The casino is rigged; long live the casino!

The oldest (and most disregarded) secret in the world of gambling is that you cannot win against the house. The decks are stacked, the cards are rigged and the slot machines are fixed.

Oh yes! the casino will let you win once in a while, just so that you swallow a little more of the bait and keep returning to be ripped off. The house, folks, always wins. Which describes perfectly the state of our elections these days, after 2019.

What is happening with the SIR in Bihar, even as I write this, is the final turn of the roulette wheel: the Opposition (the real Opposition, I mean, not the Mayawatis, Owaisis, Kishores or Naveen Patnaiks of the world) will henceforth never be allowed to win an election, general or state. A few seats here and there, yes, maybe even a few inconsequential states, to keep the dumb charade going, but never a House, no Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha — the House belongs to the croupier.

No amount of petitions, meetings with the Election Commission, writs in the Supreme Court, grandstanding photo-ops outside Parliament or threats ("We are coming after you") is going to change this inevitability.

Maharashtra and Haryana were the prototypes, and appropriate lessons were learnt from them — adding spurious votes is not enough, stuffing EVMs after 5:00 p.m. is not enough, deleting a few thousand votes is not enough, the judicial pusillanimity regarding VVPATs is not enough. More work was needed to make matters foolproof.

And so the final product — the electoral Bramhastra, as it were — is on display now in Bihar.

Make the nationalistic citizenship issue the mechanism and excuse for getting rid of those pesky communities and classes who don't vote for the BJP and its allies. Be selective in the desired documentation: Aadhaar will do in the right-wing areas, thank you; but in Seemanchal, we need to see your birth certificate and that of your parents. The motto being: Show me the face and I will show you the document. According the the ECI's own figures, 5 million have already been disenfranchised.

The Supreme Court will hear the matter on 28 July, but don't hold your breath — the jurisprudence of the fait accompli will come into play and the loaded dice will keep rolling.

The Election Commission knows this. It has already asked all states to prepare for an all-India roll-out of this grand larceny of democracy.

At the most, the Court may mandate the acceptance of a few more ID markers, but it's always the dealer who calls out the cards and numbers — and they are usually tucked up his sleeve. In the Supreme Court, the SIR will go the way of the EVMs, VVPATs, paper ballots, procedure for appointments of election commissioners.

The Opposition will never win again.

It has only one path before it in order to save the democracy-drink in the poisoned chalice: boycott all elections until this casino is shut down. It must take the bull by the horns, and not by the tail as it has been doing so far.

As Debasish Roy Choudhury said in an interview with Karan Thapar on 25 July, Friday — which should be compulsory watching for all who value our democracy — by continuing to participate in elections that are rigged and which they know they cannot win, the Opposition is only legitimising the elections and the winning regime. A boycott will take away this moral legitimacy in the eyes of most countrymen and the international community. That will the first step to restoring the old sanctity to the whole process.

The Opposition has failed, thanks to its own ineptitude, avarice, lust for power and outsize egos, and the abject surrender of all our constitutional institutions, including the courts. The Opposition, therefore, is no longer a player in this game; it can, at best, be a coach now.

The actual players have to be the citizens of India, whose right to select a government of their choice is being stolen. They must be persuaded to boycott the elections too, to show the world how the elections in India now resemble those of Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame won with 99 per cent of the votes. The world, of course, doesn't give a damn about Rwanda; but can it ignore India, the world's largest democracy, which has historically been the beacon of democracy for the postcolonial world?

Country-wide boycotts may lead to civil unrest — which is not necessarily a bad thing, as Jayaprakash Narayan's Sampurna Kranti movement against Mrs Gandhi had shown. It finally led to her being ousted from power. A boycott could be a curtain raiser to something similar.

This applies equally to civil society organisations like the ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms), the CCG (Constitutional Conduct Group) and others — they too have to espouse and campaign for the cause of the boycott.

They have written enough letters to the government and prime minister and Election Commission and issued their fair number of press releases — to no effect. They too have to change course.

As Debasish says: When your house is burgled, you don't write a letter to the burglar; you go to the police! And the police here are the people of India — We the People. It is time to turn to them.

Views are personal.

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and author of The Deputy Commissioner’s Dog and Other Colleagues. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com. More of his writing may be read here