Why Congress has no right to criticise Aadhaar
“Where were you when...” is a loaded question in the times we live. It is an ad hominem without logic and sense. But this one is an exception. At the time when Congress leaders are so eagerly criticising the Modi government for pushing Aadhaar down our throats, let me ask: Where were you in 2009? Or in 2010? Or in 2012? Or in 2013 when the Supreme Court offered some pushback on the Aadhaar? Where were you Mr P Chidambaram in 2009 and where were those opinions of yours that you recently noted in a piece for The Indian Express, detailing the potential of Aadhaar as a mass and total surveillance tool?
In 2009, when Aadhaar was officially conceived and given a shape, Chidambaram was the home minister of India. He probably okayed the Aadhaar as part of the Congress government of the day — full of the same leaders who have woken up to the horrors of Aadhaar — that set the ball rolling.
Eight years later, Aadhaar has turned into a Frankenstein's monster. It is all around us, and it creeps into our lives in terrifying ways. Eight years later, we also see the same people who build it, who brought it to life, and who now no longer control it, criticise it on the same grounds to which they turned a blind eye four, or five, or six years, ago.
It’s sickening.
As much as I hate tethering my life to something like Aadhaar – and believe me you would too — just give it some time. I hate the duplicity and doublespeak of the Congress leaders on this matter. They betrayed the nation on Aadhaar. It will forever be their baby, irrespective of who uses this Frankenstein's monster. The recent article that Chidambaram penned for the financial daily is the worst kind of hypocrisy one can exhibit.
The concerns that people have with Aadhaar today were very much there in 2010 and 2012. At that time too, there were concerns about privacy, about how Aadhaar fundamentally alters the relationship between the government and the people. There were enough questions raised about its data security and data hygiene. There were many voices highlighting the risk it carried as far as mass surveillance was concerned.
But the Congress government decided to throw caution to the winds. It wouldn’t listen. It didn’t listen. And if at all it listened, it was too much in thrall of the idea of a unique digital ID. We will probably never fully know how from starting with the ID that was supposed to be used for direct benefit transfer, Aadhaar turned into what it is now. It is not mandatory only for the people who need government benefits in the form of welfare services. It is required for almost everything. One even needs it buy SIM cards. And it is required if you want to send your kid to a private school. At some hospitals, you need Aadhaar if you want to see a doctor. But even if the intentions of the government that gave birth to Aadhaar were noble and pure and the leaders who oversaw its growth hoped to eliminate corruption from India, it is impossible to believe that no one saw its potential to turn into a tool that could cast a shadow on the life of every Indian 24X7. There is a reason why people often say the “road to hell is paved with good intention”.
These are words of caution. Yet, no one within the Congress government — not even P Chidambaram who now calls Aadhaar a surveillance tool — paused while rolling out Aadhaar and nursing it to growth.
In his piece, Chidambaram writes, “While the change of heart was welcome, what one did not expect was that the government would throw all caution to the winds and extend Aadhaar, indiscriminately, to welfare as well as non-welfare programmes.”
Here he is talking about how the BJP-led government has wholeheartedly adopted Aadhaar despite opposing it when the Congress was in the government. The starker bit here is how astute politicians like Chidambaram failed to expect that the government would change in the future and that their successors would use the same Frankenstein's monster that Congress was creating because governments love concentrating power.
And Aadhaar is arguably one of the starkest examples of a government concentrating power to shift the balance away from people, the voters. In his piece, Chidambaram writes, “That would be a gross and unconstitutional invasion of privacy. While a unique identity mark is necessary, it cannot become a potential device to spy on people’s lives or gather private information that has no relevance to good governance.
We must remember we do not yet have a comprehensive law on data protection or privacy.” Yes, we must remember that it was Congress that – deliberately or ignorantly – failed to see the potential of Aadhaar to turn into a device to spy on people’s lives. And we must remember that India doesn’t have a comprehensive law on data protection and privacy because the Congress, between 200 and 2014 when it ruled, couldn’t find time to put one in place.
It never thought of creating a framework for privacy and data protection — neither before conceiving Aadhaar as it should have done nor after the conception, despite repeated pleas from many quarters for such a law. Chidambaram writes, “Implementing an idea as far reaching as Aadhaar requires careful design, pilot projects, testing and validation, and robust security features. Absent these limiting factors, yet implementing Aadhaar on a mandatory basis, will give the government the instrument and the power to build a mass surveillance system and take one step toward an Orwellian state. Don’t say you were not warned.”
Indeed, don’t say you were not warned. The reason why Aadhaar is what it is today is not because of the BJP government in power. This government is just using a tool it has inherited and using it in a rather vicious way. But make no mistake, this tool was created by the Congress-led government, with all its flaws. If Congress leaders are today saying that they were not warned about Aadhaar, they are lying. They shouldn’t say they were not warned.
But make no mistake, this tool was created — with all its flaws — by the Congress-led government. If Congress leaders say that they were not warned about Aadhaar, they are lying.