Modi sarkar and the art of bulldozing Aadhaar

There was a time when Parliament stood tall as the temple of reason and debate. Various eloquent speakers presented the facets on issues never thought out earlier. And the arguments presented in one house used to be addressed fiercely, yet gracefully in the other house, sometimes countered, and at other times, voted on.

The brilliant exchange between Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Arun Jaitley during the last Parliament comes to mind and leaves goosebumps even today. The governments of the past were prudent enough to accept some important amendments which helped institutions take the wise middle path which in turn keptthe executive in check.

However, the 16th Lok Sabha bears no such semblance to its predecessors. Today, the floor has been reduced to a dangerous binary. One side wins the argument and other side loses. A zero sum game where no middle path is imaginable. Lok Sabha's very identity has been bulldozed and the discussion on Aadhaar Bill on Friday (March 10) was a stark reminder of this. The bill that concerns with the very identity of residents of India, 130 crores in number, was bulldozed through in a mere 130 minutes (approximately).

On March 9, 2016, the prime minister labelled Rajya Sabha as the "chamber of ideas", the "torch bearer" of the nation and that both houses need to work in resonance for progress. The government brought the Aadhaar Bill as money bill to circumvent any binding recommendations of this "chamber of ideas". Including the words "consolidated fund of India" in the subtitle of a bill doesn't make any bill a money bill. The fact that Aadhaar was a financial bill and not a money bill was and has been convincingly argued both inside the Parliament and outside it, by both political leaders as well as the former secretary general of the Lok Sabha (Show Me The Money, Indian Express, March 12).

Still the government paid no heed and went about with its ruthlessness.

A parliamentary standing committee reviewed the provisions of the Aadhaar Bill 2010. The Aadhaar Bill 2016 neither addresses its recommendations nor answers the questions the BJP itself raised when it was in Opposition.The parliamentary standing committee recommended devising a comprehensive policy on privacy and data protection issues before bringing such a bill. This has been overruled. Adding to this, the fine for unauthorised access to the Central Identities Data Repository, including revealing any information stored in it, has been reduced from Rs 1 crore to Rs 10 lakh.

This is also irrespective of the amount of data breach. Not only this, for all the punishments in the Aadhaar bill, the burden of proving the "intention" of data breach lies on the prosecutor. If your biometric and all associated information is made public tomorrow, will you be concerned if anyone did this intentionally or not?

Additionally, this legislation now gives absolute powers to even a joint secretary in the government of India to request any individual's information on matters of "national security". Objections to the vague definition of "national security" were raised by several members on the floor of the house, including myself. The finance minister's defence to this was that "national security" has not been defined elsewhere as well.

This is an absurd and irrational argument to say the least. Not only this, my proposed amendment of at least publishing how many such requests have been made was negated by the government.

The powers of CAG itself have been restricted just to auditing accounts of the Aadhaar authority. For this repository of national importance, an annual CAG assessment of Aadhaar's security mechanisms is quintessential. As per the legislation, "agencies, consultants, advisors or other persons" can have unlimited access to the repository. Such laxity in security protocols would be unheard in any organisation with a fraction of sensitive information as contained in this repository.

Lastly, if a person becomes aware that his/her information has been breached, then he/she doesn't even have the right to a legal recourse as per the passed bill. He/she can only complain to the UID for "no court can take cognisance of any offence except on a complaint made by the UID authority or an authorised person". This provision could soon be challenged in the courts for violation of individual's fundamental rights.

Aadhaar was UPA's flagship programme. With technology as the core of its implementation, its vision has been laid out extremely well in its strategy document six years ago.Extensive consultations were now to provide it statutory backing so that both, individual privacy and national security, are not violated. When the finance minister in this reply, said that "we have improved upon that idea", he seemed to indicate that UPA collected biometric information without any clear purpose or means to an end. This is clearly a concoction of facts that goes against all evidence.

As early as in August 2011, UPA had constituted a task force under the Chairman, UIDAI to recommend and implement a solution for direct transfer of subsidies on kerosene, LPG and fertiliser to the intended beneficiaries (Lok Sabha unstarred question 1828, August 10, 2011).

So, the next time Narendra Modi or Arun Jaitley self-congratulate themselves for the revolution called Aadhaar (A of the JAM trinity), they would be well advised to remember their act of bulldozing the statutory backing to the flagship programme of the Congress party.