There are moments in the life of a democracy when the voter suddenly becomes the most important person in the country.
Election Day is one such moment.
The other is when somebody starts deleting his name from the electoral roll.
Welcome to India's latest democratic extravaganza: SIR — the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, or, as television studios might eventually rename it, the Special Intensive Revision of Everyone's Patience.
More than 13 crore names have reportedly been struck off draft electoral rolls across 30 states and Union Territories. And now comes the truly delicious part.
According to an investigation by The Indian Express, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times over ten months to decisions concerning voter additions and deletions, Form 6 and centralisation of electoral-roll database access. On one occasion, Sandhu described changes to Form 6 as “unauthorised and illegal”. Both commissioners also raised concerns about the centralisation of access to voter databases.
The Election Commission, naturally, has another version.
It says internal objections, suggestions and disagreements are normal in a multi-member institution. More importantly, it says the decisions of the Commission were ultimately unanimous.
So we have reached a fascinating constitutional innovation: Two Election Commissioners can apparently spend months objecting to something, while the institution can simultaneously insist that everything was unanimous.
Indian democracy has finally discovered the quantum theory of decision-making. A decision can be objected to and unanimous at the same time. Einstein would have been proud.
But before Congress begins distributing certificates in defence of democracy, and before the BJP starts distributing certificates in defence of electoral purity, perhaps we should remember one inconvenient fact: Neither side invented political hypocrisy. They merely inherited it.
THE UPA DISCOVERS THE HOLY VOTER
The Congress and its allies are now looking at the Election Commission with the expression normally reserved for discovering termites in somebody else's house.
“Democracy is in danger!”
“Save the Constitution!”
“Protect the voter!”
“Remove the Election Commissioner!”
All perfectly legitimate slogans. But there is a small historical problem.
The Congress-led UPA governments had their own long and complicated relationship with constitutional institutions, bureaucratic discretion, electoral politics and the use of state machinery.
The Congress has spent decades treating institutions as sacred when they appeared to favour it and questionable when they did not. This is not a uniquely Congress disease. It is simply the oldest infection in Indian politics: Institutions are independent until they disagree with you. Then they become biased.
The same politician who yesterday considered the Election Commission an unimpeachable guardian of democracy can today describe it as a threat to democracy. And tomorrow, if the electoral arithmetic changes, he may rediscover its constitutional greatness.
The institution remains the same. Only the political weather changes.
THEN ENTER THE NDA — WITH A DIFFERENT MEMORY
The NDA's response is equally predictable.
“Look! The Election Commission says the process is lawful.”
Quite right.
The Supreme Court has indeed examined the Bihar SIR and upheld the Commission's authority to conduct the exercise while imposing safeguards. And courts have so far ordered procedural corrections and greater disclosure rather than declaring elections invalid.
But here comes the question: Does legality automatically settle every question of institutional credibility?
Apparently, in Indian politics, the answer depends upon who is asking.
If the court permits something, the government says: “Case closed!”
If the court questions something, the Opposition says: “Democracy has been saved!”
The judiciary, meanwhile, presumably wonders whether anybody actually reads the full order.
The SIR debate should therefore not be reduced to: “Is SIR legal?”
There is another question: “Was SIR administered with sufficient transparency, procedural consistency and institutional accountability?”
Those are not identical questions. And that is precisely where the current controversy becomes uncomfortable. Because two sitting Election Commissioners have reportedly raised objections concerning the mechanics of the process itself. That deserves answers. Not slogans.
THE MODI GOVERNMENT'S MAGIC TRICK
The Modi government has spent years presenting itself as the government of decisive governance. Fast decisions. Big decisions. Bold decisions. Digital decisions. And now, apparently: Digital voter decisions.
There is something wonderfully modern about removing the human being from the electoral process and replacing him with a database. Earlier, a voter had to worry about a booth-level officer. Now he may have to worry about an algorithm. Earlier somebody could say: “Your name isn't here.” Now the computer can say: “Your name has been logically discrepant.”
This is progress.
The poor voter no longer has to understand why he has disappeared. He merely has to understand the software. And if the software is wrong? The controversy becomes particularly serious because the two Election Commissioners reportedly questioned whether electoral-roll databases were becoming excessively centralised and whether statutory officers at the ground level retained proper access.
That is not a small technical dispute. A voter list is not an ordinary spreadsheet. It determines who exists politically. In a democracy, data is power because data determines participation.
So, the more centralised the electoral database becomes, the more important transparency, auditability and accountability become.
AND THEN CONGRESS ARRIVES WITH THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER
Congress now wants the CEC removed. Some Opposition leaders have gone even further, demanding arrest, prosecution and fresh elections.
