7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents

Subscription ⁞ News Letter ⁞ Fair Use ⁞ Disclaimer ⁞ Submission ⁞ Contact ⁞ About ⁞     

Home ⁞ World ⁞ India ⁞ Climate Change ⁞ Globalisation ⁞ Patriarchy ⁞ Human Rights ⁞ Life/Philosophy ⁞

There are no breaking news at the moment

Site Search
UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The
Greatest Prestidigitator Site search...

in India — by Prem Kumar Vijayan — July 14, 2017 Search

Join Our News Letter

Name:

E-mail:

Subscribe Unsubscribe

Latest Popular Comments Tags

The Italian Kautalya, Niccolo Machiavelli, is supposed to have said that ‘Politics is the art of deception’
(or maybe it was the Indian Machiavelli, Kautilya, himself). Whoever it was, he has an able student in India Now! - K P Sasi
the Indian prime minister (PM) – a prestidigitator par excellence. Now, a good prestidigitator is one
who will distract you with some dazzling spectacle performed by one hand, while the real trickery
happens quietly with the other, which you don’t see. But a great prestidigitator is one who will hide
Flood Havoc In Assam: Issues
the trickery in the spectacle itself – so you can see it happening, and still not see how thoroughly you
And Concerns - Meenakshi
are being fooled – or even that you are being fooled at all.
Gogoi
We are today witnessing one of the greatest political prestidigitations in the history of India – perhaps
of the world. Over the last few months, the country has been rocked by a series of politico-economic Pakistan Supreme Court To
earthquakes, starting with the infamous demonetization move. This was followed up with the dramatic Decide The Fate Of Prime
acceleration in the enforcement of the Aadhar-UID scheme, culminating in the directive to link Minister After Damning
Aadhar to subsidies on the one hand, and to the ling of income tax on the other. And then, even Corruption Probe Report - Abdus Sattar
before we could blink the spots out of our eyes from that spectacle, along came GST, and the furore Ghazali
over it. As the dust from these earthquakes slowly settles, when we look back at the destruction,
certain patterns are slowly becoming discernible. They are as ominous as the shadow of a mushroom Australian ABC Ignores &
cloud. Censors Horrendous, Australia-
Complicit Air Pollution Deaths -
In this piece, I aim to trace out those patterns. It is a somewhat lengthy piece, because sometimes, in Dr Gideon Polya
order to see what lies beneath, or behind, or beyond that which is obvious, it is necessary to look
elsewhere – to trace the signs of that which is hidden through its re ection in a series of Baba Ramdev Launches
metaphorical mirrors placed around it – rather like Medusa’s head, and in this instance, far more ‘Security’ Business: Should We
deadly. I ask the reader’s patience and indulgence; read through to the end, and hopefully, the Be Worried? - Binu Mathew
patterns I trace will become fully, and awfully, comprehensible.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 1/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents
The rst of these is evidence of the calibrated sequentiality with which each of these events unfolded. Attack On Amarnath Pilgrims Sparks
At rst smell, they appear unrelated; but the stench of something rotting in the state of saffron grows International Outcry, But Why
strong soon enough, when we look at them closely, especially in terms of their effects and No Condemnation On Attack
consequences. Let’s take demonetization, where it all started: it was unrolled with much trumpet- On Minorities? - Gurpreet
blowing as the mother of all surgical strikes on black-money and corruption. Within a month the tune Singh
had changed completely: all references to black money vanished, and the entire exercise was being
referred to solely as a drive towards a cashless economy.[1] To this end, a new set of directives were Physical And Sexual Assault On
issued, that tightened the ow of cash transactions – e.g., limiting the number of free cash A Transgender Woman By A
withdrawals and deposits, placing a ceiling of Rs 2 lakhs on cash transactions, etc. Meanwhile, the Group Of Army Personnel -
baf ing appearance of the Rs 2000 note, at a time when the claim was that high-denomination notes Press Release
were being pulled out of circulation because they facilitated black money, was repeatedly brushed
aside with non-sequiturs – till it came to light that the new notes had been selectively and secretly A Question of Accountability:

