Reasons why Aadhar can’t be a zero sum game
As of today, the Supreme Court of India is hearing around 30 writ petitions questioning the constitutional validity of the Aadhar scheme and this has brought unto the public eye a very interesting debate. To give you a brief background, the Aadhar scheme was initiated by the UIDAI under the UPA government in 2009–10 and ever since has had a rough road in its implementation with various dissidents bringing forth some very valid and also, many redundant arguments.
The opposition to the entire Aadhar scheme has been lambasting the existing government with apocalyptic rhetoric likening the current Indian government’s intention to become a “mass surveillance state” , to be a “totalitarian regime” and to turn the citizens into a “giant electronic mesh”. But like a lot of rhetoric, these arguments also stand to fail as the opposition to this scheme are not able to provide any suitable alternative. This opposition is ironically coming from a large group of left-wing activists (including the State of West Bengal) who we would traditionally associate as people who would agree with increased government in people’s lives but instead are fighting the supreme court in the same breath for the citizens right to be left alone. In my head, this reduces the credibility of their arguments by the mere fact that they are changing their opinions for their convenience. What is to prevent them 10 years later from changing their opinions on these same matter again? It also seems rather hypocritical of the opposition to claim that things were fine just before. They certainly weren’t. There have been thousands and thousands of reports of mishandling of public funds reserved for welfare schemes. One of the reasons Aadhar was brought forth was to ensure that welfare schemes including PDS, LPG Distribution, Healthcare benefits, pension schemes and other subsidies were delivered a lot more efficiently as compared to before.
Aadhar is a major step in providing good governance with one example of it being the Direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme through Aadhar linked accounts. The DBT by design, eliminates the need of having middle men to carry out different welfare schemes the state has traditionally adopted and this has proven to plug leakages in distribution thereby saving taxpayer’s money.
Mr. Shyam Divan, the counsel for the petitioners against Aadhar brought forth an argument to the 9-judge bench currently hearing the case stating that the Aadhar has the potential to cause the “civil death” of a citizen. “The state is empowered with a ‘switch’ by which it can cause the civil death of an individual. Where every basic facility is linked to Aadhaar and one cannot live in society without an Aadhaar number, the switching off of Aadhaar completely destroys the individual,” said Mr. Divan. The argument further extends to the fact that additional security protocols aren’t in place to prevent the leakage of sensitive information of the common man. But herein lies another systemic flaw in the argument. The mere possibility of malpractice or misuse cannot be the reason to strike down a legislation. There have been plenty of past judgements in various courts to support the above statement.If weakness of security protocols are the issue, then security protocols must be strengthened and the UIDAI (the parent body of Aadhar) has repeatedly shown that it is continuously working to improve security standards and is working towards a comprehensive national data privacy law. The decision to invalidate Aadhar on the grounds of potential misuse is like deciding to shift houses if a light bulb inside your house isn’t working.
One of the strongest arguments brought forth by the petitioners is that the right of privacy of the citizen is being infringed upon by the fact that the state is “forcibly collecting” sensitive information of the citizen such as their biometric data, bank details, telephone numbers etc coupled with the fact that the government has now made it mandatory to link SIM cards, bank accounts, PAN details to your Aadhar number. But, a lot of companies subtly coerce you into sharing a lot of this information as well. Google, Facebook quietly collects so much data about you today that in fact, Google uses a satellite to track every movement of yours. It is difficult to comprehend that a populace is able to place more faith in large companies whose explicitly stated intentions are to use your data to make money rather than placing faith in a government which was elected by majority whose explicitly stated intentions are to protect the welfare of its citizens.
Does India need stringent privacy laws, absolutely!! Is invalidating the Aadhar scheme a way to decide the right to privacy of the Indian citizen, definitely not!
The validity of Aadhar cannot and should not be a zero sum game (Aadhar or Privacy).
A middle ground in this issue would be to try and figure out the boundaries between personal privacy and national interest. Finally, in my opinion, Aadhar is the most sophisticated and comprehensive ID program in the world with over 1.2 billion Indians being enrolled in it with more uses but fewer safeguards. The logical thing to do would be to quickly figure out the safeguards rather than quash a well-intentioned scheme.
