Bio politics and AAdhar card

Assignment Topic: Bio-power and Aadhar card: its implication for minorities

Submitted to

Course Instructor: Prof. Bimol Akoijam

Course: SS 418N: Sociology of minorities and ethnic minorities

Submitted by

Nikhil Kumar

M.A 3rd semester

Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi)

Date: 18/10/2014

Bio-power and Aadhar card: its implication for minorities .

Abstract- The focus of this paper is to deal with theimplications of Bio-politics for minorities throughexample of Aadhar card project. This Aadhar card projectwill serve as an entry point for me to enter into alarger debate of how does state regulate and manages itssubjects through various mechanism, sometimes in the nameof providing welfare and often directly for its ownbenefit. For understanding this phenomenon I will beusing a tools called Bio-power and Bio-politics. I willbe using the conceptual framework of Bio-power asintroduced by Michel Foucault1 and developed by otherslike Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Further I withtake help of ideas of bare life and sovereign power asdiscussed by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben2 to makeit theoretically clearer. Through ideas of thesescholars, my focus will be on theorising the implicationsof Aadhaar card for a certain section of population

1 Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a Frenchphilosopher, social theorist, historian of ideas, philologist and literarycritic. His analysis basically addressed the relationship between power andknowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control throughsocietal institutions. Retrieved from http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-fouc.htm,Accessed on 10/10/20142 Giorgio Agamben (born 22 April 1942) is an Italian continentalphilosopher. He is best known for his work in which he had investigated theconcepts of the state of exception, form-of-life and homo sacer. The conceptof biopolitics which he had borrowed from Michel Foucaults is a majorconcept in many of his writings. Retrieved from www.iep.utm.edu/agamben/Accessed on 10/10/2014

called minorities. Though my focus will be particularlyon minorities but I will also try to look on itsimplications for general population.

Introduction-

I want to start this paper with a note of ambivalencewhich I am feeling now a day, that is why I decided towork on this topic. This ambivalence is triggered by arecent event related to a poet turned social activistsfrom Manipur Irom Sharmila3, who was again sent back tohospital arrest for her ongoing fast against AFSPA inManipur on the charge of attempted suicide. The paradoxis that before it a court had ruled that she cannot becharged with attempted suicide for refusing food andwater. This was clearly an example of ‘state managing thebodies of its subjects’ at its own will and it comes inpurview of Foucaultian notion of Bio-politics. Anotherphenomenon related to it was that we didn’t saw any largescale protest or resistance on the part of people on thisarrest except some small protests in Manipur. This eventagain reminded me of what Foucault focuses in hisgovernmentality question and terms it ‘the conduct ofconduct’ where the state does not exercise sovereignpower on its subjects in a direct way, but rather managesits subjects through different modern technologies ofenumeration that act directly on the bodies/subjects, thevery life worlds of individuals forcing them togradually internalise the rules for governing theirown conduct.4 It reflects that people has been managed in3 Irom Chanu Sharmila also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or"Mengoubi" is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet fromthe Indian state of Manipur. On 2 November 2000, she began a hunger strikeagainst the imposition of AFSPA in Manipur which is still ongoing.Retrieved from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irom_Chanu_Sharmila Accessed on 10/10/20144 "Security, territory and population" (Lectures at the College De France,1977-78) Foucault. M

such a fashion by Indian that they had learned to governtheir own conduct as claimed by Foucault. Thisambivalence led me to raise some questions. This is notan individual and isolated case only of Sharmila, itforces me to think on a larger picture of minorities andstates subjection of them. Through this example I want toenter in a broader debate of management of minority’slife and body by state (defined as an aspect of Bio-politics). We live in a democratic state that is known asIndia and yes not to forget it is world largestsuccessful democracy, at least that’s what Indian stateclaims. But a close examination of this statement forcesus to question this claim by Indian state. Why am Isaying this is because now a day we see various kinds ofactions or projects by Indian state that are intended toviolate our privacy, right to freedom and free will, thatis the core of democratic practice, sometimes in the nameof public welfare and often deliberately without anyreason or for its own interests. Aadhar card is one ofthem which conforms the first criteria that it tries toviolate right to privacy and liberty in the name of tokenof public welfare. Though many other complicated issuesare also connected with this debate that I will try tolook into in following discussion.

