Digital Colonization or otherwise...
(continued...)
I think it was over 10 years ago in one of the earliest meetings of the Knowledge in Civil Society (KICS), in Hyderabad. There were several people who had come and many from the civil society world, many of them had tried to share ideas and initiatives from the Development world. There was Shiv Vishwanath, the social science nomad, slouching in a corner, taking notes and not speaking at all. on the second day, i think almost post-lunch, he started in a low gurgling voice and i was stuck by what he said, i can't recollect everything, but, somethings he said has since then struck with me forever. for instance, "scale and replicability", terms that are casually tossed in the Development sector as a norm. He was challenging the same and asking people to examine the geneology of replicability. He went on to talk about that these were terms of war and cannot bring peace and prosperity as many of the people in the room had spoken of. that concepts and tools that have been developed for a certain purpose carry within them the purpose itself. you can try to adopt it for another purpose temporarily, but, eventually, the real purpose will manifest in the right eco-system.
I resonated with this because, i have been studying organization structures and their functioning, particularly the social sector ones. many philanthropic and supposedly social institutions adopt the legal, structural and functional model of a commercial, bureaucratic or a factory. while legal structures often can be addressed with the right kind of compliance consultants, the management systems and structure that is adopted is a problem. some of them resembled shop floor idea of efficiency with supervisors and speed being mistaken for efficiency while others mimicked the mediocre government systems where proximity to higher levels of decision making is automatically mistaken for intelligence.
in the sphere of technology, the purpose of majority of the technology has been for war and control rather than to propagate peace or compassion. it is more so in the last century and half of explosion of the technology. nuclear bomb was the purpose and 'peaceful' nuclear energy was always contrived, the gene-modification was a biological controller, to be used at times of war for denial of seeds, it has forever been exposed as incapable of either food security or eliminate pests, regardless of how many spin stories are planted in the media about it, the purpose of newer and newer drugs often is not as much to eliminate illnesses as much as companies to ensure that people are addicted to drugs forever and thereby contribute to the companies' profits, the purpose of media has always been to propagate certain twisted news to the public to shape their perception and thinking and more and more dynamic media cannot ensure that the news is not contrived. indeed the purpose of most of the technology has been to establish control over certain human activity and thereby for a small group of people to have a say over what a large group of people did or will do. in ensuring that the large majority do things in a particular manner, the small group manages to profit forever. and modern day technology has been driven and directed to this purpose to the most extent.
in the sphere of technology, the purpose of majority of the technology has been for war and control rather than to propagate peace or compassion. it is more so in the last century and half of explosion of the technology. nuclear bomb was the purpose and 'peaceful' nuclear energy was always contrived, the gene-modification was a biological controller, to be used at times of war for denial of seeds, it has forever been exposed as incapable of either food security or eliminate pests, regardless of how many spin stories are planted in the media about it, the purpose of newer and newer drugs often is not as much to eliminate illnesses as much as companies to ensure that people are addicted to drugs forever and thereby contribute to the companies' profits, the purpose of media has always been to propagate certain twisted news to the public to shape their perception and thinking and more and more dynamic media cannot ensure that the news is not contrived. indeed the purpose of most of the technology has been to establish control over certain human activity and thereby for a small group of people to have a say over what a large group of people did or will do. in ensuring that the large majority do things in a particular manner, the small group manages to profit forever. and modern day technology has been driven and directed to this purpose to the most extent.
when the government forced us all to do only digital transactions during the peak of the demonetisation days, i was amazed at how stupid some of the arguments were in promoting the digital transactions. it was forcing the citizens to adopt a technology through which their purchase pattern can be stored without any safe guards whatever for the consumer behaviour. it was as though the government had decided one fine day to play along with the companies to mine the data of the individuals and both the company and the government would benefit from this jointly. to me this was the point of a new form of forced digitization imposed on the Indian public. there was no safe guard mechanism as to what would the data be used for, instead all that we had was the government parading the fact that so much of transactions were being fully digital. there were stories of 'digital villages' and 'digital small shops', etc., how could a government that forced our choice, celebrate making available a choice? it was freedom being trampled upon at multiple levels. data security in India was fully compromised with that move.
UIDAI is the next step. It is such a slippery slope of an argument that the government has built for mining our data for sharing with the companies and determine and control our behaviour. what are the biggest 2 arguments in favour of Aadhaar?
1. that it unites all the various government identities - false. the government has no clue where is your passport no or where is your voter id no. the passport no. for instance asks my full name expanded as first,middle and last name whereas the voter id has only the first name and second name, aadhaar has the same 2 way naming. In my case, the voter id card entries were made by some local school teacher who got the name in tamil and spelt it any which way she could in english, the passport details were filled-in by myself and the aadhaar by a poor young man. each one has a different way of writing name and spelling as well now. so, that is why the onus of linking has been pushed to us, not the government. it would be nightmare trying to understand the various spelling errors. but, the show is not over yet. there is still a good chance that there will be digital entry errors and the spelling errors in the various levels in government will continue for sometime as it pans several departments.
