Baijnath, who used to drive our car, has seen better days. A few years after he came with me to Bangalore from Delhi, his driving licence, which is his lifeline, came up for renewal. He could have got it done by himself but I chose to accompany him to the local Regional Transport Office (RTO). That helped.
I had by then developed the art of dealing with public officials in Karnataka. They were somewhat different from their counterparts in New Delhi or Kolkata. In New Delhi, I could get things done by using my journalistic identity and going straight to the senior official in residence. I could also approach a tout and for a per-determined sum get the job done with speed and predictability. In 15 years, I have done both and marvelled at the smooth way the alternative system operates.
The Kolkata model is the same but less predictable. And in any case, you can’t get anything done in Kolkata in a single visit. The alternative route thrives in Karnataka too but walking up to an official and speaking in good English, while looking respectable, helps you get the job done even without having to introduce yourself as a journalist. To use that channel in Delhi, you have to be a VIP. And a journalist, in Delhi’s pecking order, is at least a petty VIP.
So the first time, when Baijnath was staying with me and I took him to RTO, his driving licence got renewed like a dream. I also got mine renewed the other day through the legit route outlined above, without being able to drop the journalistic calling card since I had retired. But my retiring has made a big difference to Baijnath’s life. He no longer works with me – I can’t afford him – and has moved out to a semi slum.
Getting the driving licence renewed this time was an altogether different experience for him. The big catch was establishing proof of residence. He approached a tout, in a couple of days produced a tenancy agreement on stamped paper with the owner of the semi-jhopri where he lived and eventually got his driving licence in two weeks by being poorer by Rs 1,200! When he told me this the other day, there was visible relief on his face. He said, “What if I had not got the renewed licence before the old one expired?”
If you think establishing proof of residence is a problem only with the illiterate or the semi-literate, then you are mistaken. Our son, who is in Mumbai trying to build a career in film making, lives in a similar no man’s land as Baijnath. Several youngsters slum it in an apartment in Andheri, there being a constant turnover. There is an agreement with the landlord but that persona almost invariably changes every 11 months. It takes almost two months to get in hand the tenant’s copy of the agreement. So there is really a nine-month window every 11 months during which you have to satisfy officialdom that you don’t live on the pavement.
There is also a problem with these agreements. In most cases, the broker – usually you see little of the landlord – gives you a signed photocopy of the stamped agreement. In most cases, officialdom needs an “original” stamped agreement to verify the copy. Even if you were able to produce one, banks sometimes ask for a registered agreement in case you want to open an account. Some are willing to accept a notarised one, some aren’t.
All these travails came home to roost for our son and I when recently he had his wallet pickpocketed on a local train. With it went the bank ATM card and, worse, his PAN card. (He was too upset for me to ask him why on earth he was travelling on a local train with his PAN card.) Now he has to carry his passport while travelling by air or rail (a ticket bought on the internet requires proof of identity). A duplicate PAN card will be sent to him only at his Bangalore address, where he lived when he had first applied for it. To receive it, he will have to leave work and be in Bangalore for two weeks or more. Or he will have to apply for a change of residence with proof of residence in Mumbai. There are ways of getting round each or all of these but only with subterfuges. If some mishap causes him to lose his passport, then, in the 61st year of the republic, he will stand in danger of being unpersoned.
A lot of these travails of ordinary and not so ordinary folks will end once that great gift from heaven and Nandan Nilekani, the unique identity (UID), comes into being. Then you could be homeless and still have an identity and armed with it you could do many things, even without a proper proof of residence.
But hold it. Deliverance can still be denied. Officialdom will go by the UID because it will be difficult to forge. It will identify you biometrically, with the help of machines that will read the iris of your eyes and the fingertips of your hands. Now, says a news item, the biometric identification and verification will be difficult if you are old and afflicted with cataract, or if your labourer’s hands are so rough that the fine lines on them are in good part gone. Then there will be only one solution: choose not to be born illiterate and homeless in Independent India.
