Open Letter to the Supreme Court Judges of India hearing PIL’s on Aadhaar

By

Ram Krishnaswamy 

Sydney, Australia.

Respected Judges of the Supreme Court of India,

I am an Australian Citizen and as a PIO, I am totally confused about Aadhaar. Is it Mandatory for NRIs?   Many news reports are floating around, yet none of the NRIs are sure to date.

I am physically here in Australia as a law abiding Australian citizen but my heart somehow is throbbing for India; I must say it is Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani ailment like one’s first love; as we all know our First Love lasts forever in our hearts.

The Aadhaar (Targeted delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act of 2016, makes Aadhaar numbers legal for all Indian Residents, however is voluntary and necessary only to receive Government subsidies that are paid from the Central Fund.

An amazing move by the former UPA II Government, to serve the needy poor and even more amazing that the current NDA Government, having unanimously condemned the scheme, have now gone full throttle promoting Aadhaar.

Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s famous remark in 1985 that only 15 paise of every rupee meant for welfare of down trodden reaches them has found mention in the judgement of the Supreme Court which said this “malaise” can be taken care of by Aadhaar scheme.

Anything to serve the 350 to 400 million BPL population is most welcome and the nation salutes the visionaries.

However, not being a lawyer, I am totally confused as to how the main Aadhaar Act says it is Voluntary and endorsed by UIDAI, yet every other Central Government and State Government body and even Banks, Telcos and Insurance Companies are making it compulsory and they are not being questioned by the Govt.

Not only that the same BJP Government has created another Finance Act, that makes Aadhaar, (which is Voluntary according to the Aadhaar Act,) Mandatory for PAN cards and IT Returns. Is this legal for one law to circumvent another original law?

Nandan Nilekani, the Prime Mover for Aadhaar once said “Aadhaar is Not Mandatory yet is Ubiquitous”; meaning it will be virtually impossible to live in India without Aadhaar even though it is Voluntary. I find this whole thing so deceptive, of the Government and UIDAI fooling the entire population of India.

Why is Aadhaar not mandatory by Law?  Is this a ruse to leave out the rich and powerful people in India ? If it was made Mandatory there would be no PILs in the Supreme Court today. Current BJP Government have the numbers in the Parliament anyway to make Aadhaar Mandatory for all Indians Citizens and NRIs. Very confusing indeed.

Supreme Court Rulings: In 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar was not mandatory nor a condition for accessing benefits one was already entitled to. The SC also ordered the Government to give this wide publicity. SC also ruled that Aadhaar Card will not be used for any purpose, other than the PDS scheme for distribution of food grains and cooking fuel such as kerosene and LPG.

Government bodies, both State and Central, have blatantly gone against this SC ruling.

The question is, can an elected Govt and Govt Bodies ignore Supreme Court Rulings?

Why has UIDAI not enforced the Supreme Court rulings to the word?

Does this interim  2015 ruling by SC not stand until the Supreme Court rules after the current hearing of all PILs opposing Aadhaar?

Aadhaar for PDS

India has nearly 400 million people (2012 estimate says over 22% of the total Population of India) who are below poverty line status. This is more than the total population of USA.

Poverty line has been defined by World Bank as people having an income of US$ 1.25 per day max. Ex Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia declared that Rs 32 income per day would define the Poverty Line.

What can Rs 32 buy today in 2018 in India is the question ?

Well off Indians are so blinded by their own Cushy Lives, wealth creation and entertainment that they seldom think of the wretched lives of these poor and abandoned people. From the 50s to the 70s, prior to gated communities in the cities and before people in metros could afford to buy fridges, most people fed beggars at night with all the left overs. Today this has disappeared in the cities and today children probably seldom see the starving poor in the metros to understand poverty.

PDS was launched in 1944 Pre Independence and was relaunched in 1947 in its current form and included wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene. 

Today GOI is said to spend about 1% of its GDP on PDS. As per Central Statistics Organisation of GOI, India's GDP (nominal) in 2016-17 was 121.65 lakh crores i.e. 121650 billion INR. One percent of this GDP works out to 1216.5 billion INR. For the current fiscal 2017-18, 1% of GDP the figure would be even higher more like 1594 billion INR. This works out to Rs 3985 per poor person per annum or Rs 10.97 per day ( Plus or Minus as these are guesstimates)

To be truthful no one knows the exact figures including GOI, as India does not have a Database on its BPL population to determine who requires PDS Subsidy. Truly Ironic.

Time and again the pathetically poor BPL population is blamed for rorting  the Government PDS system and this really IRKS me.

Note: (rorting - is an informal Australian expression - to take unfair advantage of a public service: eg. Gary's been rorting the system, getting both a student allowance and unemployment benefit. - Fraud & corruption.)

The very basis of Aadhaar was the hypothesis that “most Indians” meaning the poor do not have identities so they needed to be branded individually with a UID, but nothing was unique about it as it was a blatant copy of the US Social Security Card.

