NSF asks Nagaland CM to bar applicability of Aadhaar under Article 371 A
DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 31 (MExN): The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) has submitted a memorandum to the Nagaland State Chief Minister, TR Zeliang seeking an urgent Motion of Resolution under Article 371A of the Indian Constitution in the State Legislative Assembly for barring the applicability of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 to the state of Nagaland pending the final Indo-Naga solution.
The memorandum, signed by NSF President, Kesosul Christopher Ltu; and General Secretary, Imtiyapang Imsong pointed out that Article 371A of the Constitution exempts the State of Nagaland from the applicability of the Acts of Parliament in respect of religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, and ownership and transfer of land and its resources.
It further reminded the Nagaland CM that the State Legislative Assembly has a special prerogative to decide whether an Act of Parliament should be made applicable to the State. It is thus, the bounden duty of the State Legislative Assembly to defend, protect, uphold and advance the sanctity of this special status conferred by the Constitution of India and all the more so as the right to self-determination is the inalienable right of the Nagas, it added.
In view of this, the NSF considered the imposition of Aadhaar card/UID number as a “big threat to Naga customary law and identity.” “It is nothing but a direct challenge of privacy threatening even the idea of Nagas right to self-determination. Imposing of such drastic nationalising policy upon the Nagas pending the final Indo-Naga solution is thus inimical to the process of Indo-Naga Peace Dialogue,” the NSF viewed.
The federation further termed it interesting that that enforcement of Aadhaar is “aggressively being pursued only in some selected states of North East India unlike in the other mainland Indian states for the reasons best known to the Government of India.”
Meanwhile, the NSF observed that the idea of social welfare benefit is “aggressively being digitalized and the idea of human person no longer exists in the eyes of the state unless s/he is a collection of digital data. Thus, the erstwhile living ‘human person’ has been reduced to a mere tabulation of dead data and nothing more.”
It noted that the “free enjoyment of social benefits within the fabric of collective social identity is sacred to the Nagas and any denial thereof in the name of identity numerisation is inimical to the social and religious practice of the Nagas.” The Nagas, thus, cannot permit India to reduce the sacred social idea of “humanity” to a mere existence of “digital knowledge” and a “machine-man” in the name of social security, the NSF said.
In this connection, the Federation asserted that it is in the interest of defending the sanctity of Naga customary law, identity, culture, privacy and right to self-determination, that the Nagaland Chief Minister’s intervention is most sought to put in place a resolution to address this issue as a matter of priority.
The NSF asked the Nagaland Chief Minister to declare the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 as “inimical to Naga customary law, social identity and practice.”
It further asked the Nagaland CM to bar the applicability of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 to the state of Nagaland pending the final Indo-Naga solution by resorting to the exemption clause under Article 371A of the Constitution.
Copies of the same memorandum were also submitted to the Nagaland State Governor and the Chief Secretary.
