[Reader-list] To Taha Mehmood

Taha Mehmood 2tahamehmood at googlemail.com
Sun Feb 1 18:51:09 IST 2009


Dear Sandeep

Thank you for your response.

I find your argument compelling not because of its tone of resignation or
because it suggests an epicurean view to engage with the social world but
because in your argument I feel an urge to let go the dominant ideas of the
day and move on.

There is of course nothing wrong in following a line of thinking where one
consciously rejects any exercise to interpret dominant ideas in order to
generate new forms of meaning instead take these ideas as given and carrying
on with one's life. However, in my view and my sensibility as a researcher,
which is very limited and limiting field in many ways, I would rather invest
as much time and energy as I could in investigating these ideas, while
suspending judgment and making new meaning. The reason being, it think, it
is a worthwhile time-pass to inquire into the relationship between a man and
his environment. This is not to compare it with or negate an epicurean view
that you so lucidly suggests but to assert that an inquiry into ideas is not
unworthy at all.

In this regard if we view our life as a journey in a sea of ideas, the
current of identity attracts me the most. This current, must I add, is a
strong current, a deep current and a current which seems to be moving a lot
of other ideas of this day. From what ever little I have inquired into the
origins of this current, I have come up with no clear answer. We as a human
race have existed for over five thousand years. Many people have come and
gone in this time. Some of them when they were alive took time off from
drinking beer to think and reflect on this current of identity. But still we
do not have a clear picture as to how this current originated, evolved and
turned into this great force which seems to sweeping us all.

If there is fundamental conceptual confusion on hand, on the other there
seems to be a superficial confidence on part of the national governments and
the corporates regarding identity. And it seems that in pursuit of
harnessing profit and power they have found two legitimizing arguments- one
is poverty and the other is (in)security. We all know how callous any form
of power is when it comes to servicing the needs of the most vulnerable
sections of a society, hence instead of diverting our money which it takes
taxes, to make sure that poorest of the poor get two square meals of food a
day, power of the day is indulging in new excuses, like now it wants
everyone to be fingerprinted to be identified as its own. What does this
tells us-firstly, does power thinks that all of us are criminals? because
finger printing till yesterday was only done on criminals and secondly, even
after repeatedly carrying out identification exercises for over last one
hundred and thirty years, power is not able to either comprehensively
conjecture or comprehensively speculate about the nature of identity.

I find it amusing as I do not understand why there seems to be so much of
faith in a smart id card to deliver us from all the ill that India is facing
right now because we do not know what the 'I' in MNIC stands for or what
'id' in a smart id card means.

Imagine this- Picture our nation as a body. Now this body is afflicted with
twin diseases-poverty and (in)security. Imagine the market (the corporates,
the MNC's, the producers and manufacturers) as an expert. Like a doctor. Now
this doctor tells the patient to take a drug, in this case, it is a smart id
card. The person whose body it is takes this drug trusting the doctor. The
doctor takes his fee and scoots off. Now you tell me what will happen to the
body, if the drug is made of some known and some unknown chemicals? Will the
body react favourably to such a treatment? or Will the body look forward to
more such doses?

Just think about it.

We can always have more conversations on this.

Warm regards

Taha


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