2. that people will have money delivered to their bank accounts directly. this was happening anyway for individual schemes that could link to bank account. aadhaar has nothing to do with this. BPL card holders with NREGA linked bank / post office accounts anyway had their money getting credited (wherever the local corrupt rural development official permitted that is)
of course, it does establish the best form of control over the individuals accounts. obvious, the control based service providers and industries are the ones most happy. my aadhaar's biggest proponent is my auditor, who thinks it is very good. for my life, i cannot understand what is the idea of linking aadhaar to the private service provider's services? why link it to the mobile phones? on what basis? if the government thinks that this can prevent terrorists from acquiring newer sim cards, it is wrong. at the most it can figure out under what name a particular sim card was procured, that is all. now almost every other service needs an aadhaar card because paranoia has gripped the industry and everyone is playing it safe. recently while staying in a small guest house, because a VVIP was expected to arrive in the vicinity, the owner of the guest house apologetically demanded that i give my aadhaar card! i told him that any photo identity should do and aadhaar is not mandatory. he said, "i do what the cops want me to do, they are such an harassment. i almost want to shut down till this tamasha is over and then re-start business". i bet the cops too don't know why they have to get the aadhaar of all those staying, i am sure it is all entered into some machine somewhere and ultimately reaches a computer programme. ultimately it is the colonizer, the computer programme to whom everyone abides.
recently someone pointed out to me that after the initial surge, the digital transaction has come down by almost 70% as more currency started to flow into the economy again. that reassures me the in-built wisdom of our people. they don't want anyone to know what all they do with their cash and there is no need. in fact, the irony of the "free market" is less and less freedom for the consumer! freedom in our country has always been the capacity of the individual to assert a way of life. globalized market economics is trying to dictate the way of life and ensure that this freedom is curtailed. digital colonization is the most blatant attempt on the part of the government to subjugate all of us to the global market economy.
UIDAI is the next step. It is such a slippery slope of an argument that the government has built for mining our data for sharing with the companies and determine and control our behaviour. what are the biggest 2 arguments in favour of Aadhaar?
1. that it unites all the various government identities - false. the government has no clue where is your passport no or where is your voter id no. the passport no. for instance asks my full name expanded as first,middle and last name whereas the voter id has only the first name and second name, aadhaar has the same 2 way naming. In my case, the voter id card entries were made by some local school teacher who got the name in tamil and spelt it any which way she could in english, the passport details were filled-in by myself and the aadhaar by a poor young man. each one has a different way of writing name and spelling as well now. so, that is why the onus of linking has been pushed to us, not the government. it would be nightmare trying to understand the various spelling errors. but, the show is not over yet. there is still a good chance that there will be digital entry errors and the spelling errors in the various levels in government will continue for sometime as it pans several departments.
2. that people will have money delivered to their bank accounts directly. this was happening anyway for individual schemes that could link to bank account. aadhaar has nothing to do with this. BPL card holders with NREGA linked bank / post office accounts anyway had their money getting credited (wherever the local corrupt rural development official permitted that is)
of course, it does establish the best form of control over the individuals accounts. obvious, the control based service providers and industries are the ones most happy. my aadhaar's biggest proponent is my auditor, who thinks it is very good. for my life, i cannot understand what is the idea of linking aadhaar to the private service provider's services? why link it to the mobile phones? on what basis? if the government thinks that this can prevent terrorists from acquiring newer sim cards, it is wrong. at the most it can figure out under what name a particular sim card was procured, that is all. now almost every other service needs an aadhaar card because paranoia has gripped the industry and everyone is playing it safe. recently while staying in a small guest house, because a VVIP was expected to arrive in the vicinity, the owner of the guest house apologetically demanded that i give my aadhaar card! i told him that any photo identity should do and aadhaar is not mandatory. he said, "i do what the cops want me to do, they are such an harassment. i almost want to shut down till this tamasha is over and then re-start business". i bet the cops too don't know why they have to get the aadhaar of all those staying, i am sure it is all entered into some machine somewhere and ultimately reaches a computer programme. ultimately it is the colonizer, the computer programme to whom everyone abides.
recently someone pointed out to me that after the initial surge, the digital transaction has come down by almost 70% as more currency started to flow into the economy again. that reassures me the in-built wisdom of our people. they don't want anyone to know what all they do with their cash and there is no need. in fact, the irony of the "free market" is less and less freedom for the consumer! freedom in our country has always been the capacity of the individual to assert a way of life. globalized market economics is trying to dictate the way of life and ensure that this freedom is curtailed. digital colonization is the most blatant attempt on the part of the government to subjugate all of us to the global market economy.
(will continue...)
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