released in large quantities well before their of cial release. As of December 2016, a total of Rs 242 Cardinal Pell, The Vatican And
crores in new currency had been seized from various parts of the country[2] – and since this is only Child Abuse - Dr Binoy
the amount that has actually come to light, one can safely say that it is no more than the tip of a very Kampmark

large iceberg of new currency that was pre-released, to facilitate the conversion from old to new, for
On the Role of “Pressure” In
those bhakts who had stashed away more than they should have. And nally, when it became clear
The Elementary School Realm
that only about Rs 75,000 crores would not return – as opposed to the government’s anticipated
of the U.S. - Rachel Olivia
gure of Rs 3 lakh crores[3] – it cast an even longer shadow of doubt on the ef cacy of
O'Connor
demonetization to meet its ( rst) touted objective, of explosing black money.

So what was achieved? A large step towards the cashless economy – in fact, the single biggest and UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By
most coercive move towards a cashless economy – disguised as an attack on black-money, but no The Greatest Prestidigitator -
less coercive for that. At the time, Mukesh Ambani – a main character in our narrative, as we will see Prem Kumar Vijayan
– set a very large cat among the pigeons when he praised demonetization on the grounds that, with
demonetization, ‘India has taken a big leap forward from a predominantly cash economy to a Three Years of Modi Rule And
digitally enabled optimal cash economy. It has brought unproductive money into productive use.’[4] Kashmir - Basharat Shameem
This provoked much speculation – that this was a move to bring cash into the cash-strapped banks,
immiserated by bad loans to big corporate players, so that those very corporate players (perhaps like Stand Up To Anglo-Zionist
Ambani himself) could avail of it ‘productively’; or that it was mooted by foreign nancial interests, Fascism - Ghali Hassan
seeking to enter the nancial sector in India, and make a killing in the massive market for retail
banking and electronic payments. Disgruntled sections of the middle class complained, through
various Whatsapp messages, that this was a way for the nancial corporations to either steal their India Now! - K P Sasi

money (yet again), or make money off the hapless customer by charging a commission on every
single transaction – and all this may well have been true, perhaps remains so. But this was still not
the real trick, although it too – like all good prestidigitation – was hidden in plain sight, and was Revolutionary Tales Told By
revealed only after the whole ‘I shall uncover black-money’ spectacle was revealed to be a no-show. Women - Suchitra M
No, like a Chinese puzzle box, with layer within layer, this layer too was still part of the distraction. The
real trick, in fact, was not out yet.
Dangers of Vigilante Politics -
At the same time that demonetization happened, in an apparently unrelated way, our hero Mukesh Pushkar Raj
Ambani’s own Reliance Infocomm Ltd (RIL) had brought out its Aadhar-linked Jio connection plan,
again with much fanfare. It caused a minor ‘earthquake’ by offering free calls and data, albeit for a
Chinese Peace Nobel Laureate
limited period, leading to a frenzied rush to get the connection – after all, who can say ‘no’ to
Liu Xiaobo Is Dead - Dr Vivek
freebies? In the space of 6 short months, by March 2017, Jio had registered more than 100 million
Kumar Srivastava
users – a little less than a tenth of the population of the country. More signi cantly, since the Jio
plan’s USP is free data, this gure accounts for almost a quarter of all internet users – approximately
What Does It Mean To Be
450 million[5] – and about one third of all smartphone users – approximately 300 million[6] – in the
Human? - Sally Dugman
country. The freebies raised few questions, and even competitors like Bharti Airtel only raised
complaints about ‘predatory’ marketing and unfair pricing practices. No one wondered why Reliance
would invest a whopping Rs 150,000 crores – and that is just the initial investment[7] – for this Come Visit My Home, Be My
scheme, just to give it away free. Nobody, not even shareholders, raised questions when the company Guest - Press Release
of cially reported a net loss of Rs 22.5 crores for the half-year till March 2017[8], nor with the news
that it will report a further loss of a massive Rs 19,600 crores in 2017-18, or in fact that it will begin
Fighting The Wrong Enemy:
to record pro ts only ve years from now.[9] Even accounting for ‘predatory’ marketing tactics, in
Why Americans Hate Muslims -
anticipation of future returns, this is a monumental gamble – unless there is a hidden card, a dead
Dr Ramzy Baroud
certitude that the investment will pay off. So, what gives?

