As a matter of principle, I have never voted in Indian elections for the last seven decades. The reason being that our process of democracy is flawed and more oriented towards being dominated by the herd rather than subscribing to the true values of freedom in all its facets. Anyway that is not the point at issue here but the fact remains that because of the above I do not have a Voter’s Identity Card. Some decades back the identity of an Indian citizen was established by identity papers issued by the institution in which you were studying or were employed in. If you were working in the government then it was better still for authenticity. We have all at some time or the other in the early part of our life have had to go and get some document or other certified by a Gazetted officer of the government to make it more acceptable.
The Ration Card was the dominant document which assured you access to hard to get provisions or items, like sugar, rice or wheat, kerosene etc. At one point of time, even baby food was issued against a Birth Certificate and the Ration Card. Thus the Ration Card evolved as an identity for your family unit.
At that point in time only the privileged would be travelling abroad and they would have a Passport and the possession of this document was not as widespread as it is today. But it was a document which infallibly established an individual’s identity because it was acceptable by all countries around the world. It continues to hold its pre-eminent status as an Identity Document even to this day though many wannabe’s like first the Voter’s Identity Card and then later the Aadhaar card have been trying to displace it from this position. But considering that the Passport allows you to travel abroad and is acceptable to other countries makes it pre-eminent.
Used to these identity documents one finds oneself lost in the multiplicity of documents that are existing today. The Voter’s Identity Card is now called EPIC and carries your photograph. It is used to establish identity generally apart from being mandatory for voting purposes in any election. As far as the identity function is concerned, there is another wannabe apart from the Aadhaar card and that is the IPR (Indian Population Register) card. These two have their own uses apart from identity. The former though is trending to dominate all other cards and may shortly become the only card to have.
Apart from this if you drive a vehicle then you have a driving licence which these days comes in the form of a card rather than as a booklet in the past. The driving licence card, if you are caught in a pinch, also doubles as an identity card because it has a photo on it. In addition these days where Medical Insurance or Mediclaim as it is known is a must and quite popular in the urban areas has its own card for the insured person. There are also many cards issued by companies, institutions, community bodies, clubs etc. to verify the identity of the employee or member.
Thus you see that a citizen in modern day India has a plethora of cards at his or her disposal for purposes of proving identity apart from other reasons like Employer’s Identity Card, Passport, EPIC, Aadhaar Card, IPR Card, Ration Card, Driving Licence, Mediclaim Card etc. etc. It is almost like in the early days of the Credit card launches and in fact even today the wealth of a man was known by the number of credit cards he could flash in his wallet little knowing whether the fellow could pay his dues run up against the cards! Thus for identity you can proudly ask the questioner – Which one do you want? Because you could flash any one of the 7 named above.
However, many a time over the last few years in trying to get some card or the other all of us may have had to face some difficult situations. Like when we first applied for the Voter’s Card we were asked to produce an Identity card for which we gave the Passport but then the passport showed our Bangalore address while we were applying in Goa. Thus we were told that the passport would do for identity but then we had to submit a proof of address for which the Ration card was asked. No amount of explaining that we had not used a Ration card for the last three decades or more was met by disbelief by the clerk with whom we were interacting. Inspite of telling him that we did not renew our ration card since we thought that there were more needy persons who could avail of the commodities on the ration card, the disbelief was compounded. Finally by that time they had started accepting the bank pass book as proof of address which we gave. But even after doing all this and multiple visits to the government office concerned, we still did not get our Voter’s Card. So I decided that enough is enough and that we would not apply for it again. So we do not have a Voter’s Card.
When you went to renew your Driving Licence, one was told that the Aadhaar card was not acceptable to them because the Motor Vehicles Act did not specify it. So who are we to argue so we gave them the same bank pass book copy certified by a notary! The Aadhaar thus is not a universal id document across India. In fact it has a competitor in the IPR (Indian Population Register) card which has a parallel purpose and was introduced in many of the coastal States and those where terrorism was more incident. This was all done at multiple cost and effort to the Aadhaar card and as information goes the IPR card is on its way out.
Another incident which happened in the same context was the Goa government had introduced a medical insurance cover for its entire population who had proof of residence 5 years and more in the State. The good news was that the Aadhaar card was the acceptable document but since the medical insurance card was to be given for the whole family, they asked us to produce ration card for family identity proof or marriage certificate since it was only me and my wife were applying. We explained to them as earlier that we had discontinued the ration long time back as explained above and at the time we had got married obtaining the marriage certificate was not compulsory for Hindus. Again we were looked at strangely for first not having a ration card and then more strangely for not having a marriage certificate and the glances given to us were as if we were living in sin. In Goa, obtaining the marriage certificate is compulsory for marriages of all religious communities. Though we told them that each of our passports showed the other as the spouse, they initially sternly told us that was not ‘enough’ but finally they accepted the passport endorsement as proof of husband and wife. Like they say alls well that ends well.
But it is important for us to look at the fact that we need to have just three cards the Aadhaar, the Passport and the Government Mediclaim (if available in each State) to universally prove identity across India with all agencies for the convenience of all concerned.