Understanding the basics-

1. UIDA I and Aadhar card-

So first let’s try to understand what is this whole buzzof Aadhaar card is about? What is this project all aboutactually? Why is so that an intellectual section of oursociety is raising question regarding various aspects ofit? How does it affect our daily lives and is there any

section of society that gets more affected than other,the minorities? In order to understand the implication ofAadhar card on minorities I will try to explore theconcept of minorities to some extent also. As amethodological tool I will be using the concept of Bio-power and bio-politics, which was introduced by MichalFoucault in order to highlight the regulation andmanagement of its subjects by state. I will also explorethis concept to make our understanding more clear.

Let’s start with a brief introduction of project ofAadhaar card as our entry point into this debate.Basically Aadhaar is a 12 digit individual identificationnumber issued by the Unique Identification Authority ofIndia on behalf of the Government of India. This numberaims to serve as a proof of identity and address,anywhere in India. This is also known as UIDAI5 project,because Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)manages it. The agency will maintain a database ofresidents containing biometric and other data, and isheaded by a chairman, of cabinet rank. The UIDAI is partof the Planning Commission of India. Nandan Nilekani6 wasappointed as the first Chairman of the authority in June2009 but he resigned from the post in March 2014 to

5 It is an agency of the Government of India (GOI) responsible forimplementation of the Aadhaar scheme, which is a unique identificationproject. This agency came into existence in February 2009, and owns andoperates the Unique Identification Number database. It has been establishedunder the Planning Commission by an executive order issued in January 2009.The main task of the agency is to provide a unique identification number tocitizens of India, but not identity cards. Accessed on 14/10/2010 onhttp://uidai.gov.in/about-uidai.html6 Nandan Nilekani (born 2 June 1955) bureaucrat and politician. He had heldthe post of Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI). He headed the Government of India's technology committee, TAGUPAfter a successful career at Infosys. At present he is a member of IndianNational Congress. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandan_Nilekani)accessed on:16/10/2014

contest lok Sabha election. After that Vijay Madan7, a1981-batch IAS officer was appointed director of UIDAIproject. Thus we see that Aadhar card is a scheme toidentify all of its citizens by Indian state. This leadsto us to our second question? What is the problem withthis scheme/project? Why is it being opposed by certainsections of society?

At first sight this project of Aadhar card seems finewith no problems because it is being presented as ascheme which will facilitate the easy transfer of welfareservices to common people by government. But the problemis that people are not being informed about the costimplicit in this. The government is not telling thepeople that their personal data and information is beinghanded over to those companies and corporations in thename of welfare that have nothing to do with peoplewelfare. This puts the people and nation in a collectivedanger situation because for their personal gains andprofits these companies will not hesitate in sharinginformation with those elements that poses danger to ourpeople. The second is regarding the money being spent onthis project, till now around 40 billion rupees have beenspent on this project and it is just for collecting theidentity of state’s subject so that the state can use itfor its own benefit. This money might be utilisedsomewhere else more efficiently. This is not the only oneproblem.

7 Vijay S Madan is an Indian Administrative Service officer; he joined asthe Director General and Mission Director of the Unique IdentificationAuthority of India on 1 April 2013. Shri Madan joined the IAS in 1981 andworked in various positions of increasing responsibility in the Government,both at Central and State levels. (source:http://uidai.gov.in/organization-details/uidai-headquarter.html) Accessedon 16/10/2014

In the larger structural debate here the question is thatdoes the state has the right to interfere into thepersonal domain of its subjects? This questions leads usto a further debate of states legitimacy of doing this.Here I want to just introduce this idea of legitimacy sothat we can grapple with the above question moreefficiently. The concept of legitimacy is supposed toinfuse such capacity within the individual that he canmake autonomous decisions regarding the separation ofpolitical power and types of social power, and thevalidity of subjective views as the basis of legitimacy.It can be classified further into performance legitimacyand ideological legitimacy. The first one performancelegitimacy draws its root from communist china andunderstood as a model for sustaining power that entailsconsistently accomplishing concrete goals to justify itsrule and which is based on common ideology of peoples andhow people evaluate the state’s performance?

Coming back to my question that does the state has theright to interfere into the personal domain of itssubjects with the claim of legitimacy here so calledperformance legitimacy. Indian state might claim so thatit had right to do so on the basis of this performancelegitimacy but I want to mention two things regarding theIndian state, first that the idea of performancelegitimacy is not an democratic idea, it traces itsorigin to communist china so it cannot be applied toIndian state and secondly that this idea of performancelegitimacy has failed itself in china so how can we applyit in Indian scene? So it shows that basically stateshould not interfere in the personal domain of itssubjects but still we find state doing so in the name ofits subjects only. It’s kind of contradictory thing. It

leads me to my next concern that is what are themechanisms through which states performs this and herecomes the notion of Bio-power and bio-politics. Ingeneral this concept was propounded by Michel Foucaultand in general it denotes the means and mechanisms whichthe state use in order to control its subject. Beforecontinuing I would like to discuss the concept of bio-power because it is an essential tool to understand theAadhar card’s implication for certain sections of ourpeople that we call minorities.

