Between hope and anxiety: Indian electorate at the margins

There are, today, multifrontal questions confronting the election architecture of India. In a time when its own integrity is under question, why is the EC unwilling to disclose information when millions of voters risk disenfranchisement? Has the judiciary been able to provide an accountability mechanism? And why, at 79 years, is the right to vote still not being considered a fundamental one?

ON JUNE 24, THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA (‘EC’) announced a Special Intensive Revision (‘SIR’) of the Electoral Roll (‘ER’) in Bihar, just months ahead of the State Assembly elections. On paper, such revisions are standard electoral procedures, but the conditions attached to this one, particularly the requirement to prove citizenship, make it exceptional and deeply troubling in its scale, speed, and the conditions imposed.

Hannah Arendt argues in The Origins of Totalitarianism that citizenship is the fundamental “right to have rights”. In other words, it is the gateway through which all other rights are accessed. In this light, SIR’s stringent citizenship verification risks the systematic disenfranchisement of adult citizens, considering their ability to produce documents and the EC’s ability to carry out massive citizenship verification on short notice and limited timeframe.

In a state where over one-third of the population lives below the poverty line, a substantial portion of the population has migrated to other states for work, and the monsoon season has already brought floods to several districts, SIR’s stringent citizenship verification risks not only administrative oversight but also the systematic disenfranchisement of adult citizens, stripping them of their most basic political entitlement, the right to vote.

Critics argue that the way this whole exercise is conducted shows that the intention of the EC is more about exclusion and less about inclusion. This is evident in the deletion of 65.6 lakh names from Bihar’s electoral rolls following the SIR process. This drastic reduction will not only impact the upcoming election but also exacerbate the challenges faced by marginalised groups, particularly women and Muslims. Recent data reveal a concerning trend in Bihar, indicating that districts with larger Muslim populations have higher rates of voter exclusion. Women constitute 55 percent of those deleted from the draft voter list following the SIR. This alarming statistic raises questions about the accessibility and inclusivity of the voting process in the state.

Hannah Arendt argues in The Origins of Totalitarianism that citizenship is the fundamental “right to have rights”. In other words, it is the gateway through which all other rights are accessed.