Why I won't register with NPR

I asked a few people "Why should I register with NPR?". The responses are mostly along these lines.

"It is the law. So you must!"
Nope. That argument is for sheep and mindless drones. It is pretty much the same as:

• "Everyone has to, at some point or other"
• "Everyone else is doing it. So you should too"
• "What do you lose? Why not just go with the flow? Why do you want to stand out?"

"It is against the law. If you don't, the government can jail you!"

Yea, well. I am thrilled. My government says I must come and "register" (for what?). If not, they will jail me! Can't get any more tyrannical that, can it?

Here is something getting close to real logic.

"Someone thought this is going to help identify all illegal immigrants. So they said let us register all our citizens; anyone who isn't, is an immigrant! To make sure they can force you to, they wrote this down in the Citizenship Act."

Sounds okay. Even if you overlook the assumption that "all illegal immigrants are terrorists". Until you think about it. 

They don't have a clue of how to determine citizenship, do they? Their processes are dependent on someone local not "objecting" (which one overrules?) to your being included. So some whacko decides he will "object" to people either out of vendetta or simple thrill of being able to - and off goes your citizenship. They have a "process" for grievance redressal, I am sure. I will have to run around government offices proving that I am a bonafide citizen. But hey, why put my citizenship in question in the first place? 

Here is what it all comes to - a classic case of a process design gone wrong. To catch the small set of exceptions, we treat everybody like they are criminals.

I say NO. Those of you who agree, please join me in saying NO.

Suffer silently, suffer repeatedly

Most of us dislike friction. Dislike to be dragged into unpleasant interactions. It is part of our personality that makes us social beings. It is also a necessary trait that helps us recognize that others' may disagree with us and deal with it in a civilized manner. However, there are many occasions where this approach should not be taken. Here are a few examples.

1. Stray dog menace in the neighborhood. Makes it difficult to go for solitary walks. Not easy to take our pet out. We are too busy to look up the concerned authority and complain. We may even try once or twice and give up with the other side doesn't pick up the phone or answer the email. We grumble and move on. We set ourselves up for repeated suffering.

2. Poor service when traveling. Airline staff. Taxi cabs. Ticket inspectors. We have a train / plane to catch; so we can't take enough time out to complain. They get away. Next time we go through the same place, we suffer again. Silently.

3. Government service delivery. We put up with apathy and other attitudes. "what can we do?" we ask.

4. Politics - local, regional and national. We don't like to pressured to pay donations. One particular action of a corrupt politician doesn't affect us directly, so we make a few glib comments among friends and move on.

Surely the world is full of such examples. We suffer silently. As a result, we suffer repeatedly.

Speak up. Even if you don't make a scene right there, use the internet as a medium to let your views be known. Send emails. Post on facebook. Complain on online consumer forums. Tweet about it. Ask like minded people to speak up along with you. Yes, there are huge number of people out there who will agree with you.

It is a start. An opening to make a difference. A great alternative to suffering silently.

Support UID: Good developments

First things first -- before I go into other details:

Now more than ever, we  must continue to speak up in support of UID. Here are a few things you could try.

• On twitter: Follow @supportuid  
• On facebook (like us): www.facebook.com/SupportUID
• Dial this number (courtesy ZipDial): 080 300 500 91
• After one ring you will be auto-disconnected and will receive a thank you SMS - unless you've already called from that number before or you can't receive an SMS.
• Tweet your support: Tweet #supportuid
• Retweet! (our tweets from @supportuid)
• Post about these links on your facebook page, email friends and in general, spread the good word.
• A web site with a lot of well researched articles and news links is coming soon.. I will update this page as soon as it is ready. So come back here in a day or two.

Now for the brass tacks...

There has been a lot of activity on the UID front these last two weeks. Quite (pleasantly) surprisingly for me and my fellow supporters, a lot of people have begun speaking up. So the tide has clearly begun the turn - though this story isn't over yet. Not by a far shot.

On the flip side, in most places enrollments have come to a standstill (or slowed down) -- due to two major reasons

• UIDAI laying down stringent verification requirements of proof documents (this is my interpretation; official verbage is a bit different)
• UIDAI laying down enrollment quotas for most registrars to ensure that the overall enrollments won't overshoot their targets (when was the last time "overshooting targets" happened in a government project?)

Owing to the lack of official pronouncements, most people in the governments are still groping for direction and are on the verge of giving up hope / declaring their support to the anticipated-winner.

Let us see what we can take-away from this mixed bag environment.

So the good parts are...

1. Focus has shifted to the core issues (instead of turfs and personalities). This is definitely good.
2. A committee has been formed to converge the efforts of NPR and UID projects. Better than good! :)
3. UIDAI has (finally!) given out some long-awaited information on their biometric success/failure rates and some more data to help their own cause.

What could go wrong?

1. In the name of face-saving, we might end up with illogical compromises. e.g., let NPR re-enroll everybody in a "more secure" (ouch!) way.
2. There hasn't been much noise from the civic society opponents (or wasn't I listening?). That may not be a good sign. We need a healthy dialog (not superficial rhetoric and exhortations driven by fear, of course) on important issues for a vibrant democracy. I am hoping we will return to talk about the core issues. Personally I would've preferred to have a convincing closure on the issues instead of "silencing the critics".

We can we do?

1. Not celebrate too early. If you haven't already done it, please do at least one of the things I've posted at the beginning of this post.
2. You have questions or doubts? Don't let them be... ask questions, clarify matters, take a stand (even if is against UID). Informed consent is what we want in a democracy. Not mindless mob-movements.
3. Encourage others to participate... Yes... As a responsible person, you have already taken a few minutes of your valuable time to read my post. Spend one more minute by spreading the word.

THANK YOU. :)

Dangerous Lessons from Anna's victory

Public is fickle. Public is gullible. Public memory is short.

You don't need to be a Pol Science major to know this; or a diplomat, to never say it loud. hint: if you didn't object to my blog title already, you have proved a good bit of my point - Is it just "Anna's victory"? "His" agitation?

No doubt, Anna is a hero. No doubt, we must emulate him. But heck, something must be wrong with the whole system if we let this situation come up in the first place - forcing Anna to become a hero in this manner. Isn't it?

So what is my point? The whole exercise has already mislead vast masses into learning a dangerous lesson. That we must fight our politicians to get what we want. Lemme back up a bit... get back to the beginning of what I am trying to say.

1. We are a democracy. We elect our representatives - so that they represent our interests, make laws for our benefit, protect our interests by aligning/steering the bureaucracy to our priorities, and so on... In theory.
2. In practice, we elect our representatives. They do their own thing. We helplessly wring our hands, rave and rant (like here). Then we start agitations and hunger strikes - fighting our own representatives to do things that they are supposed to do to begin with. This is reality, you say?

The right and the most urgent thing to do is to fix the system. Make our representatives (read: our, yes our politicians) fight for us. They are our main channel/recourse to get our work done. That is why we elected them. Not to put them on a pedestal, write them off (while still continuing to invest in that channel through taxes, btw) and setting up alternative systems (agitations, et al) to get our work done.

Fortunately, Anna is already on the job ("right to recall elected reps"). I am with him on this.