Former Socialist India Becomes Fascist

by David Kramer
Apr. 02, 2010

Twenty years ago, the people of India gave up their workers’ “paradise” and switched to a market-based economy. Since then, many of the millions of poor people of India have been able to vastly improve their material lives. India has a growing middle class (though a huge number of people in the country’s rural area still live in abject poverty). Hourly wages have doubled over the last decade (as opposed to US wages stagnating--and even slightly declining in some sectors--over the last decade). And, “amazingly,” this wage increase was accomplished with nary a labor union in sight. All of this is good news.

The bad news is that the people of India are about to morph into the sheeple of India. They are going to allow their government to issue national ID cards (“अपने कागज, कृपया”)* to every citizen within the next few years. Of course, the reason given for this step is “obviating the need for multiple proofs of identity for citizens while availing any government service or for personal needs like opening bank accounts or seeking telephone connections.” Really? It’s funny how for decades people didn’t need a government identification card to open up a bank account** or have a telephone line--yet people were able to avail themselves of these services very efficiently. As far as anyone using a government service when there was a more efficient private sector alternative…

The sheeple of India are in for a rude awakening when they find out that their national ID “convenience” card was really implemented for obviating the difficulty in keeping track of every single person in India by their “caring” government.

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*”Your papers, please” in Hindi.

**In Austria, you could actually possess an anonymous bank account (sparbuch)--and even an anonymous brokerage account (wertpapierbuch). Of course, those days of personal financial freedom are gone in the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.