Countryside, Government, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Tata sponsored ‘Green Hunt’ in Kalinga Nagar to destroy democratic tribal movement

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[We publish below a press statement released by Prafulla Samantra and others, received via Biswajit Mohanty, which highlights just how the struggle of the tribal people in Kalinganagar is being met with the most ferocious repression by the local administration acting at the behest of the Tatas. Kalinganagar is emblematic of the many democratic mass movements and struggles that are being crushed by a predatory state in cahoots with corporate capital. – AN]

Yesterday the Collector of Jajpur district assured Dabar Kalundia, a tribal leader of Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch (BBJM) that he would come to Baligotha village on 28 March for a meeting with the dissenting villagers and find a solution to the prevailing conflict. But within a day the Collector has broken his word as today about 24 platoons of armed policemen have been deployed in Kalinga Nagar to suppress the democratic and non-violent movement of the BBJM. It is feared that there will be bloodshed at a larger scale than 2 Jan 06 when 14 tribal men, women & children were killed in a police shootout. The villagers fear the police will attack tomorrow morning.
Continue reading Tata sponsored ‘Green Hunt’ in Kalinga Nagar to destroy democratic tribal movement →

Government, Law, Politics

Arrests of Activists in Gujarat

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PRESS RELEASE
Date: 22nd March 2010

“Is it a crime to work in a democratic and peaceful way for the empowerment and development of Adivasis”?
– Adivasi Mahasabha Gujarat & People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Gujarat.

Mr. Avinash Kulkarni and Mr. Bharat Pawar, activists of long-standing repute, have been working relentlessly for the rights of the Adivasis of Gujarat, over the past 15 years. Based in Ahwa, Avinash and Bharat have been actively involved on issues pertaining to the empowerment and development of Adivasis, through the Dangi Lok Adhikar Samiti and the Dangi Mazdoor Union, in Dang district. Avinash and Bharat have played a significant role in the struggle for the Forest Rights Act and for people’s rights to use, manage and control forests and forest resources as part of the leadership of Adivasi Mahasabha Gujarat, both in the advocacy and struggle that brought about the Forests Rights Act and the monitoring of its implementation across the Adivasi areas of Gujarat. It is a well known fact that they have always worked for democratic and peaceful means of securing the rights and entitlements of the Adivasis and have stood by non-violent means of working for social change.
In the afternoon of 21st March, 2010, about 2 P.M  Avinash  was picked up by Dy. S. P.  Shri Patil under the pretext of questioning and took him to an undisclosed location, without giving any information to his family members or colleagues as to where they were taking him or giving him the right of contacting his advocate. Bharat Pawar also was detained the same evening in a similar fashion by policemen from the DSP office of Ahwa, Dangs. This is a clear violation of Justice D. K. Basu Guideline of Supreme Court.
Continue reading Arrests of Activists in Gujarat →

Centre watch, Government, Law, Politics

Integration of the Army and New Constitutionalism in Nepal: Menaka Guruswamy

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This post comes to us from Menaka Guruswamy

Constitution-making is a process involving a contested terrain and this is reflected in Nepal’s political situation today, particularly
on the question of integration of rebel combatants into the army and its “democratisation”. It is important for Nepal’s political parties and forces to leave aside their past mistrust and come together to reach an equitable settlement while integrating combatants. Political foresight is also needed to appreciate that democratisation of all institutions, including the army, is imperative for creating the new constitutional democracy that is Nepal.

This piece originally appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly, February 2010, Vol. XLV No.9

Guruswamy EPW Nepal

Debates, Left watch, Movements, Politics, Theory, Violence/Conflict

The Rumour of Maoism

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This essay has been published in the current issue of Seminar (No. 607, March 2010).

In his classic Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Ranajit Guha outlines a certain methodological imperative for the historian who wanted to ‘get in touch with the consciousness of [peasant] insurgency’ when access to it is barred by the discourse of counter-insurgency that structures official records. How does one look beyond this discourse of the state that frames the archives in order to gain access to the voice of the rebels? Guha’s solution was relatively simple: Counter-insurgency, he argued, derives directly from insurgency and is so determined by the latter that ‘it can hardly afford a discourse that is not fully and compulsively involved with the rebel and his activities.’1

Unlike British Marxist historian E.J. Hobsbawm who had tried to track the story of ‘social bandits’ through a somewhat problematic reading of folklore,2 Guha warned that ‘folklore relating to peasant militancy can be elitist too’, for many singers and balladeers belonged to upper-caste families who had fallen on hard times and were, therefore, often suspicious of the revolt of the lower castes or tribals. Guha underlined that though the records of the colonial state and its police officials registered the voice of those hostile to the insurgents – including landlords and usurers – they could not avoid being shaped by the will of the insurgents. His conclusion therefore was that the presence of rebel consciousness could be read in the body of evidence produced by the discourse of counter-insurgency itself.

