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The start of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls to “purify” the voter lists to “strengthen democracy” has already claimed one life: Pradeep Kar, 57, from Panihati in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, who killed himself. In his suicide note he blamed the NRC, the registration process of citizens, are the cause.If he was confused between the NRC, Citizenship Amendment Act and the SIR’s rollout in West Bengal and 11 other states/UTs from November 4, he can be excused; the Election Commission and the BJP are equally confused. Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar explained that the SIR was not happening in Assam now as the NRC process was underway. The BJP in West Bengal has begun organising CAA camps inanticipation of the SIR. Just how the NRC, CAA and SIR are interchangeable or connected is the EC’s job to explain and extricate itself from the politics of identity and exclusion and confusion and its consequences.What the EC and CEC Gyanesh Kumar appear to be ignorant about is that the “purification” process directed against illegal migrants affects more Hindus than Muslims. Pradeep Kar’s death is proof that illegal migrants, with documents they fear would not pass the EC’s scrutiny, are in panic. There is a reason and a history behind their fears and the naturalisation of the “illegal migrant” in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The EC’s blinkered execution of the SIR based on prejudices learnt through years of indoctrination by the BJP’s relentless campaign against “ghuspethiyas” kicked off by L.K. Advani as Deputy PM and home minister has much to answer for.Required to hold himself aloof as befits the CEC and the institution of the EC insulated from the political war it supervises, Gyanesh Kumar’s focus on ensuring perfect “purification” of the electoral rolls through the SIR against the accumulation of vile pollution by non-eligible voters of the “illegal migrant” category reveals how easy it is to be swayed by a social and cultural narrative that has incrementally grown over the past 40 years. Keeping mum about why poll-bound Assam was not the 13th state where the SIR would begin is indicative of his confusion over the substitutability of the electoral roll as verification of citizenship by the always imperfect enrolment under the National Register of Citizens.These trespasses and Mr Kumar’s deliberate choice to address an all-India audience of great linguistic diversity exclusively in Hindi, makes the man and the institution a party to the political narrative on the dangerous demographic consequences of “ghuspethiyas”, that is, stealthy infiltrators, and the politically special status of Assam in the BJP’s hegemonistic design of being the one party that dominates the nation.The EC as an institution was structured to remain impartial, transparent and fair on one hand, and free, autonomous and independent on the other, by India’s Constitution.In Bihar, the EC tested the beta version of its Special Intensive Revision process focusing on excluding non-citizens, making it the most significant criteria of eligibility. Like any beta version, the Bihar SIR process was flawed, ran into lots of teething troubles that needed corrective action, including interventions by the Supreme Court on inclusion of Aadhaar, with biometrics and various details including birth, parents and citizenship. It also ran into a political storm; the “Vote Adhikar Yatra” by Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav which converted a regular repeat exercise into a confrontation between the EC, BJP and the Opposition and civil society.The house-to-house surveys in the multi-state SIR, that begin on November 4, is a test for the EC to prove it is not tainted by the politics of exclusion. Even before that, the EC has been challenged by, among others, West Bengal’s chief minister and Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee. Her position is clear and consistent; the SIR and the politics of “ghuspethiyas” is the politics of “spreading lies, stoking panic and weaponizing insecurity for votes”. She has cautioned “the Delhi zamindars”, meaning the Narendra Modi government, that “Bengal will resist, Bengal will protect and Bengal will prevail”.In Tamil Nadu, chief minister and DMK leader M.K. Stalin said of the SIR: “The right to vote is the foundation of democracy. Tamil Nadu will fight against any attempt to murder it.” He accused the EC of a conspiracy “to rob citizens of their rights and help the BJP”, adding that in his view the process was “hasty and opaque”.The meeting of all Opposition parties which Mr Stalin has called on November 2 will consolidate the political fight against the EC’s electoral roll revision. The call for an all-party meeting is political; it equates what the EC does with what the BJP wants done. It will simultaneously attack the credibility of a hugely complicated and expensive exercise by challenging the EC’s good faith.Going to the basics, the SIR process is about identity and...
