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'I Sing the Body Biometric'
The Aadhaar or Unique Identifi cation Numbers initiative of the Government of India presages a new model of biological citizenship as much as it announces the arrival of India as a technological society, one where social problems such as meagre public distribution systems and primary health services are solved through technical means. Through a series of propositions about the increased use of biometrics for identifi cation purposes, the cultures of surveillance that centre in and around the body are explored.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Seminar on “Cultural Studies in the Indian Context”, department of English and Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 2-3 March 2012.
The title of this piece obviously glances in more than passing ways at Ray Bradbury’s classic 1969 “I Sing the Body Electric” (Bradbury himself takes it from Walt Whitman). But hopefully it moves beyond electricity to something that generates more charge: biometrics.
Triggered by the immediate context of the Aadhaar/Unique Identification Numbers (UIDs) initiative of the Government of India, this article offers a few propositions about the increased use of biometrics for identification purposes. Its concern is less with the ethical issues of biometrics – that is another paper – than with the cultures of surveillance that centre in and around the body.
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