Democracy or Digital Colonization?

A Short Quiz of 3 questions on Colonization - 

So, what is the most efficient thing that the Colonizers did? 
Collecting of taxes of course.

What is the most inefficient thing that the Colonizers did?
Implement any scheme for the welfare of its slave citizens.

What is the mechanism it used for this dual purpose?
Its puppet government, its agents in various trades and vocations and native power centres that were made to influence or intimidate anyone objecting for the same.


Is Digitization of our exchange with our own Government a new form of Colonization?

Let me explain..

What is the Government of India doing with maximum efficiency through the digital medium today?
Collecting taxes and keeping tabs of taxes owed to it from the citizen through the digitization, of course.

What is the most inefficient thing that the government does today?
Provide any targeted welfare schemes. Rural Development, Agriculture, Social Welfare, Tribal welfare, Urban and Rural amenities, Infrastructure,...none of these are given any importance to digital medium nor utilize them optimally except again to count them for showcasing. 

Several recent instances of failures on the digital transaction life in India -

• The IT department says the deadline for linking of Aadhaar to PAN card is extended, but, since a few days there are reports that you can't submit tax papers online without an Aadhaar as someone forgot to fix the software after the policy  changed. 
• I go to the bank to ask for the password with which I can open the monthly statement that they have asked me to 'opt for digital copy' now, but, the clerk doesn't know why I am asked a new no. unlike earlier when a combination of my account no and other sounds is fine.
• The government has my Aadhaar, it has my PAN, it has my Ration Card, it has my Passport, it has my mobile numbers with it and every other card within itself, but, it cannot have a simple software running that can link up the various personalities living in a particular address with same name and at least ask me if these are all myself and can the same be linked. Why is the onus on the citizen to go to every office and link all of these? why should they subject their days and revenue earning time to share and link data centres willingly submitting to the whims and fancies to the young adults that are hired on a part time  basis for this purpose; and if the citizen is not utilizing any of the scheme entitlements, it becomes even worse. 
• Old timers who have moved to India from other countries long ago and need to every 5 years renew their visas were told that now it can be renewed for only 1 year to make them comply to new systems, and in some of the embassies, they cannot give 5 year visas as the software programme has not been re-calibrated!
• I try and make a payment gateway method of paying for the IRCTC online ticket booking, the third party who collects IRCTC funds for UPI gateway doesn't acknowledge the payment and gets stuck, my bank and the payment gateway has already cleared the payment, but, the payment days not reflect in the IRCTC site and the third party has no way of letting me know what is happening!? So, till the money is returned into my account a few days later, I have no clue what happened and there was no option in the software for me to find out what happened.
• ATMs often run out of money, with or without demonetisation and the bank right next to it  can at the most shrug and tell you that though it is their ATM, they cannot control how much and when money gets refilled; but, the same banks take our old ATM cards and replace them with new 'chip carrying' ones and neither do the staff know why this has to happen! 
• recently, one of the online eMarketeers took an order, promised to deliver goods in 10 days, then 12 days later cancelled the order and said that they have initiated the repayment. the repayment of money took another 10 days and during this entire period, there was no way in which one could lodge a complaint with the eMarketeer, the option to make a complaint was well masked into several menu driven options that kept one going on and on without resolving anything. Government has done nothing to make the digital marketing companies become more accountable even as they swindle enarmous amount of money and the government continues to encourage the citizens to 'go digital' and 'go cashless'

...and the story is endless. every person with whom I share any of the stories above comes up with more stories of 'software not updated', 'system failure', 'something went wrong', 'come later, system hangs', 'our software cannot accept this' or just a shrug of shoulder and an expression of helplessness with several wings of the government in recent times. 

In each of these instances, the most efficient digitization is on control and accounts, cases where the governments earn money, while the least efficient systems are the ones to do with providing access to privileges or entitlements or better facilities to the citizens. This is a country that prides itself of millions of software engineers, but, not one can fix a problem that can make life easier or better for the citizen in a ever increasing and brutally imposed 'digital world'. 

It is not to do with the medium (Information & Communication Technology), but, governance. That which is the attitude of the government (any government) will reflect in the way it uses the technology or tool that it has access to. Unless the governments of the day think of its citizens as people it wants to serve and uses the data and the tool of digitization for the purpose, the entire technology will be meaningless and undemocratic in its usage.  It is with this in the background, we need to understand how our government may use the BIG DATA against the citizen and thereby undermine Democracy all together.

(...to continue)