EDITORIAL 2: It doesn’t stop in Bihar
Context
While the relief signalled by the Supreme Court in its hearing on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar can only be welcomed, it carries a serious risk of distracting us from the real issue.
Not limited to Bihar
- The SIR is not limited to Bihar. Bihar is just a pilot.
- The ECI has directed that preparations for the exercise begin in the rest of the country, even as the Supreme Court is examining its legality.
- This is not a revision of the voters’ list — it is a de novo compilation of the list. It is, in fact, a rewriting of the rules, procedures and protocols of how the voter list is to be created.
- At stake here is the foundational principle of universal adult franchise. No matter what relief we obtain in Bihar, unless the entire exercise is annulled, we stand to lose the universality of the franchise.
Universal adult franchise
- Universal adult franchise was among the core principles of our freedom struggle, formulated in the Motilal Nehru Committee Report of 1928 and reiterated in the declaration of Purna Swaraj in 1929 and thereafter.
- The Constitution of India incorporated the principle of “adult suffrage” in Article 326 by stipulating that “every person who is a citizen of India and who is not less than twenty-one years of age … shall be entitled to be registered as a voter”.
- Article 5 specifies that Indian citizenship shall be based on birth and residence (not on descent or ethnicity etc).
- Article 10 protects a citizen against loss of citizenship status by providing for presumption of continuity: “Every person who is or is deemed to be a citizen of India” continues to be so.
Issues in SIR
- In the first 75 years, the Republic of India followed the “logic of encompassment” in realising this constitutional promise.
- The SIR seeks to reverse the logic of encompassment. It seeks to formalise the logic of closure that would result in graded inequality of citizenship.
- While it pretends to implement Article 326 of the Constitution, it twists the constitutional intent by disregarding the presumption of continuing citizenship.
- The SIR reverses the practices that have ensured the operationalisation of universal adult franchise in India.
- First, the onus of being on the voters’ list has been shifted to the eligible voters. For the first time, all potential voters, with no exception, have been asked to fill out an enumeration form.
- Second, the presumption of citizenship has been overturned. Now you need to prove that you are not an illegal resident.
- For the first time, everyone carries the burden of offering documents (either a copy of the 2003 voters’ list or proof of birth and residence) that have never been provided to them, and that a majority has no reason to possess.
- Finally, it seeks to legalise arbitrariness through the absurd provision of an “indicative’’ list of documents, which can be changed at the discretion of any local official.
Conclusion
In the past few days, the media has finally taken note of the chaos, the tragedy and the farce that the SIR is unfolding in Bihar. Powerful and relevant as these stories are, they must not distract us from the basic design underlying the exercise.