2. Bio-power and bio-politics

These term bio-politics and bio-power are related terms.Rudolf Kjellen is attributed with creation of the termbio-politics in 1920. But the credit of discussing anddeveloping this concept further goes to various otherthinkers like Michel Foucault, Michael Hardt, AntonioNegri and many others. Foucault has done a considerableamount of work on this topic. Foucault discussed thisconcept firstly in his series of lectures titled as “societymust be defended”8 in 1976 and continued to develop it in hissubsequent lectures like ‘the birth of bio-politics’9 and ‘the courage oftruth’10. He has discussed this concept of bio-politics onanother important concept that is his concept of Bio-power. According to Foucault bio-politics denotes anexplicit rupture and try to trace political processes andstructures back to biological determinants. His main

8 "Society must be defended" (Lectures at the College De France, 1975-76)Foucault. M

9 The Birth of Bio-politics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978—1979 Foucault. M

10 The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the College de France 1983-84

Foucault. M

focus here is basically on what are the historicalprocess which contributes in “life’s” emergence as thecentre of political strategies. Instead of assumingfoundational and a historical laws of politics, hediagnoses a historical break, a discontinuity inpolitical practice. From this perspective, bio politicsdenotes a specific modern form of exercising power.Foucault distinguishes “two basic forms” of this powerover life: the disciplining of the individual body andthe regulatory control of the population. According toFoucault disciplinary technology which supervise andcontrol the body of an individual had emerged in the 17th

century. Disciplining the body on the one hand allows forthe increase of the economic productivity of the body,while on the other hand it weakens the force of the bodyto assure political subjection. It is this complex ofeconomic and political forces that define discipline andgrants it the status of a technology. Further accordingto Foucault discipline is a product of institutions, likeschools, the army, and hospitals, where from the 18thcentury onwards the state organized the regulation of thepopulation. In this regard the activities like collectionof demographic data, the tabulation of resources andcensuses related to life expectancy by state wasimportant. So we can mainly discern two series: “thebody–organism–discipline–institution series, and thepopulation–biological processes–regulatory mechanisms–State”. In the case of Aadhar what we are witnessing isthe complex of above two processes and how is Indianstate trying to discipline the body by regulating thepopulation through the tool of Aadhar card. For Foucaultbio-politics is related to bio-power that is ‘a newtechnology of power that exists at a different level, ata different scale, with a different bearing area and

having different instruments.’ Foucault notion is thatbio-politics is used as a controlling mechanism for whathe terms as ‘a global mass’. Notion of bio-politics is alarger one and does not confine to Foucault only, I willtry to deal with other aspects of bio-politics in thesubsequent discussion through example of phenomenon thathow a particular section of society is supressed by useof this phenomenon.

3. Minorities?

But here first I need to deal with another problem thatis understanding that particular section of societycalled minorities? There are different understandingregarding the notion of minorities and no accuratedefinition of this term is available as such, becauseevery definition leaves out some part or other from thepurview of minority question. In general understandingminorities are defined on the basis of distinct identitythat is different from the prevalent majority. Generallythere are four criteria of distinguishing minorities.First is the quantitative and qualitative criteria,second contextual dimension, third cultural/ physicalmarkers and fourth one is the dimensional aspect. Thesefactors helps us to distinguish certain section ofsociety as minority or majority. Louis Wirth11 defined a minoritygroup as "a group of people who, are considered different from the others inthe society in which they live because of their distinct physical or culturalcharacteristics, and who therefore considers themselves many times asobjects of collective discrimination."12 This definition also include

11 Louis Wirth (August 28, 1897 – May 3, 1952) was an American sociologistand member of the Chicago school of sociology. (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wirth)12 Wirth, L: "The Problem of Minority Groups.", page 347 in Ralph Linton(ed.), The Science of Man in the World Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press,1945.

the cultural, and dimensional aspects of minority alongwith contextual criteria. Here the question thatconfronts me is that how am going to look this categorycalled minority in respect to issue of Aadhar card? Forthis I think I will be focusing on ethnic and religiousminorities that are going to be affected most by thisexercise of Aadhar card making. I will be focusing thatwhat are the issues or crises that they are going toface, and finally what could be the solution part. Nowafter making all our introductory concepts clear I wantto engage with the issues and crises that looms over theminorities due to this exercise of Aadhar card making, inthe subsequent process I will also try to theorise thewhole issue, taking hint from the conceptual framework ofbio-political theory that we just build up in abovepages. In discussion of this issue we will draw from theabove conceptual framework that we just tried to develop.

