"The Stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year... carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand."
This is the opening line of The Invisible Man, H.G Wells's masterpiece. At one level, it is a commonplace occurrence - a stranger arrives in a town, nobody knows where from, and he sets up life anew. At another, it is the stuff of Oscar-winning film - aided, of course, by suitably portentous music and evocative camerawork. But if India's greatest social experiment to date is to work as hoped, a scene like this may never again happen. Not here, at least.
I mean, of course, the UID, or unique identification number, that will be given to each and every Indian citizen.
Last week I stood in line for a few hours to enroll for this thing. A couple of tech-savvy and earnest young men manned the powerful laptops that ran the program. On reaching the front of the queue, the applicant would hand over a simple form with details like father's name, address, date of birth and so on, along with two proofs of Identity and address. The agent would quickly type up this information, and proceed to Record a series of biometric data. First, a photograph of the face ("remove glasses, and no smile, please.") Then, a close-up photo of the eyes ("make look big.") And finally, he would record the ten Fingerprints ("thumbs together, pressing hard please.")
By any standards, that's pretty comprehensive. When the programme is officially rolled out, from Cuddalore to Gopalganj, any Government department with a computer and some scanning equipment will be able to establish who I am. I may have lied about my father's name, but I cannot really lie about my eyes and fingerprints. And so nobody can Falsify being me, and nobody can steal my entitlements.
But then, presumably, I cannot falsify who I am either. I certainly cannot be you, and may struggle to be some imaginary guy. So what does this do for the thousands who, every year, leave their homes to set up a new life in another place?
Well, if they have murdered or stolen or brought down the government with an anti-corruption rally, they may not deserve to get away. For that the UID may even help track them down (provided the suspects submit to having their fingerprints verified, of course. And have a UID to begin with.) But if they simply seek to start over, break links from their past? What then?
Think of the couples that elope and change their names for fear of communal or familial retribution. And what of the third- and fourth-born sons with no hope of inheriting anything from their parents, whose fate is to make for themselves? Or of the downtrodden or ostracised? Will the UID weigh them down like millstones around their necks? Are they never to be free of the shackles of the past? Will Big Brother be able to track them down anywhere they go?
I don't know. While all this unique identity business is great from an entitlement, justice, delivery and efficiency point-of-view, it isn't so great for the romantics. For me, at least, there will be no showing up in Jhumri Talaiya early in February, my only possessions the shirt on my back and my new boxer-briefs, looking for a fresh start to life.
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Thanks to the UID, I am now the utterly visible man. The end of innocence, what?
