We have a result! We’re excited to have reached the first stage in our journey to get a passport for Manjula. The PAN card (registration to pay tax has arrived). Coincidentally, I’ve also got mine and one for the business. So what next?
so to get the PAN (registered for tax) card, for Manjula. I need to find proof of address , Photo ID and Date of Birth. It’s a bit like a board game, throw the dice, move forward a few steps, teeter a bit on the edge and run the risk of falling back a step or two.
In my view, this will help in our ultimate aim of obtaining a passport
Simple:
proof of address comes from her election ID card
nah, that will not do, its got the wrong address and name, so what else can we use? Thankfully, I used to match her savings: rupee for rupee, so I’d set up a bank account for her years ago and yes…….. it’s got her proper name and address. So there is a BIG tick for the bank pass book. Result!
But we do need something with her name on it and photograph …. believe it or not, even though the address and father’s name is wrong we can go with the election ID card, astonishing, but eh beggars can’t be choosers, so just don’t tell anyone… great stuff, we’re at tick no 2.
In these situations, the evidence for the date of birth, if a birth certificate is not available, is the school leaving certificate or as in Manjula’s case, her TC or Transfer Certificate. She didn’t last more than a very short time at school so there wasn’t a formal leaving as such! So off we went to the school she last attended in Bamboo Bazaar in Mysore, around 35 years ago. Your wouldn’t believe it. Once Manjula, had explained what we were after, the current head teacher, reached into her cupboard for one of (only a few ledgers to cover so many years!) and started checking dates and names. After a couple of false trails she found her entry. Astonishing! She completed a new TC, paid up and they posed for our commemorative photo. Result…….. tick no 3
It’s taken sometime but we’re on our way, so I take the documents to the accountant.
So what to do next?
remembering that our eventual aim is to get Manjula a passport, but let’s build up to the big tasks and start with something more straightforward
a simple first challenge was to get a PAN card for Manjula. You get a PAN card when you register to pay taxes. Country needs people to pay taxes so you’d expect it to be relatively easy. Well it, sort of, is and I’ve got one (as has the company), so it can’t be that difficult, can it?
pics of ID cards have been removed
This would be important as would be to learn from the process of obtaining it, we’d need to get Manjula’s various ID’s in line (rather like ducks) and the card itself would be a valuable addition to helping create a formal identity suited to the modern age 😉 yeh, right! what are we waiting for?
So the man to manage the process would be Ganesh, my very able accountant. He copes with my idiosyncratic accounting practices, so is nothing, if not flexible and adaptable.
But of course, the balloon (ie me, do check our business card) is ‘the fixer’ or is it gopher?
First stage is to get her three forms of ID that show her photo, name, Date of Birth and address… now let me just find them out…….
some of you may remember the story (earlier in this blog) or shared in our conversations over dinner, in Mysore, about Manjula getting her voting card.
She declared that her life was half over before she managed to vote. Well that set me on a journey to help sort out her various ID cards, in a sense to legitimise Manjula in the eyes of the state! This is still a very informal society, at least in some respects, so many people don’t have a birth certificate, know of their actual birthdate and maybe even just have one name. It is, of course, very important to get these things sorted especially if you want to do any formal business or even travel abroad. So this was to become one of our major projects. I immediately I realised there were all sorts of problems….
I’ve just returned from walking Lucy, the dog. Manjula the light of my life, my muse, catalyst and creator who is at the heart of my happiness here is away at the moment. She’s on a brief holiday visiting her mother. What a gap I’ve become so used to her being here to greet me when I return home… with her warm smile and little jokes. Yesterday, before leaving, she declared that there was a cockroach in my bed… ha ha… I went there, only to find she’d changed the bed. Her jokes maybe come from hanging around with guy from Yorkshire for over five years! Poor her..
You may have already come to know her, if you’re among the over 1,000 guests that have visited here at Mysore Bed and Breakfast. If so, you’ll know exactly what Im talking about in my ham fisted way. Many of you have assumed that we were more than partners in the business sense and I can reveal, its true. For some time now- Ive known that I love and cherish her dearly.
So there it is ….. announced to the world. Manjula is the love of my life.
I’ll use this record of our life here in Mysore to introduce more of this wonderful woman wherever possible using her own words.
Stephen
Manjula voted today for the first time in her life. A momentous occasion. Well done Manj!
Check the photo of Manj. Here’s the mark of the indelible ink on her thumb to prove she’s voted and can’t therefore vote a second time.
Of course, I’m not allowed to tell you her voting preference or her age but she received her very first voting ID just this week and declared that she’d got one at this late stage i.e. with ‘half life finished‘ so better late than never, eh?
We arrived by scooter 30 mins before the voting station was due to open, at the school close to where Manjula used to live. [Trumpets Blaring] We were waiting for her mother and father to join us. This was a serious family outing.
There were a few people hanging around, a lady selling milk at the corner and a foreigner (me). The first sign of official life was the arrival of the army. Punjabis who were down from Delhi. They and the Police begin by insisting that there was no selling or loitering (aka innocently hanging around), cars or two wheelers parked within 200 metres of the school. The lady selling bags of milk at the corner was clearly not happy but she had to go. I was obviously not loitering. I was however sitting on a bench on the corner well within the exclusion zone but as a foreigner I’d got my ‘get out of jail free/community chest card from Monopoly’ and as I’d bonded with the sergeant, so there was no issue. I was allowed to stay.
Manj went over to a scrum of people to check whether she was on the list and able to vote. She was, hooray! Her mum was less fortunate (and now I’ve hear that there were many other people like her) she had her card but was not on the official list. So unable to vote. Manj’s mum came round to the house later on. She had found her name on the list held by a man loitering 201 metres down the road so was able to vote. (Just don’t ask as I’ve no idea,, India is an enigma)
But why had it taken so long for Manj to be able to vote?
Who knows?
The fact that she hasn’t had an ID card of any description until very recently reveals such a lot. The world’s biggest democracy has some difficulties reaching all the communities to enable them to use their vote. Understandable in many ways. There are two thirds of 1.3 billion people eligible to vote. A poor woman initially from a rural background is likely to find it most difficult.
Its especially difficult the poorer you are and in particular for women.
She now has Aadhaar card (general ID), BPL Card, Election card, and also very importantly another means of ID which is her bank account. So what does it reveal? Has something changed?
Something has changed in her life and in general.
People are now much more conscious of the need to get an ID card. They may need them to get a bank account which in turn will allow them access to benefits ranging from subsidised gas, health services and foodstuffs for those Below Poverty Line (BPL). The introduction of the Aadhaar, a general ID card, supposedly being issued to all the population has had a significant impact. Prior to this Manjula just had her school leaving certificate. A critical document for especially poor people but still not a lot of use.
It’s pretty clear (and shocking) that a woman’s official identity is linked with a man: father, husband, step father, employer. Ask Manj for her name and she doesn’t know what to say beyond Manjula. Her father died, she’s divorced from her husband, and mum remarried so not to put to fine a point on it… I’m now probably the most significant man in her life!!!
Manjula as ever, the ‘together’ woman that she is, has with her mum and step dad, got out there and asserted her rights.
I’ve tried to do my little bit. Hence she now has a bank account and regular payments of her monthly measly pay into her account. All of it contributes to helping her become more ‘official’ and who knows where that might lead? One day she might even get a passport and do some international travelling 😉
Me and MYCycle 