4. Implications-

So again Aadhar card as introduced above is a kind ofidentity card being provided to citizens by UniqueIdentification Authority of India (UIDAI) undergovernment of India regulation, in the name of givingthem better access of the government facilities andprogrammes of public welfare. But Here I am going tofocus on the price that the citizens are being obliged topay in return to these so called ‘welfare services’. Thissituation becomes more crucial when we incorporate theminority section of population in it. So here I want tofocus mainly on three problems which are being posedbefore minorities due to this Aadhaar card issue. Firstissue involve ‘the question of coercion by state ofminorities’, to force them to get the identificationmarks like Aadhar card so that they can be effectively

managed by state (in Foucaultian analysis). Second issueis of ‘question of security of minorities and in largercontext the privacy of state’s subjects’ which weunderstand by the term ‘population’. Third questionraises the larger issue of identity crisis for minoritiesand how can Aadhar card affect it? Can it raise thisissue to a level of public debate or at least can itcontribute something to its solution part? Let’s try toanalyse?

So starting with the first question that needs scrutinyis that of was is necessary to make Aadhar card‘indirectly necessary’ for all citizens including theminorities? Why am I saying indirectly necessary isbecause though the UIDAI has said that getting on to theUID database is voluntary and there is no fore on anybodyto get registered. It seems, there will be no compulsionfrom the UIDAI, but, if other agencies make the UIDnumber essential in their transactions then it will be adifferent matter according to UIDAI. As we know throughthe tenders notices issued by UIDAI that it has beensigning memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with a variousagencies and public institutions including Life InsuranceCorporation of India (LIC), banks and state governmentsto be “registrars”. It may possible in future that thesepublic institutions may insist by their own will or maybe by the compulsion of state that their customers enrolon the UID to receive continued service. This defines theindirect necessity of getting the UIADI number or Aadharcard. It is also a perfect example of what Foucault hascalled ‘the conduct of conduct’ where the state does notexercise sovereign power on its subjects in a direct way,but rather manages the territory and the populationscontained within it through different technologies in

such way as forcing them to gradually internalise therules for governing their own conduct. So it may notbe compulsory to get an Aadhar card from the side ofstate but at the same time it is compulsory to get onebecause state want this, may be not directly. Itsimplication for minorities can be more complicatedbecause the state in India want to manage and controlminorities in their way but at the same time it does notwant to accept it. Aadhar card can also be seen as a toolto perform this act more effectively and silently. Beforeturning to my second question I want to discuss thecontribution of Michel Hardt and Antonio Negri, whichwill help us to clarify the theoretical ground forunderstanding the implications of Aadhar card further.Hardt and Negri13 in their analysis of bio-politics aguethat a shift is taking place in traditional policieswhich were based on constitutional guarantees to logic ofpolice state, which marks various forms of interventionby state and its agents. According to them theseinterventions function according to the idea of what wecall the ‘state of exception’ and they operate in thename of higher ethical principles. Further in theiranalysis they have tried to link the idea of bio-power

13 Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American literary theorist and politicalphilosopher. Hardt is perhaps best known for his book Empire, which was co-written with Antonio Negri.[3] It has been praised by some as the "CommunistManifesto of the 21st Century". Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933)is an Italian Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known forhis co-authorship of Empire, and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Hardtand Negri suggest that several forces which they see as dominatingcontemporary life, such as class oppression, globalization and thecommodification of services (or production of affects), have the potential tospark social change of unprecedented dimensions. A sequel, Multitude: War andDemocracy in the Age of Empire was published in August 2004. It outlines an ideafirst propounded in Empire, which is that of the multitude as possible locusof a democratic movement of global proportions. (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hardt) Accessed on- 17/10/2014

