THE MANNER IN WHICH THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA (‘ECI’) is conducting the Special Intensive Revision (‘SIR’) in Bihar — shifting the burden of proof of citizenship on people and asking them to fill forms and submit several documents including birth certificates of their parents — would lead to mass disenfranchisement. Such exclusionary process of preparing electoral rolls is contrary to the ideal of inclusion based on which voters’ lists were prepared right from the first general elections during 1951 and 1952 till January 2025. The worst victims would be women, Dalits, Muslims and impoverished people from villages who migrate in large numbers to different parts of India in search of livelihood opportunities. Never ever electoral rolls were revised with an intent to delete names of voters on such a large scale.
Deletion of voters
Additionally, the ECI has announced that names of 65 lakh voters have been deleted from the electoral roll of Bihar on the grounds of death, permanent migration or any other reason. It is rather strange that the ECI never made public the list of deleted voters, the booths in which they resided and how many of them died and how many migrated permanently.
It is heartening that by the time this article was being written, the Supreme Court while hearing a bunch of petitions challenging SIR in Bihar, mandated the ECI in its interim order that, among others, it must disclose names of those 65 lakh voters booth wise by stating their EPIC numbers, state reasons behind deletion of each voter, make available the easily accessible digital form of the list containing those names and widely publicise about it in newspapers, TVs and social media.
Gandhi’s vision on adult suffrage
Such an opaque manner of preparing electoral rolls by deleting such a huge number of people strikes at the root of democracy and people’s right to vote, which Mahatma Gandhi equated with real power. He did so on September 26, 1931, while dealing with the issue of the challenges that villages would face due to the high tariffs imposed by greedy and powerful mill-owners. These tariffs were far worse than those imposed by the Britishers to protect the Lancashire cotton trade. Gandhi argued that real and more political power would flow from universal adult suffrage and, therefore, it would be impossible for the monied classes to crush the interests of poor villagers who would get the same voting right as those belonging to the affluent sections of society.
It is tragic that more than a hundred years after those words were uttered by Gandhi, the ECI is crushing the ideal of universal adult suffrage through its so called “intensive revision” of electoral rolls.
On September 17, 1931, while participating in the Round Table Conference in London and speaking at the Federal Structure Committee, Gandhi outlined the broad scope of universal adult franchise and insightfully stated:
“Adult suffrage is necessary for more reasons than one; and one of the decisive reasons to me is that it enables me to satisfy all the reasonable aspirations, not only of the Mussulmans, but also of the so-called untouchables, of Christians, of labourers and all classes’.
Such an all encompassing vision sustaining adult suffrage remained integral to freedom struggle and got enshrined in the Constitution, of which we are observing 75 years now.
ECI’s SIR in Bihar is bound to snatch away the right to vote, in the words of Gandhi, of "Mussulmans, …of the so-called untouchables, of Christians, of labourers and all classes.’
Gandhi on voters’ list
While passionately upholding the ideal of universal adult suffrage, Gandhi underlined the necessity of putting the names of eligible voters in the voters’ list. In the aforementioned speech at the Federal Structure Committee he said, “It is therefore open to those who want the vote, subject to the condition regarding age and any other condition which all can fulfil, to have their names, without distinction of sex, on the voters’ list.”
Those utterances of Gandhi are of immense significance in the context of the attempts to manipulate voters’ list for partisan purposes for curating the electoral success of a particular political formation, specifically the Bharatiya Janata Party at the centre, which is now being accused of “Vote Chori,” “Vote Theft”.
Now there is mounting apprehension that the SIR in Bihar may pave the way for removal of names of Dalits from the electoral list of the State. Against this backdrop it is educative to recall Gandhi’s words who underlined the necessity of enlisting the names of voters hailing from the so-called untouchable community in the electoral roll,
When Hriday Nath Kunzru informed Gandhi that some ‘Harijan’ candidates were defeated in the election in Kanpur he wrote a letter addressed to the former on January 31, 1933, and remarked:
“This defeat makes me sad... I had fondly believed, I suppose quite without any warrant, that Harijan candidates will have a walk-over at elections, especially in the beginning stages”.