The burden of Guha’s argument was that in order to decode the language of counter-insurgency, it was often enough to simply reverse the values in the terms used by the official discourse: thus ‘badmashes’ simply meant peasant militants and not ‘bad characters’; ‘dacoit village’ would indicate an entire village involved in the resistance and ‘contagion’ would most likely refer to the solidarity generated by the uprising.

Those were happier days from the historian’s point of view. For the peasant and tribal insurgencies that Guha was discussing were organic struggles which drew their leadership from amidst the peasants or tribal communities themselves. Whether it was Sidhu Kanoo, Birsa Munda or Titu Mir – the leadership of the movements and their ‘ideologies’ derived directly from the world of the tribals. The context of colonial India was also, in a significant sense, quite clearly polarized and the possibility of written records being produced from a multiplicity of sources was simply out of the question. It may, therefore, be possible to follow Guha’s suggestion and merely reverse the values in order to get a sense of that other discourse. Continue reading The Rumour of Maoism →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Everyday Life, Government

Auto-rickshaws in Delhi: Why Sheila Dikshit’s comments are misguided

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Guest post by SIMON HARDING

As every Delhite knows, taking an auto journey in the capital is not a pleasant experience. Drivers speed off at the very mention of your home or office, leaving you stranded on the roadside. When an auto-wallah finally agrees to go where you want, he steadfastly refuses to run by the meter and instigates a minute or so of stressful haggling. You arrive at your destination frazzled, irritated and over-charged. This situation has not gone unnoticed. Chief Minister, Sheila Dixshit recently announced plans to phase out the auto-rickshaw after five decades of service. Auto-rickshaws are “not a good option”, she complained, auto-wallahs “harass” passengers and up to half are plying the streets “illegally”. With the Commonwealth Games fast approaching, the eyes of the world will soon turn to Delhi. Auto-rickshaws do not fit with the CM’s desire to see visitors return home “with the impression that they have been to a truly civilised city”. She promised futuristic battery powered taxis, which thrilled middle class Delhi.

But before the auto-rickshaw and the much-maligned auto-wallah can be condemned, we must look at how the auto-rickshaw sector in Delhi operates: at the rules, regulations and policies, which govern the livelihoods of the city’s 80000 or so auto-drivers. Some questions need to be answered: why are Delhi’s auto-wallahs so greedy and grumpy? Why won’t they switch on the meter? Why do so many ply “illegally”? Continue reading Auto-rickshaws in Delhi: Why Sheila Dikshit’s comments are misguided →

Countryside, Violence/Conflict

School’s Out in Chhattisgarh, (But the Force is in!)

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School’s out! In Kerlapal, Dantewada, battle-weary soldiers of the B Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force peer over barbed-wire fences as skinny schoolboys in sky-blue shirts play cricket. The force has occupied the senior school and with it the basketball court and part of the playing field; but the game must go on.
As paramilitary troops pour into Chhattisgarh to fight the Maoists, the absence of military barracks has forced soldiers and children to share the only concrete structures in the countryside — the village school.
Left watch, Movements, Violence/Conflict

A Believer’s Obeisance: Soumitra Ghosh

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SOUMITRA GHOSH is with the National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers (NFFPFW). A guest post received via Dilip Simeon

Does the Outlook article [by Arundhati Roy] tell us anything new? The Maoists have built a dream world in Dandakaranya, and the gun has heralded that dream. The Green Hunt is meant to shatter this dream, period…Apart from good anecdotes, there’s no political analysis of the movement, and the problematique of the Maoist movement was cursorily mentioned.

It seems rationality is banished. You oppose Green Hunt means that you see in the Maoists an unending series of dreamers and visionaries, and the making of a new world order. She doesn’t even bother to be historical, the history is what her contacts tell her.