which according to them is omnipresent and all-embracing,with ideas developed by the French philosopher GillesDeleuze14. Deleuze argument in a brief essay is that wehave seen a transformation from “societies of discipline”to “societies of control” in post war era. Control isexercised more through the mobile and flexible networksof existence than through disciplinary institutions, suchas schools, factories, and hospitals. Following Deleuze,Hardt and Negri understand of bio-politics as a form of“control through various modern technologies that extendsthroughout the depths of the consciousness and bodies ofthe population—and at the same time it also exists acrossthe entirety of social relations”. It includes theexistence of individual beings in the most intimateaffairs of their day to day lives but mainly it directsitself at social life as a whole. According to theiranalysis of bio-politics, contemporary bio-politicalprocesses base themselves on the expanded knowledge ofthe body and biological processes. In this senseindividual’s body is regarded as an informational networkrather than a physical substrate. Second issue isregarding how does the regulation of life processesaffect the identity formation processes for theindividual as well as for the collective actors? Thistheoretical foundation leads me to my second question orissue that is question of security of minorities as agroup and privacy of theirs as single body. Here in thecontext of Aadhar card I want to mention other challengesthat are looming against us. They include the issue ofconvergence of data, concern of national security, the

14 Gilles Deleuze (French, 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a Frenchphilosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentiallyon philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works werethe two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A ThousandPlateaus (1980), both co-written with Félix Guattari.

national population register (NPR) and its merging withUIDAI data bank, and the issue of biometrics on whichthis superstructure of Aadhar card is being built. Takingthe first issue of convergence it can be argued that thisconvergence of information may be efficient for business,but we should also recognise that it can profileindividuals or certain section of peoples and expose themto market and other forces in ways which are intrusive,and which could make them insecure, and unsafe.Surveillance is also a concern, and interesting thing tonote is that this term is missing altogether in the UIDAIdocuments. The UID only produces a number which is a tagthat is claimed to be “universal” and “ubiquitous”. Itscapacity to link disparate pieces of information isdifficult to dispute. If we place this in the context ofthe National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), and the thenHome Minister P Chidambaram’s statement begins to soundominous. “Under NATGRID”15 (which is again a datacollection programme), he is reported as having said, “21sets of databases will be networked to achieve quickseamless and secure access to desired information forintelligence and enforcement agencies”.16 This is toenable them “to detect patterns, trace sources for moniesand support, track travellers, and identify those whomust be watched, investigated, disabled and neutralised”.The problem with this is that many of these intelligenceagencies, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and theResearch and Analysis Wing (RAW) are neither created by

15 The National Intelligence Grid or NATGRID is the integrated intelligencegrid developed by C-DAC-Pune connecting databases of core security agenciesof the Government of India and will be declared operational on 15 August2014.[1] to collect comprehensive patterns of intelligence that can bereadily accessed by intelligence agencies. It was first proposed in theaftermath of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008. (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATGRID) Accessed on: 17/10/201416 (The Hindu, 14 February 2010).

the law, nor are they subject to any scrutiny regardingtheir conduct. Additionally they are also outside of theRight to Information Act, which makes them kind of freeto do whatever they want with the information and thateven without any fear of getting scrutinised. One morething is worth noting is that we find a provisionregarding “confidentiality” in the Census Act 1948, whichis missing in the Citizenship Act and Rules, but on theother hand we find an express objective of making theinformation available to the UIDAI, which marks animportant distinction between the two processes.According to Section 15 of the Census Act 1948 theinformation that we give to the census agency “not opento inspection nor admissible in evidence”. The Census Act194817 only allows the collection of information so thestate can maintain a profile of the population; it isbasically not to profile the individual subjects ofstate. One of the provisions that is clause 33 of thecensus act has raised concern because according to it:Nothing contained in the sub-section (3) of section 30shall apply in respect of (a) any disclosure of information (includingidentity information or details of authentication) made pursuant to an orderof a competent court; or (b) any disclosure of information (including identityinformation) made in the interests of national security in pursuance of adirection to that effect issued by an officer not below the rank of JointSecretary or equivalent in the Central Government after obtaining approval ofthe Minister in charge.(http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/index.html.Accessed on17/10/2014). Another issue is of the act of combination ofUID, NATGRID and the emerging idea of the DNA bank thatmakes control of a population by state and its actors avery real possibility. It may lead to acts like treating

