A foundation built on quick sand.

A few days back the Supreme Court gave its verdict on Aadhaar, which is a twelve digit number unique to every citizen, based on biometric details, such as photographs, prints of all 10 fingers and iris scans of individuals. In a majority judgement, the Supreme Court said that Aadhaar is legal, that it was fine to sneak it into law through a money bill, which does not need assent of the upper house the Rajya Sabha, and it is not an invasion of privacy. The court said that the information cannot be shared with security agencies, private companies, such as banks and telephone companies, cannot ask for Aadhaar and it cannot be made mandatory for school admissions. The problem with the judgement is that the court did not ask why it is mandatory for those of us who pay taxes but get nothing from the government, no pension or healthcare, and why sneak it through the money bill when it has nothing to do with the budget. By accepting it as legal the court has allowed the government to pass amendments to override the courts objections. Only Justice Chandrachud had the moral courage to call it totally unconstitutional. "The entire Aadhaar programme, since 2009, suffers from constitutional infirmities and violations of fundamental rights," he wrote. "The passing Aadhaar Act as money bill is a fraud on the constitution." According to legal experts the judgement opens the door to many legal challenges and, since it takes years , and often decades for a case to be resolved we can expect the fun to go on for our lifetimes. The Supreme Court took no notice of the fact that from the beginning the whole Aadhaar project was built on mendacity, on the use of force and on trying to convince the Supreme Court that Indians do not have a right to privacy, which took a 9-bench court to strike down. Animals do not have a concept of privacy, living in the open and conducting their bodily functions in accordance with the laws of nature. Arguing that Indians have no right to privacy means that, according to this government, we are all animals. Biologically we are, but the problem is that human beings have a right to kill animals. We kill fish, chicken, goats and any animal we think of as food. Naturally, the government then argued that Indians do not have a right to their own bodies, to which the judges did not express any outrage. The whole argument has been about the rights of the poor but surely even a destitute person has a right to be respected and the right to refuse to be prostituted for survival. This is what activists N Dey and A Roy argue. "We have a court which is innocent of ground realities, and has ruled based on figures that are nothing less than a flight of fancy." Aadhaar means foundation. Sadly the foundation of Aadhaar is pure lies. Which the Court meekly accepted.