What is utterly unacceptable is this woolly-headed,mushy and journalistic portrayal of a political movement. The Maoist movement was never,and won’t be a ‘adivasi’ movement,in the sense we use the term to describe a range of social movements.

Continue reading A Believer’s Obeisance: Soumitra Ghosh →

Debates, Everyday Life, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

Moonwalking with the Comrades: Anirban Gupta Nigam

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Guest post by ANIRBAN GUPTA NIGAM

The last book François Furet wrote before his death in 1997 was called The Passing of an Illusion. At the very beginning of the first chapter of that book, Furet spelt out the central question driving his study:

    What is surprising is not that certain intellectuals should share the spirit of the times, but that they should fall prey to it, without making any effort to mark it with their own stamp. […] twentieth century French writers aligned themselves with parties, especially radical ones hostile to democracy. They always played the same (provisional) role as supernumeraries, were manipulated as one man, and were sacrificed when necessary, to the will of the party. So we are bound to wonder what it was that made those ideologies so alluring, that gave them an attraction so general yet so mysterious.

Furet’s book emerged from an autopsy of his own past as a as a Communist “between 1949 and 1956.” He wrote, further, that his years as a Communist bequeathed to him an enduring desire to unlock the mystique of revolutionary ideology. Given this, it’s not difficult to see why he pioneered some of the most brilliant historiographical work on the French Revolution. The question we are concerned with here is the one I have quoted at length above; for it seems that in our own day, this strange romance between (formerly) fiercely independent intellectuals, scholars, activists and the – a – party, continues.

The latest document of this affair is a long essay by Arundhati Roy (once famous for her declaration of herself as an”independent mobile republic”), titled ‘Walking with the Comrades,’ published in the latest issue of Outlook. It makes for exciting reading, as a lot of well-written travel literature does; but it is significant for another reason: in the current debate over ‘Operation Green Hunt,’ with many versions of ‘ground realities’ fighting amongst themselves, this document is Roy’s attempt at producing an (her) authentic truth, so immersed in the charming details of revolutionary existence that everything else becomes secondary. If we were ever to perform an autopsy of our twentieth century’s ‘Communist’ pasts, ‘Walking with the Comrades’ would probably be as good a place to start as any. Continue reading Moonwalking with the Comrades: Anirban Gupta Nigam →

Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Government, Identities, Law, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

‘constitutional’ Realities: Priya Thangarajah

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Guest post by PRIYA THANGARAJAH

The piece is unfinished, consciously so. The thought is unfinished and needs to be fleshed out and thus posting this, so that this important idea can be evolved collectively. It raises a range of questions and contributes to existing debates on constitutional law from a social change/human rights perspective. (consciously the words ‘constitution’ and ‘india’ are not capitalised. ) It contributes significantly to an understanding, not just of north east india but the realities of chattisgarh, jharkhand, bihar, kashmir to name a few. It helps us understand all the wars fought within the country – ‘constitutionally’ about which much is being said in the media and elsewhere by state and non-state actors.

The constitution, some argue, is an aspirational document. Baxi states that it is created to protect the rights of the impoverished. Created to protect the weaker sections of society and that’s how the Dworkinian trumping of rights works. Rights of the weaker parties always trumps that of the stronger. But whatever the aim of the constitution maybe, its sacrosanct. Sacred. Amendments can be made with great difficulty but the constitution per se cannot be done away with for a new one. Continue reading ‘constitutional’ Realities: Priya Thangarajah →

Debates, Politics

Response to Arundhati Roy: Jairus Banaji

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This is a guest post by JAIRUS BANAJI

Arundhati Roy’s essay “Walking with the Comrades” is a powerful indictment of the Indian state and its brutality but its political drawbacks are screamingly obvious.  Arundhati clearly believes that the Indian state is such a bastion of oppression and unrelieved brutality that there is no alternative to violent struggle or ‘protracted war’. In other words, democracy is a pure excrescence on a military apparatus that forms the true backbone of the Indian state. It is simply its ‘benign façade’. If all you had in India were forest communities and corporate predators, tribals and paramilitary forces, the government and the Maoists, her espousal of the Maoists might just cut ice. But where does the rest of India fit in? What categories do we have for them?  Or are we seriously supposed to believe that the extraordinary tide of insurrection will wash over the messy landscapes of urban India and over the millions of disorganised workers in our countryside without the emergence of a powerful social agency, a broad alliance of salaried and wage-earning strata, that can contest the stranglehold of capitalism?  Without mass organisations, battles for democracy, struggles for the radicalisation of culture, etc., etc.?  Does any of this matter for her?