17 http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/index.html. Accessed on17/10/2014

every person as a suspect, and to create systems thatwould support such a practice, is a highly questionableact of a state. The situation becomes concerning when wetake note of that the Indian State and its agents havefaced the charge of being communal, and of having beeninvolved in torture, forced disappearances, fakeencounters, and complicity in crime. The problem is thatthis Bill does not acknowledge this aspect of problem. Itappears like a tool for impunity where the protocol forprotecting the data is breached from within the stateapparatus by its actors. This reminds me of what Agambendiscusses in his discussion on ‘rule of exception’, theinterplay between ‘Bare life (zoe)’ and ‘Politicalexistence (bios)’. According to Agamben, The centralbinary relationship of the political is not that betweenfriend and enemy but rather the separation of ‘bare life(zoé)’ and ‘political existence (bíos)’ that is, thedistinction between natural being and the legal existenceof a person. According to Agamben, we find theestablishment of a borderline and the inauguration of aspace at the beginning of all politics that is deprivedof the protection of the law. In contemporary times,according to Agamben “bare life” exists in forms, forexample, in refugees, asylum seekers, and the brain dead.These apparently unrelated “cases” have one thing incommon that they all are excluded from the protection ofthe law, although they all may involve human life. Samekind of thing seems to happening with Minorities inIndian state with the help of project of Aadhar card.They are being reduced to the mere level of what Agambenhas defined as ‘Bare life’ (zoe), and their ‘politicalexistence (bios)’ is being compromised by the state. Thisis another example of bio-politics being played out bythe Indian state with Minorities through the tool of

Aadhar card. This leads to me my third concern as doesAadhar card addresses the identity crisis question ofminorities because it is directly related to theirdevelopment aspect (as claimed by Indian state)particularly when it comes to religious minorities likeMuslims. For example the poverty rate among Muslims inIndia is around 35% and dropout rate is also higher thanother majoritarian communities with high unemploymentrate. The question is that how does Aadhar card addressesthese problems and do it try to present any solution.Here I want to mention one interesting thing that is theproject pegs its legitimacy on what it will do for thepoor. It promises that it will give the poor an identity,with which they may become visible to the state. Herevisibility to state is necessary component as it is statethat is assigned with the task of securing welfare of allsections of society within its territory. Like all theother state projects here also the rhetoric has stayedfocused on the poor, and there has been no discussionregarding the possible downsides of the project. When isbecame clear that “UID number is going to guarantee onlythe identity, not benefits, rights, or entitlements” ittempered the raising of expectations of many, who wereexpecting to cash on this opportunity. Here I want todraw from ideas of James Scott, that the unique idprojects like Aadhar cards denotes a techno-commercialfantasy and the characteristic of a high modernist state,bound to be subverted, bound to fail, (Scott 1999).Regarding this issue of representation ParthaChatterjee’s ideas suggests that large numbers of thepoor will depend crucially for their survival on beingable to choose tactically when to become visible and becounted by the state and when not to be counted by thestate or more correctly when does the state decides to

visualise them and when to ignore them. Further, on alarger level though UIDAI has time and again recognisedthat the “inability to prove identity is one of thebiggest barriers preventing the poor from accessingbenefits and subsidies” and had tried to prove the UIDproject as the obvious answer but the reality is totallydifferent. For example in rural areas, the ability toprove identity is not such a problem. But the actualproblem includes the dimension of caste identity. So thecaste based minorities like Dalits are deprived of theirshare of welfare services by so called majoritariancastes. The question is that how is Aadhar card going todeal with this problem? Further the inability to accessgovernment services is the outcome of distorted powerstructures and lack of information on people part.Introducing an opaque and complex process consisting ofmobile connectivity fingerprint readers, and centralisedverification is not going to solve the problem. So firstthese issues needs a proper address, but it does not meanthat a bio-political project of state like Aadhar cardshould be allowed to function without any checks andbalances.

5. Conclusion-

So as a concluding part in this section I want tosummarise the implication of Aadhar card for minoritiesfrom a bio-political perspective and try to look at thesolution part of the problems that are being posed bythis whole issue of Aadhar card for minorities. So asdiscussed above the Aadhar card is basically serving thebio-political purpose for state that is regulating somesection of people as an individual body and controllingand managing certain sections of people as groups likeminorities for its own benefits. This point I have took

up in the above discussion. Turning to next part, whatcould be its solution part? Should we withdraw the wholeproject and introduce something new which will again beregulating and controlling our existence. I think ratherwe should try to implement some extra features and lawsin the UIADI bill, so that it can be made moreresponsible to the people, to whom it aims to govern.This collection of biometric data features could be doneaway with in the sense that basically this project aimsat providing the welfare services to people so we do notneed their bio-metric data in order to provide welfare topeople.

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