SIR: Disenfranchisement & Denial of Citizenship under the Guise of Voter List Revision!
Even as the case on SIR (Special Intensive Revision) is still pending in the Supreme Court (SC), keeping the latter as a spectator, the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is transformed into an executive arm of the Modi government, has now extended it (SIR 2.0) to 12 States. Bihar SIR, initiated to cleanse electoral rolls of names of deceased, shifted and duplicate voters, amid data irregularities and procedural opaqueness, has already led to massive exclusion of Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and, above all, Women. Around 55% of the 65 lakh voters deleted from the electoral rolls are women, that too, mainly belonging to Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis! True, the outcome of the entire SIR process in Bihar, is perfectly in tune with the ideological orientation of RSS, for which Muslims are the biggest enemies, while Dalits and Women are subhuman.
Vast majority of the oppressed and marginalised poor people of Bihar have only ration cards, Aadhar and Voter ID cards as their identity credentials. Instead of these commonly available documents, the ECI’s insistence on 11 documents such as birth certificates, matriculation certificates, government employment IDs, passports, property papers, etc., which are unavailable for millions of poor Indian citizens of Bihar will have further consequences, most important being proving their citizenship itself. To resolve this, under SC direction, though namesake re-inclusion of those left out was taken up, due to the barriers in proper filing and on account of digital illiteracy, the millions of voters excluded through SIR still remain outside the official list. Including this, amid the total lack of transparency and procedural failures, in essence, the ECI has been expanding its powers to the realm of citizenship verification itself. Obviously, a citizen has every right not to vote, and clubbing both citizenship and voting is the violation of freedom of choice and the basic right to dissent. In this way, through SIR, the ECI, whose powers were limited as per Article 324 of the Constitution, was overstretching itself into the realm of citizenship, thereby infringing on the rights of citizens’ right under Article 326.
In fact, the Modi government’s decision to unleash the ECI for a nation-wide SIR, while SC is yet to take a final decision on it, is an outright violation of all precedents and is a typical fascist move. As all concerned people have already pointed out, along with disenfranchisement of the oppressed, mainly the Minorities, whom the RSS & BJP do not consider as their vote-banks, the ultimate outcome of this heinous move is to bring NRC in the disguised form and denying citizenship to them altogether. For instance, in all previous voter list revisions (the so-called Summary Revision, usually, before elections), the existing electoral rolls were taken as the reference, and those who are over 18 since the last election, are added to the list. And, it is the duty of election officials to perform this task. However, now under SIR, by forcing the citizens to prove their identity through a whole set of documents inaccessible to them, the Modi government is cunningly implementing NRC, through backdoors. Of course, the transformation from “citizenship by default” (Jus Soli) to “citizenship based on proof” (Jus Sanguinis) is integrally linked up with the ascendance of Hindutva majoritarian fascism in India.
Now, as the Modi government through ECI is set to start SIR 2.0 on 4 November 2025, the existing voters’ list in 12 States is frozen or suspended. It has triggered sharp opposition from all parties belonging to the India Alliance. Southern States, especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala have questioned it. In Kerala, the SIR 2.0 is superimposed even as local body elections are scheduled, creating much confusion among all stakeholders. Tamilnadu government has resolved to convene an all-party meet to decide on this. Of course, all non-fascist parties have vehemently opposed it. However, instead of merely characterizing SIR 2.0 as a “conspiracy for vote theft”, it should be understood as a well-planned fascist offensive with the ultimate aim of establishing a majoritarian Hindu Rashtra, disenfranchising and denying citizenship to Muslims. Hence, it is high time on the part of all anti-fascist and democratic forces together with all oppressed who bear the brunt of RSS fascism to unitedly rise up against both the disenfranchisement and denial of citizenship underlying SIR.
(Editorial, Red Star, November 2025)