Continue reading Response to Arundhati Roy: Jairus Banaji →

Culture, Identities, Movements

Sree Narayana Guru, the Left, and Chitralekha: Joe.M.S.

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This is a guest post by JOE M. S.

The recent controversy associated with the brutal persecution of a Dalit working woman, Chitralekha  by the hoodlums of a ‘leftist’ union has gained wide attention, bringing into limelight the plight of  Dalits in Kerala. The men who participated in this ’festival of masses’, according to reports, predominantly belong to the  backward caste Ezhava/ Theeya community. Anybody with a bit of social concern would have definitely condemned the incident . They would even have expressed their regrets at the deviation of the people belonging to Ezhava caste, the disciples of Srinarayana guru, the famous social reformer, from the avowed policies advocated  by him. But I think, here lies a problem. A re-look at the social history of Kerala is needed   to understand whether the Chitralekha incident is a deviation from the pronounced objectives of the Srinarayana movement as  such, as it is popularly understood, or  the roots for  such a development  was inherent in the   trajectory of   the Narayana movement itself. This does not belittle  the genuine intentions Guru had for social emancipation, at a personal level.

In spite of the cultural specificities of northern Kerala  where  these atrocities were perpetrated on Chitralekha, I think a general study of the impact of Srinarayanism on the whole of Kerala may be of some help to analyse the increasing backward caste arrogance vis-a-vis Dalits. This is particularly so as the discourse on the assumed efficacy of Sri Narayana Guru’s thought is  invoked constantly  by the civil society of Kerala, eternalising his importance  in all spheres. So  I think, a glance at the  impact of his life and efforts  can shed light on the of the constitution/ construction of modern Ezhava identity and the problems associated with it.

Continue reading Sree Narayana Guru, the Left, and Chitralekha: Joe.M.S. →

Politics

Koirala’s death robs Nepali politics of its centre

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Girija Prasad Koirala’s death on Saturday afternoon marks the end of an era in not only Nepali but also sub-continental politics. As a warrior for democracy over six decades, a five-time Prime Minister and architect of the ongoing peace process with the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Koirala was an integral part of Nepal’s modern political history. But he has passed away at a time when the task of institutionalising the democracy he fought for remains incomplete.

G.P. Koirala, or GPK, was born in Bihar in 1925, where his father, Krishna Prasad Koirala, was in exile for defying the autocratic clan-based Rana regime. His father believed that Nepal could not be free of despotic Rana rule as long as their patrons, the British, ruled India. G.P. Koirala’s elder brother, B.P. Koirala (also known as BP), was imprisoned in the Quit India Movement. In early 1947, Nepali exiles in India and Kathmandu-based dissenters formed the Nepali National Congress. Continue reading Koirala’s death robs Nepali politics of its centre →

Everyday Life, Politics

Levelling the playing field before the Commonwealth Games

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Ahead of the Commonwealth games, the capital city of the country with aspirations towards being anointed First Side-Kick to the only super-power left in the world, is busy cleaning up. Beggars, protesters, poor-looking people in general, out, out, all out.

Pholpata, her child and a friend inside a mobile court in a mini-bus, caught begging and brought before a magistrate who will decide whether to jail them for a year or release them. [The Independent on Sunday]


Also, see Partha Banerjee’s post on this in his blog The Real Slumdog Story: India’s Ghastly Commonwealth Cleanup.

Meanwhile, of course, the labourers working day and night to complete the endless amounts of construction required to host an event of this magnitude, are “working and living in highly dangerous and deplorable conditions;  earning less than the stipulated minimum wage;  with no access to basic sanitation and health facilities;  and, lacking safety equipment”, found a Committee appointed by the Delhi High Court.

Continuing the saga of national triumph, below, we have AKHIL KATYAL and SHALINI SHARMA on the forced evictions of protesters from Jantar Mantar.

The Delhi State Government and New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) seem to have a particularly limited vision of a beautiful city. In the run up to the Commonwealth Games, Delhi is seeing a massive beautification drive which is really about an intolerant attitude towards democratic dissent and towards the urban poor. It is an idea of beauty that deals with urban protest or poverty simply by excising it from view.