Displaying high degree of sensitivity, he stated:
“I see, however, that without reservation they would have a poor chance of being elected, unless caste Hindus develop a high sense of honour or unless Harijans are overwhelmingly represented on the voters list. But where there is neither honour nor overwhelming representation on the voters’ list, reservation seems to be their only safety”.
Proceeding further he stated:
“This Cawnpore election opens my eyes as nothing else before did, and I can now appreciate the force of the summary rejection by Dr. Ambedkar of any convention. Nothing but statutory reservation would satisfy him, and it may be that we shall have to have statutory reservation everywhere as fit punishment for our selfishness. In order to avert a calamity of such a nature descending upon us. If I had my way, I would right this evil by three caste Hindus vacating their seats and allowing three Harijans to be elected. It would be a striking demonstration of our ability to repair wrongs if the defeat of Harijan candidates was a striking demonstration of our selfishness.”
Gandhi’s emphasis in 1933 that ‘Harijans’ should get overwhelmingly represented on the voters’ list should stir our conscience to point fingers at ECI and the SIR exercise which would delete thousands of names of Dalits and other marginalised communities from Bihar’s electoral roll.
It is rather perplexing that the ECI is acting in a callous and brutal manner to subvert the vision of Gandhi who described the defeat of ‘Harijan’ candidates, in Kanpur election in 1933, as “..a striking demonstration of our selfishness” because the names of ‘Harijans’ were not there in the voters’ list in a significant way.
Ambedkar’s vision
In light of these historical insights, it is important to underscore the significance of preparing an inclusive electoral roll — especially at a time when such efforts are facing opposition. We must revisit what Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, said on June 15, 1949, while moving Article 289 of the draft Constitution — now Article 324—which pertains to the Election Commission of India.
That speech was entirely devoted to the reasons why the sole responsibility was entrusted with the ECI, an all India body, to prepare electoral rolls after abandoning the much contemplated idea that every State would have an Election Commission. He informed the Constituent Assembly that there had been numerous complaints to the effect that State bodies, while preparing electoral rolls, were deleting and adding names in the voters’ list on — what he called “linguistic, cultural and racial” grounds. To rule out such biases and prejudices Ambedkar prudently thought that the ECI, as an all India entity with constitutionally enshrined status as an independent institution, would be mandated for preparing those rolls.
Therefore, Article 324(1) of the Constitution decrees, among others, that “The superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections ….. shall be vested” in the ECI.
Ambedkar’s fond hopes that the ECI would be doing its job of preparing electoral rolls without factoring any bias and partiality has been shattered in the context of what it is doing in the name of the SIR and deleting names of 65 lakh voters without specifying how many died or permanently migrated. Besides, the conditionalities it has imposed on eligible people to submit one of the eleven documents, which does not include Aadhar card and EPIC card for getting enrolled as a voter, constitute an affront to the vision of Ambedkar. It is, however, a matter of satisfaction that in the aforementioned interim order, the Supreme Court has asked the ECI to accept Aadhar card for enrolling eligible people’s names in the voter’s list.
He said in the Constituent Assembly on June 15, 1946 that the “House will realise that franchise is the most fundamental thing in a democracy. No person who is entitled to be brought into the electoral rolls on the grounds which we have already mentioned in our Constitution, namely, an adult of 21 years of age, (now 18 years), should be excluded merely as a result of the prejudice of a local Government, or the whim of an officer”.
Then he proceeded to warn by saying, “That would cut at the very root of democratic Government.”
Ambedkar proceeded to add that only “….a Central Election Commission was entitled to issue directives to returning officers, polling officers and others engaged in the preparation and revision of electoral rolls so that no injustice may be done to any citizen in India, who under this Constitution is entitled to be brought on the electoral rolls”.
“That alone is, if I may say so,” he affirmed, “a radical and fundamental departure”.
It is rather tragic that Ambedkar’s vision that “no injustice may be done to any citizen in India, who under this Constitution is entitled to be brought on the electoral rolls” is demolished by the ECI in the context of its current steps for implementing the SIR.
His aforementioned apprehensions that exclusion of entitled voters from electoral lists because of, among others, “prejudice of a local Government, or the whim of an officer” would “..cut at the very root of democratic Government” are now playing out in 2025.