Terrorism Is A Tool Used By The

In May 2016, well before the Jio plan was launched, ‘Reliance Infocomm Ltd’s…digital wallet app
Militarily Strong, Not Just By
JioMoney made a quiet debut on Google Play Store’, with the speci c intention of enabling ‘cashless
The Weak - Rima Najjar
payments through smartphones’.[10] In March 2017, it was reported that ‘with its Lyf brand [of
smartphones] Reliance Digital was the fth-biggest smartphone vendor of India in Q3 2016’ – i.e., a
little before the demonetization move was being initiated – and that Reliance Jio was ‘collaborating
with Google to develop an affordable Android-based 4G VoLTE smartphone that will work exclusively Videos See All »

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 2/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents
on the Jio network.’[11] This ‘affordable smartphone’ – estimated to be anywhere between Rs 999
and Rs 2000 – is expected to be out by the end of this year. I’ll come back to the signi cance of that
Chennai Poromboke Paadal ft. T…
date in a bit (for that is in fact the key to the nal revelation from the master prestidigitator). For now,
let’s just draw out the patterns that are emerging: RIL brings out its cashless payment app just
months before the single biggest and most coercive drive towards cashless payment happens, in the
garb of demonetization, and follows it up with free data – not just free voice calls, but free data, which
is essential for cashless payment to happen – in its Jio plan, at monumental costs; and then backs it
up still further with massive sales of its smartphones at the exact same time – a program it seeks to
intensify, in its collaboration with Google. Coincidence? Even if we didn’t know that the head of RIL Chennai Poromboke Paadal ft. TM
enjoys a very close personal relationship with the prime minister, it would be dif cult to dismiss this
Krishna
as coincidence. The fact that he does; and that his rst response – that ‘unproductive’ money was
now available for ‘productive’ use – was made in the context of the fact that, because of Jio, RIL is in
debt to the tune of Rs 47,000 crores; indicate that these developments were far from coincidental.
Add to that the little detail that the RBI governor, Urjit Patel, the PM’s demolition man for the entire
demonetization process, was once President, Business Development, in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance
Industries (and what a way to develop his business!) and any remaining doubts will vanish.
Editor’s Picks
But this is not yet our “Aha!” moment. If we now believe that this entire process was therefore
undertaken simply to bene t Mukesh Ambani and RIL, we would again be guilty of being taken in by
the spectacle: the real trick still remains concealed. It is certainly true that RIL was a central player in
this game, but we must recall the enormous gamble it apparently took; and even with demonetization
coercing its clients into using its cashless transaction app, JioMoney, and even with its subscriber
base constituting a third of all smartphone users in the country, it was, and remains, a long shot to
gamble on, given that, by its own estimates, it would break into pro t only after ve years. That is a
long period of uncertainty in the life of a business. Furthermore, even if, hypothetically, it stands to
bene t enormously after ve years, the fact is that, so do all the other telecom corporates playing the
cashless transaction market – and that too, probably much earlier, since they don’t have the burden
of the massive investments made by RIL. So – as we noted earlier – unless some other unknown
factor is at play here, that has erased the uncertainties for RIL, and guaranteed its stakes, the role of Indian Fascism:
RIL remains somewhat baf ing. Radicalization or Entropy?
Another, equally pertinent question arises in this context: if this exercise was undertaken to bene t The Choice Is Ours!
RIL, and the telecom sector at large, what was the quid pro quo? How did this current regime gain by Binu Mathew — 1 comment
from all this? Money in the bank? Perhaps, to some extent; but since all this money is now ‘white’, it
The second book from Countercurrents.org
has very speci c and limited utility, and could hardly have been the driving motive behind
publishing is out. It is a book on the cow
demonetization. A reputation for transparency and honesty? Possibly – although, again, this would
politics in India and the resultant lynchings
seem a somewhat excessive way to achieve that – and in light of all that we have noted above, rather
that’s happening around the country. It is
contradictory too. It’s time to look at the third ‘earthquake’ that happened, to answer these questions.
titled “The Political Economy Of Beef Ban”.

