. This is closely connected with the lives and livelihood of the common people, their right to privacy and their demand for a life free from complications and the government’s over-possessiveness. The only way the Modi government can be forced to desist from implementing any anti-people ordinance on the Supreme Court’s observation is by organising intense and broad mass struggles waged by the poor farmers, rural workers, working-class and the poor who lives in your surroundings. It’s imperative to see a large-scale anti-fascist movement takes shape without wasting a single moment, because the more time the Modi government will get, the more it will push the common people, the poor, into the gorge of utmost disturbance and hell.
0 comments