Make strategic retreat

The report, “SC to set up Constitution Bench to hear pleas against Aadhaar” (October 31), is a telling commentary on the journey of the Unique Identity Authority of India — from being conceived as an innocuous provider of identity to becoming a tool for duplication of beneficiaries of government subsidy programmes. With every passing day, Aadhaar is acquiring a monstrosity of its own in the public mind space.

Except the days of the Emergency, which witnessed a version of the German concept of Polizeistaat (police state), most of independent India has seen Rechtsstaat (legal or constitutional state). Who would have thought that the very leaders, who suffered the most during Emergency, would be the ones to take the concept further! Is it time to have our own concept of an Aadhaar state?

The alacrity with which the government is embedding Aadhaar into various databases may soon lead to a situation beyond redemption, unless the Supreme Court decides against its universal use. 

The government could have balanced discussions on Aadhaar, keeping in mind the mood in the country and the privacy judgment. If necessary, it should make a strategic retreat.

Meanwhile, a genuine assessment of the impact of Aadhaar should be available, which the institutions concerned must report. The government can then continue convincing citizens about its Aadhaar policies a few years down the line. An outright defeat in court would be good for neither the government nor the country.

Y P Issar via email

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