That the poor in India do not have identities, implies that 400 million poor people were illegitimate and born out of wedlock. I do not blame Nandan Nilekani for his assumption, as this is the way the Rich people in India with tinted glasses see the poor people. They see them as pests whose lives were not worth living. Perhaps what Nandan Nilekani meant was “the Government did not have any way to identify the needy poor”. Yet his Aadhaar does not solve this problem either.

Despite Aadhaar being voluntary, in 2018 nearly 90% of the Population have registered for Aadhaar, which is a unique 12 digit number and a bar code that no one else in India can possess. The irony is definitely 90% of India’s population does not receive Government Subsidies like PDS.

UIDAI has admitted to an RTI that only 0.03% of the total number of Aadhaar registrations used introducers to register for Aadhaar for lack of identity proof and we can guess that a large portion of this 0.03% will be made up of Illegal migrants from bordering countries anyway. This negates the hypothesis that the Poor in India are faceless with no formal identification papers.

  

Savings to Government from Aadhaar in PDS alone:

  

This month’s newspaper headlines ( March 2nd week 2018) says “Aadhaar Linking weeds out 2.75 crore Bogus ration cards Saving GOI 17,500 crores of Rupees.”

Any one reading this is misled into believing that the Poor BPL population were abusing their privilege to receive Government Subsidies through PDS and that poor people were all natural born thieves.

Justice A.P.Shah said recently that  “We live in an age of Propaganda and Half Truths”. True and this single statement alone Paints India the Way she is today; but then even ‘Blind Freddie’ knows that poor people earning less than Rs 32 a day do not have the clout or buying power to bribe Government Babus issuing Ration cards. Being dirt poor most poor are also illiterate and they are at the mercy of the Fair Price Ration shop owners.

India has 500,000 Fair Price Ration shops; a staggering Half a million of them. It is common knowledge that the Ration shop owners in nexus with Government Officials who issued Ration cards generated the 2.75 crore or more Ghost Ration cards to bleed the PDS System and sell in the black market for huge profits. A few years ago, there were news reports that PDS Grains were even being exported in shipping containers from some states to countries like Philippines and Indonesia.

This will explain why today Ration Shop owners are doing everything in their capacity to deny the poor people their due amount of subsidies and have turned away many who have even died of starvation; this despite UIDAI proclaiming that no one is to be denied PDS for want of an Aadhaar card. The fact is even people with Aadhaar cards have been denied rations due to authentication failures. Can UIDAI and the Government not see who is causing the problem and why?

The other common trick used by Ration shop owners is using dodgy weighing scales so the poor are made to believe they have received their quota but have received much less. Even if the poor are aware of the fraud, there is not much they can do but shed tears and grin and bear it rather than being targeted and victimised.

It is very clear now as to why the Fair Price Ration Shop fellows have gone on strike in some states, as thanks to Aadhaar it has made useless 2.75 crores of fake or Ghost ration cards used to gouge the PDS system.

Is Poverty a Crime in India ?

Now the question is, Considering that the 2.75 crore fake Ration cards have now been wiped out from the PDS system and all the poor people who desperately need PDS Grains to survive have Ration cards as well as Aadhaar cards, what is the need for Biometric Authentication ? 

Can PDS subsidies not be issued to the Poor People without Biometric Authentication ? After all UIDAI only aids with Authentication but does not monitor PDS issues.

Imagine being finger printed each and every month for the meagre Government PDS subsidy. That is adding insult to Injury, only because the recipient is Poor.

Should we as a nation not treat the needy and desperately poor with some compassion, respect and dignity ? Is poverty a Crime ?

I ask this because only criminals are finger printed in western democracies; and USA, UK, Australia and NZ do not believe in ID Cards as it invades peoples rights & privacy.

Why then are we victimising the poor in India who are already the victims of poverty ?

Lastly your Honours, BPL is defined as people in India earning below Rs 32 per day and that is a whopping Rs 11680 per annum and UIDAI CEOs wants these people to use their smart phones to avail Govt subsidies, receive SMS messages, Understand KYC, using one time OTP etc. These are poor people who have no money to buy clothes to cover their bodies or afford food to stay alive and live in huts and slums of India, and they are also mostly daily wage labourers in rural farms and have worn out finger prints that lead to authentication failures.

We obviously have fairies running the “UIDAI”.  We should not allow Billionaires sipping champagne and eating Caviar decide and create Govt Policies.

As for activists who have been labelled as Wine Drinking Cheese eating creatures, Your Honours, the poor have no voice in India to express their grievances and cannot take the Govt to the Courts through class actions as happens in western democracies. They need Activists.

I am left wondering, if ensuring govt subsidies reached the last mile was just a ruse to tag the entire Indian population with UID through deceit.

 "I have deliberately avoided issues such as Privacy, Money Bill, Surveillance, National Security, Database Vulnerabilities etc as they are now being looked at by Your Honours and have only batted for the voiceless 400 million poor Indians who belong to BPL requiring Government Subsidies."

Mahatma Gandhi said: "In matters of Conscience the law of Majority has no place". 

As a Nation, Your Honours, we are holding our breath for your final verdict to redeem democracy and people’s rights especially that of the 400 million Voiceless Masses

Satyameva Jayate.

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