This one came a few months later, although it too, like the others above, had been carefully This volume contains 57 articles on beef
orchestrated for several months before, its base built even over several years before. In April 2016, and the politics around it, how it has

the UIDAI announced that it had generated more than a billion Aadhar numbers, covering 93% of all affected the social fabric of India and the

adults, 67% of children in the age 5-18 age group, and 20% of children less than 5 years old. By people, [Read More…]
March 2017, about one year later, this gure was up to 1.12 billion – an addition of approximately
120 million, in the course of one year – perhaps the biggest jump in Aadhar registrations ever. Then,
Share this:
through two directives – one, a circular issued on the 2nd of November 2016, bang in the middle of
demonetization, and the second, the passage of the Finance Bill on the 22nd of March 2017 – the
government effectively made Aadhar mandatory for any and every nancial transaction in the        
77 2

country, for ling of all tax returns, as well as for availing various services, including pensions, the
largesse of the Public Distribution System, employment under the various employment schemes, etc.
    
Among these latter, of particular signi cance for us is the fact that banks and the telecom
corporations have rushed to make Aadhar mandatory. In all of these, Aadhar was and is being
“India United By
encouraged to be treated as ‘the primary identi er’ of the citizen. This key phrase has been the
Blood! Share It, Don’t
cause of some confusion, because, on the one hand the government has strenuously sought to
maintain that Aadhar will not replace any other identi cation and citizenship documents, such as the Spill It” Campaign
passport, ration card, voter ID, etc; on the other, when the Finance Bill was passed in March, the Springs Up Across
Finance Minister indicated the possibility that Aadhar could, in fact, replace other documents like the India
voter ID, Pan card, etc.[12] by Binu Mathew — 1
comment
Almost at the same time, the GST was declared as the new transformative event in the economy of
the country. For a tax-reform that the PM repeatedly spins as the ‘Good and Simple Tax’, the GST
seems to have baf ed even the best nancial and accounting minds, but that is not what I am
As India Descends Into
concerned with – it is, to my mind, just more spectacle and distraction. What is pertinent for me is
that the GST, like other nancial transactions, will have to be complied with electronically, preferably Darkness Let’s Spend
using software designed speci cally for that purpose. Further, the government plans to link GST with

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 3/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents
the Pan card[13] – and since that has to be linked to the Aadhar, the GST is effectively linked to An Hour For
Aadhar too. So now, through linking income tax and the GST to the Aadhar, every individual in every Communal Harmony
sector of production and income, and his/her earnings and wages, will be directly tracked by the by Binu Mathew — 6
government. comments

What does all this mean? If we step back from the dots we have been connecting, the picture that
emerges is not a happy one. In order to explicate it, let’s start with rst principles – because, clearly,
this master prestidigitator has, with frightening thoroughness: Archives
Every individual is a seller and a buyer. That is, every individual who earns an income sells
his/her labour, either indirectly, through the production of goods that are then sold, or directly, in July 2017
the form of services. The same individual also has to buy goods and services sold by others, for June 2017
his/her needs (and that of their families).
May 2017
The productions and consumptions of this individual, recorded through every transaction they
April 2017
make, are now open to scrutiny, with the records themselves now the property of the state – which
is why it was so easy for the Attorney General, Mukul Rohtagi, to argue boldly that “The arguments March 2017
on so-called privacy and bodily intrusion is bogus,” he said, adding, “one cannot have an absolute February 2017
right over his or her body”.[14]
January 2017
Further, in the present scenario, banks and other nancial institutions will mediate all
December 2016
transactions, since all (or at least, the vast majority of) transactions have to be electronic. And since
free withdrawals and deposits of cash are restricted, access to one’s own money in the form of cash November 2016