Continue reading Levelling the playing field before the Commonwealth Games →

Countryside, Violence/Conflict

The Day of Long Knives

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Gachanpalli: Stories of the “Operation” reverberate along the path from the Andhra Pradesh border to Gachanpalli, a village deep in forests of Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. Villagers along the 35 kilometre stretch of broken track, bombed-out schools, and graves, still speak of the day when security forces swept through their fields and killed 12 men.

Testimonies collected from the villages of Gachanpalli, Gattapad and Palachalam in the Konta block in Dantewada claim that at least 12 of the 30 people killed during a security operation in September 2009 were innocent villagers with no links to the Maoists.  If true, the allegations point to a concerted attempt at dissimulation on the part of Chhattisgarh’s security forces.
Politics, Theory

Democracy and the Communist Party: Aniket Alam

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This is a guest post by ANIKET ALAM

This paper, rather preliminary note towards a full paper, attempts to look at the troubled history of democracy (both as a concept as well as a practice) and parties claiming affiliation to Marxism-Leninism. It tries to understand the historical paradox of parties and movements influenced by Marxism being among the more important contributors to democratising our world, but States ruled by parties owing allegiance to Marxism denying democratic rights to their own citizens. It then tries to identify some of the reasons for this large democratic deficit.

But before I begin, two short points about the structure of the paper may be in order. First, I have been fairly hesitant to write on this topic. I can hardly lay any claim to expertise on theoretical debates among Marxists as well as on the details of the history of countries ruled by communist parties. That apart, I am also conscious of my weakness in political theory, specially that relating to democracy and related ideas of liberty and representation. Therefore, the stress will remain more on the historical experience rather than the theoretical arguments. Second, and following from my hesitation laid out above, this paper is basically structured around three writings by two Marxists: Karl Marx himself , and Rosa Luxemburg. You may say I am merely paraphrasing them, or you may say that they are the burqa I wear during this excursion into unfamiliar territory.

Continue reading Democracy and the Communist Party: Aniket Alam →

Countryside, Violence/Conflict

The Plot thickens: more petitioners show up

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The Gompad case gets murkier. Gachanpalli is another village mentioned in the same case I have been writing about for some time now. I visited the village this week to find a similar pattern where villagers vanish without really telling anyone where they are going and suddenly show up in the Supreme Court in New Delhi.
Given the matter is sub judice, I’ll refrain from any theorizing at this point.
a.
Gachanpalli: A frayed umbrella, a half filled bottle of cooking oil and two shopping bags stuffed with clothes constitute the unlikely tombstone that marks Kowasi Ganga’s grave.  “It’s the sum total of his worldly possessions,” says his grandson Kowasi Muye, “It’s a Muria tradition.”
Kowasi Ganga, 75, died on September 17 2009. Muye’s last memory of his grandfather is of Ganga dying dead outside their home.  He had been stabbed multiple times.
Continue reading The Plot thickens: more petitioners show up →
Everyday Life, Law, Violence/Conflict

Point Forty Five

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Dear Mr P. Chidambaram,

On 8 March last year, Aman Kachroo was lynched to death in a college hostel in Himachal Pradesh. It was just another case of ragging. It happened nearly eight years after the Supreme Court of India banned ragging in May 2001. In fact, since May 2001, there has been at least one ragging death every other month, as reported by the English language media. You can imagine how many cases are hushed up, blamed on academic pressure and ‘depression’, and never investigated. We are also not going into the much larger number of cases of attempted suicides, drop-outs, and not even measuring the psychological impact on freshers.

In 2001, the Supreme Court’s orders said that an educational institution that is unable to control ragging would face grant cuts or even disaffiliation by affiliating bodies such as the UGC, AICTE, Medical Council of India and a host of others. Not one of them ever found any college unable to control ragging. Their bureaucrats issued circulars and thought their signatures on the circulars were good enough. Years later, some of them told the Supreme Court that they did not have the powers to act against institutions – even though a Supreme Court order had empowered them to do so!

