[Reader-list] Smart Cards in J&K

Taha Mehmood 2tahamehmood at googlemail.com
Thu Aug 6 17:26:22 IST 2009


Dear Sanjay,

Thank you for posting the I-card article on Kashmir. Kashmir is
special case when it comes to identity cards. Just as, there are news
stories abound, from Kashmir and elsewhere, on the need for having an
original identity card, so as, I am sure there will a few stories,
from Kashmir and elsewhere,  about the presence of fake identity
cards.

 I hope that, we, on the reader list should read few stories from
Kashmir which represent the 'counter' narrative of identity, that is,
stories about 'fake identity' cards.

The reason being, in popular media fake identity cards are constantly
linked to the figure of terrorists,especially with respect to Kashmir.

Primarily because, the boundaries tend to become slightly fuzzy when
it comes to separating a good kashmiri  from a bad one, therefore
identity cards becomes an important part of the narrative of
verification of the self.

I think,  it would be interesting, for us, to get a sense of this
entanglement of concepts like identity, piracy, knowledge, power, and
the formation of moral/social/cultural/regional self.

The identity equation generally allows for a simple construction of
good and bad citizen, like,

fake identity (may tends towards, one being a ) terrorist/illegal immigrant

v/s

real identity (maynot tends towards, one being a) terrorist/illegal immigrant

One of the claims of proponents of MNIC/UID is that terrorism will
gradually fade away post MNIC. Further more digital cards being touted
as a kind of anti poverty measure too. I wonder, how much of the above
equation represents the reality in Kashmir and elsewhere?

Warm regards

Taha


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