is also controlled by the same institutions (no doubt Mukul Rohtagi will argue that one cannot have October 2016
an absolute right over his or her money – which in any case is the logical corollary: after all, if you September 2016
don’t have full rights over your body, how can you claim full rights over the earnings and spendings
August 2016
of your body?). Earlier you owned your money, and you had control of it; now, even if you have some
July 2016
claim to owning it, you have little or no control over how to use it.
In other words, the simple individual-to-individual transactions that were common till now, will June 2016
not only be di cult, they will be illegal: the state, or its nancial representative in the form of the
nancial institution that mediates your transactions, must be a necessary third party that will
mediate and record all transactions, and charge a fee for doing so.
Every individual is also a social being – meaning that s/he is always already in a series of
individual-to-individual relations. In today’s world, much of this social interaction happens online,
usually through the very same instrument by which the said individual conducts cashless
transactions, and often with those very other individuals. In other words, in this format of the digital
economy, a payment made between a husband and wife, or a girl and her boyfriend, or a parent
and child – or even in relation to them – is monitored by the telecom agent, as well as subject to the
all-seeing gaze of Aadhar.

To sum up this miserable picture: between the telecom companies, especially RIL (which is not only
aiming for a monopoly, but, through its alliance with Google, will become a formidable instrument of
mass espionage on the unwary citizenry), the nancial institutions and the state in the form of the
UIDAI, the citizen – every citizen – can be subjected to simple pressures, starting with disconnection
of the data connection; escalating to summons to explain various transactions, with possibly even
threats to reveal his/her private transactions; and culminating the erasure of his/her Aadhar, and all Follow @Countercurrents
that that entails.

Suddenly, the corporatized state and its statutorily empowered corporate agents are not out there
anymore, they are here, between us, deep in our lives, intimate as our shadows. This is not an invasion
of privacy. It is an erasure of privacy.

But the story doesn’t end here, the trick is still not complete. In fact, the worst is probably yet to
come. Once we realize the full implications of this pattern, the question that must arise is, Why? At
rst glance, the answer seems obvious – it is about control. But control to what end? Here, we must
recall a very innocuous-seeming statement, made almost in passing, by the Finance Minister: that
Aadhar can replace the Voter ID. Now imagine an election in which every voter’s vote is individually
knowable. Imagine this being justi ed in the name of transparency – for after all, if the voter’s body is
not his/hers, why should his/her vote be sacrosanct? Then imagine the susceptibility of dissenters
and even fence-sitters to pressure to vote a particular way, through this enormous, totalitarian
apparatus of control that is being put in place in the name of ghting corruption, and that old
Countercurrents
stinking chestnut, national security. And now imagine the India that will emerge from that election.
google.com/+CountercurrentsOrg

It is the shadow of this imagination that is now discernible in the patterns we have drawn here. This is Educate! Organize! Agitate!
what we are all being fooled for: for the creation of an India that is unrecognizable, through the most
Follow +1
devious and insidious of means possible. This is the nal trick that the master prestidigitator is
leading up to – hidden in plain sight, in all this dust and noise, discernible as no more than a shadow. + 511

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 4/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents
And it is the shadow of a mushroom cloud rising up out of the ashes of this nation, in the not too
distant future.
The Political Economy Of Beef
Prem Kumar Vijayan, Assistant Professor, Dept of English, Hindu College, Delhi
Ban
[1]     See http://datanewsroom.com/a-total-of-rs-twenty-two-crore-ninety-lakh-and-fourty-eight-
thousand-has-been-seized-in-new-currency-notes-till-december-7th/, for data on these.