Such matters clearly concern your colleague Kapil Sibal, so why am I writing to you? We shall come to that, just let me tell you what happened thereafter. Continue reading Point Forty Five →

Politics, Right watch

Deshbhakts at Arthur Road Jail: Susan Abraham

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This is a guest post by SUSAN ABRAHAM

Shahid Azmi

It took Shahid Azmi’s cold-blooded murder on 11th February 2010 at his office near Kurla, for the world to come alive to his  importance.  Soft spoken and modest, it is the sweep of the cases he fought, challenging the State’s calculated targeting of innocent Muslims, that marked Shahid’s  remarkable achievements as a lawyer within a short span of six years in the legal profession.

One of these cases related to the brutal lathi charge in Arthur Road Jail in central Mumbai, on 28th June 2008, by the jail staff along with convicts and undertrials from the so-called `patriotic’ underworld gangs,  on a select group of undertrial-inmates. This assault was conducted under the overall supervision of the-then Jail Superintendent Swati Sathe. To the outside world, Ms Sathe was a tough no-nonsense, non corrupt woman officer who probably wished to become the next Kiran Bedi. But underneath her stiff khakhi uniform ruled a tough no-nonsense hindutva heart, no less.

Continue reading Deshbhakts at Arthur Road Jail: Susan Abraham →

Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Three Years of Nandigram Firing: An Appeal

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Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Dilip Simeon, Aseem Srivastava, Amita Baviskar, Amit Sengupta, Nandini Sundar, Satya Sivaraman and others

Nandigram: Punish the guilty, Pay compensation to victims now!

On the third anniversary of the horrific police firing in Nandigram, which occurred on 14 March 2007, we strongly condemn the failure of various state institutions to do justice to the victims and survivors of this violent attack on a peaceful mass movement.

Till date not a single police official, government bureaucrat or CPI (M) politician involved in the wanton massacre of peasants resisting forcible takeover of their land has been prosecuted. At least 14 people were killed in the incident and hundreds injured. Several independent inquiries and tribunals found that more than a dozen women had been sexually assaulted or raped. It is a matter of deep shame for Indian democracy that the men who were responsible for the barbaric violence – including persons in uniform and out of it – continue to roam with impunity.

The Calcutta High Court’s direction to the CBI to inquire into the violence in Nandigram on 14 March and to prosecute those responsible has not been carried out under various pretexts. These include litigation in the Supreme Court against this order, launched by the West Bengal government. That no clear judgment has been pronounced on this important issue till now only serves to lower the credibility of our judicial institutions. In light of the aftermath of the anti-Sikh carnage of 1984, we fear that as time goes on, evidence will be lost and witnesses intimidated. After some years, lip service will be paid to judicial procedure and the criminals will go scot-free. Such a sabotage of justice has happened before in West Bengal.
Continue reading Three Years of Nandigram Firing: An Appeal →

Genders, Identities, Law, Politics, Sex

While we thank A.P.Shah, some reflections

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The text below was written as an email on many LGBT lists in India. Followed by the text of the email are a few after thoughts on the email itself and the reaction to it.

Dear all,
It’s been interesting to watch all the reactions to A.P.Shah’s unfair retirement. This has been from various quarters including the LGBT community.
One must admit, among all the communities whose lives his judgments have attempted to change, we have been rather vocal in thanking him profusely. This is a good trend to set in general as sometimes I feel others working on various issues whose work has been vindicated rather literally by him have not taken the time out to do an analysis and express their gratitude towards the existence of a judge like him, in the otherwise difficult judiciary in this country. This might make a difference to him. He is hurt by the judiciary which he dedicated his life to which has now slighted him through opaque, undemocratic processes, thus going against all that he stands for and what the judiciary claims to stand for. So am glad we are doing this! Continue reading While we thank A.P.Shah, some reflections →
Centre watch, Government, Law, Politics, Right watch

An Aid to Surveillance

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Guest post by USHA RAMANATHAN

The air is thick with schemes that will enable the state, and its agencies, to identify every resident, and to track what they are doing. A Home Ministry project for creating a National Population Register which will be prepared along with the 2011 Census has been propelled through its pilot stage. Now, an ambitious programme has been launched to load all the residents of the country on to a data base, providing each of us with a unique identity number. What  distinguishes this exercise from any other undertaken so far?

First of all, the intention is provide a Unique Identity Number to the whole population, including the just born.  The state is to have data on each individual literally from birth to death; and beyond, for a person’s UID is not destroyed at death, merely dis-abled. The numbers are to be so generated that it will not have to be repeated for between a hundred and two hundred years. Continue reading An Aid to Surveillance →

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE