SIR 2.0, the new chapter of disenfranchisement

Human beings have a curious capacity for adaptation. We can get used to almost any reality. We learn to live with tragedy and brutality, absorb them into the routines of everyday life. Today, the United States unleashes its thuggery on yet another country. Our city’s pollution crosses the danger mark again. A few more children are killed in Gaza. Another lynching takes place in India.

Just another day, just another set of headlines. News of this kind unsettles us at first, but when it’s a tide, we get inured — and by the time the most horrifying news arrives, we are already numb.

Something very similar has happened with the SIR.

When the intensive revision of the voter list began in Bihar, it triggered an uproar. Newsrooms, courtrooms, drawing rooms — everyone was talking. The sudden deletion of 65 lakh names shook people. Then our attention shifted to the Bihar elections. Somehow, almost imperceptibly, the election results were also taken as proof that everything about the SIR must have been fine.

We didn’t even notice when the second round of SIR began. We barely registered when it was completed across 12 states and Union Territories, and when their draft lists were published. By the time the biggest blow was delivered, we were bored.

The publication of the draft SIR list in Uttar Pradesh has jolted us awake again. Before the SIR, the state had 15.44 crore voters; after the exercise, 12.56 crore remain.

In one fell swoop, 2.88 crore names have been struck off. Most countries in the world have fewer voters than the names deleted in Uttar Pradesh. Consider this too: as per the Election Commission of India (ECI), UP now has 12.56 crore voters — urban and rural combined, whereas the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission released a list in December showing 12.7 crore voters in rural panchayats alone.

Before the Uttar Pradesh figures came out, draft SIR lists had already been published for the remaining eleven states and Union Territories. Largescale deletions there too, but no one paid attention. Perhaps the UP shock will finally force the country to look at the voter massacre elsewhere. Before the SIR, these 12 states (including UP) together had 50.97 crore voters. After this ‘intensive scrutiny’, only 44.40 crore remain. So, 6.57 crore names have already been deleted in this second round.

Tamil Nadu has lost 97 lakh voters, Gujarat 74 lakh, West Bengal 58 lakh, Madhya Pradesh 43 lakh and Rajasthan 42 lakh. Officially, these people can still apply to get their names reinstated. In practice, wrapping their heads around the paperwork is beyond more than five or ten per cent of them. Which means close to 6 crore names are effectively gone for good.

Even among those whose names still appear on the draft list, a large section has a sword hanging over its head. According to the ECI, about 2.5 crore managed to submit their forms but couldn’t show their names — or a family member’s — in the 2002/ 2003 voter lists. They will now receive notice to prove their citizenship — and if they fail to provide ‘satisfactory’ proof, their names too will be struck off.

There is yet another category — people who do not even know they are under suspicion. The Commission’s new software has flagged ‘discrepancies’ in their details. They too may receive notices. The Commission has not disclosed their numbers, but in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh alone, these suspects exceed three crore.

If even a small fraction of voters in these two categories don’t make it, that might account for another crore or so deletions. By the time this round of SIR is over, more than 7 crore names may be erased from the voter rolls. Never in the history of the world have voters been disenfranchised on this scale.

Could it be that the problem lay not in the SIR, but with the old voter lists? Were there huge numbers of bogus names that needed to be removed? It’s a legitimate question — one that is answered quite easily.

Every year, the Government of India publishes data on the adult population of each state. According to these figures, before the SIR began, the combined adult population of these 12 states was 51.81 crore, while the number of registered voters was 50.97 crore. In other words, the voter lists were not bloated; they were already short by about 84 lakh voters. A proper revision should have added names; instead, the SIR has (so far) wiped out 6.5 crore.

When names were deleted in Bihar, it was argued that this might be because large numbers migrate out of the state. That excuse won’t wash after this round. States like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat attract more migrants than they lose — yet they too have seen massive deletions.

The propaganda about SIR eliminating ‘foreign infiltrators’ has already collapsed. After the Bihar exercise, the Election Commission could not identify a single foreign national removed from the rolls.

SIR 2.0 should have removed any lingering doubts. Border states like West Bengal and Rajasthan have seen fewer deletions than, say, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The pattern that really stands out wherever the SIR has been conducted is that the proportion of women voters has declined.

There is just one exception. A voter list revision, an exceptional one, took place in Assam as well. In this border state, neither the total number of voters nor the proportion of women has decreased. Why? Because Assam was the only state where enumeration forms didn’t have to be filled nor proof demanded to link voters to old electoral rolls. Verification was done the old way, i.e., door to door — wrong names were deleted, new ones added.

The conclusion is unavoidable: the problem is not with the voter lists, but with the SIR methodology.

This is not an intensive revision of electoral rolls; it is ‘votebandi’ (systematic disenfranchisement).

Views are personal. More of Yogendra Yadav’s writing can be read here