[2]     See http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cash-crunch-rs-242-crore-in-new-currency-

seized-after-demonetisation/story-ZFidspQbfQqcIGbQPcgtPJ.html

[3]     See http://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/demonetisation-black-money-cash-

crunch-rs-14-lakh-crore-in-old-notes-are-back-only-rs-75000-crore-out-rbi4465542/

[4]     See  http://english.manoramaonline.com/business/news/mukesh-ambani-showers-praises-on-

pm-modi-demonetization.html

[5]     See http://www.livemint.com/Industry/QWzIOYEsfQJknXhC3HiuVI/Number-of-Internet-users-in-

India-could-cross-450-million-by.html

[6]     See http://tech. rstpost.com/news-analysis/number-of-smartphone-users-crosses-300-

million-in-india-as-shipments-grew-18-percent-359075.html

[7]     See http://www.livemint.com/Companies/ncT04NLRTtEMDEHAWdMPGN/Reliance-Jio-initial-

investment-at-Rs150000-crore-Mukesh-A.html

[8]     See http://www.livemint.com/Industry/wVDwB0wKqaXxqVFqEWp4kK/Reliance-Jio-crosses-108- Countercurrents Anthology-Vol 1

million-subscribers-claims-to-be-l.html

[9]     See http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-jio-will-register-a-loss-of-rs-

19600-crore-in-2017-18-ii /57991291

[10]   See http://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/Reliance-Jio-Money-Wallet-silently-launched-on-

Google-Play-Store/articleshow/52207235.cms

[11]   See http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/reliance-jio-google-working-on-low-cost-4g-volte-

android-smartphone-report-1669343

[12]   See http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/aadhaar-to-become-only-id-

proof-may-replace-pan-voter-id-too-117032201349_1.html

[13]   See http://www. nancialexpress.com/economy/gst-to-be-linked-with-pan-card-heres-how-

government-plans-to-prevent-tax-evasion/744343/

[14]   See http://www. rstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-dont-have-absolute-right-on-

their-body-privacy-argument-bogus-govt-tells-sc-3420398.html
Countercurrents Youtube
Share this:
Channel
            
185

Tags: Aadhaar Card, Aadhaar Leaks

Tw eet Like 185 0

Leave a Reply

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 5/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents

Enter your comment here...

Annual Subscription Join Our News Letter Submission Guidelines Popular Tags

If you like what you are reading
please join our annual
subscription programme.
Countercurrents.org is a 100%
reader supported website. We
believe independent journalism
Keep Uptodate With The World!!!
Join Our News Letter Today !! We
tell you what the mainstream
media fails to tell you, or hides
from you. These are the things
that really matter. The things
Countercurrents.org welcomes
articles from writers, activists,
Ahwazi Arab American
journalists and also from our Imperialism Annihilate
readers who have no prior
experience in writing, on topics
Caste Bangladesh Beef Ban
that we deal with regularly or on Beef Ban Lynching Black Lives Matter

will function properly only if it is which may determine the fate of topics that you think need a Brexit Burhan Wani

economically independent. We planet earth! The future of our wider circulation. Kindly use the
do not accept advertising by our children! In a word, the survival word "SUBMISSION" in the
Climate Change
policy. We would rather die than of the species! To receive our subject line You can submit your
Counter Solutions Dakota
accept advertisements from daily news digest please click articles to
corporate giants. A small annual HERE editor@countercurrents.org. Access Pipeline
subscription sustains us. Get an More Submission guidelines are
annual subscription HERE HERE Demonetisation
Donald Trump
Education Environment

Global Warming GMO

Health Hillary Clinton

Hindutva Human Rights
India-Pakistan Peace Initiative Iraq

ISIS Israel Kashmir

Narmada Bachao Andolan Nuclear

War Palestine Patriarchy

Peak Oil Poetry Refugee Crisis

Resource Crisis RSS Russia

Standing Rock Sioux

Protest Syria The
Commons Turkey US
Elections 2016 US

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 6/7
7/16/2017 UID – The Greatest Trick Yet, By The Greatest Prestidigitator | Countercurrents
Travel Ban We Need Their Voices
Today Yemen

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/uid-the-greatest-trick-yet-by-the-greatest-prestidigitator/ 7/7