The administration of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has unleashed a flood of “Cards” — from the Krishak Card for farmers and Family Cards for households to niche schemes like LPG and Cricket Cards. The government advertises these as symbols of digital efficiency and targeted governance. But to many citizens, this relentless parade of cards looks less like serious reform and more like a state-sponsored performance in bureaucratic gimmickry. What is being marketed as innovation increasingly resembles an obsession with branding governance rather than delivering it.
Beneath the glossy language of this so-called “Card Revolution” lies a far more disturbing reality: the steady fragmentation of the citizenry. Instead of recognizing people first and foremost as equal citizens, the state is recasting them as members of narrowly defined administrative tribes — farmers, consumers, athletes, selected households, and so on. This is not merely an issue of policy design; it is a distortion of the very meaning of citizenship. When access to state support depends on belonging to the right category and possessing the right card, rights cease to be universal and begin to look like favors dispensed at the pleasure of the regime.
That is precisely why this model is so dangerous. In countries where institutions are weak and political loyalty often matters more than fairness, targeted schemes rarely remain neutral for long. They become convenient instruments of patronage — mechanisms through which governments reward supporters, cultivate dependence, and deepen social divisions while pretending to pursue development. In that environment, the card is not a tool of empowerment; it is a leash. It tells citizens that their access to public goods does not arise from their equal status under the law, but from their proximity to power and their ability to navigate a politically controlled system.
Even worse, this expanding card culture shifts attention away from what a responsible state is actually supposed to do. A competent government should guarantee fair markets, stable prices, functioning hospitals, quality schools, reliable energy, and durable public infrastructure for everyone. Instead, citizens are being handed an ever-growing collection of identity-tagged cards, as if governance were a matter of distributing laminated tokens rather than building universal systems. This is not modern statecraft; it is administrative fragmentation masquerading as innovation.
The deeper political logic is hard to ignore. A population divided into cardholders and non-cardholders is easier to manage, easier to manipulate, and easier to discipline. Once benefits are tied to selective documentation, citizenship itself becomes conditional. People are no longer treated as rights-bearing members of the nation; they are reduced to applicants competing for recognition, access, and official approval. That is a profoundly unequal vision of the republic.
In the end, this policy direction risks creating not a smart welfare state, but a stratified and submissive society — one in which the government decides who counts, who qualifies, and who is left to fend for themselves. What is being built may well be a political “house of cards”: flashy in presentation, cynical in design, and fundamentally hostile to the principle that every citizen should stand equal before the state.
Source – Friday Post