Excellent.
But one tiny constitutional detail appears to have escaped the television shouting brigade. There is no criminal case against the CEC merely because somebody demands one. There is no magical constitutional button marked: PRESS HERE TO ARREST ELECTION COMMISSIONER.
Removal of the CEC is a parliamentary process. Criminal prosecution is a judicial process. Challenging an election is an election-law process. Judicial review of SIR is yet another process. In India, we have a marvellous political tradition of putting all four processes into one blender and calling the resulting smoothie: “Democracy in danger.”
THE ELECTION COMMISSION: “EVERYTHING IS FINE”
The Election Commission's answer is perhaps the most fascinating part of this drama. It says the reported disagreements were part of normal internal deliberations and that decisions were ultimately unanimous. Fair enough.
But if two members repeatedly write formal objections and describe particular actions as unauthorised or illegal, the public is entitled to ask: What happened between the objection and the final decision?
Did the objections get rejected? Were they modified? Were they incorporated? Were they overruled by a majority? Were they rendered irrelevant by subsequent instructions? Or did everybody simply stare at the file until democracy became unanimous?
The answer should not be a press release. It should be a documentary trail. Because the Election Commission is not a private club. It is a constitutional institution. Its greatest asset is not its software. It is public trust.
And public trust is like glass. You can spend years polishing it. One unexplained crack can make everybody suspicious.
AND NOW — THE TELEVISION WARRIORS
But why should facts be allowed to interfere with television?
The moment the SIR controversy exploded, the television studios activated their emergency equipment. One anchor discovered dictatorship. Another discovered conspiracy. A third discovered treason. A fourth discovered that democracy had died approximately seven minutes ago. And a fifth discovered the commercial break.
The television debate usually has two panels.
Panel A: “ELECTION COMMISSION IS FINISHED!”
Panel B: “OPPOSITION IS FINISHED!”
The anchor: “Tonight, we ask the most important question of our times — WHO IS FINISHED?”
Meanwhile the voter, whose name may actually have disappeared from the electoral roll, is sitting at home wondering: “Can somebody first find me?”
Television democracy has developed a fascinating new rule: If your party's voter disappears, it is disenfranchisement. If the other party's voter disappears, it is voter-list cleansing. If your candidate loses, the EVM is suspicious. If your candidate wins, democracy has spoken. If the Election Commission agrees with you, it is independent. If it disagrees, it is compromised.
And if nobody knows what happened?
Prime-time knows.
THE GREAT INDIAN POLITICAL MEMORY LOSS
The beauty of the present controversy is that every political generation has suddenly developed selective amnesia.
The UPA remembers constitutional institutions. The NDA remembers electoral integrity. The Opposition remembers institutional independence. The government remembers judicial orders. The Election Commission remembers unanimity. The television anchor remembers democracy. And the voter? The voter is trying to remember whether his name is still on the list.
Perhaps that is the real tragedy.
We have created an electoral system in which political parties have enormous memories when it comes to the sins of their opponents and extraordinarily short memories when it comes to their own.
This is not a disease of one party.
It is a feature of Indian politics.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IS THE PERSON WHO DOESN'T HAVE A TV CHANNEL
There is, however, one constituency that deserves to be rescued from this circus.
The ordinary voter. The elderly voter whose name disappears because a record does not match. The migrant worker whose address has changed. The young first-time voter whose parents or grandparents may not appear in an old electoral roll. The poor citizen who cannot spend three days visiting government offices to prove that he actually exists. The person whose name is deleted by mistake and who doesn't know where to complain.
That is where the controversy becomes more than a political football.
According to the Indian Express reporting, the disputed change to Form 6 raised precisely this concern: two commissioners argued that statutory forms could not simply be altered without the required legal process.
And in West Bengal, the scale of appeals itself demonstrates the magnitude of the problem: the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that more than 22 lakh of the 27 lakh voters deleted during the process had appealed for reinstatement, alongside millions of other appeals concerning inclusion and exclusion. Numbers this large should make every political party uncomfortable.
Because a democracy should not require millions of citizens to prove that they deserve to vote. It should have mechanisms robust enough to prevent legitimate voters from being wrongly excluded in the first place.
SO WHO IS THE VILLAIN?
Congress? BJP? NDA? UPA? The Election Commission? The media?
Perhaps the answer is much less entertaining.
The villain is the political culture that treats institutions as independent only when they produce favourable outcomes.
The villain is the culture that converts every constitutional question into a partisan shouting match.
The villain is the idea that winning an election gives a government moral ownership of institutions.
It doesn't.
And losing an election does not automatically give the Opposition moral ownership of democracy either.
The Constitution belongs to neither. The electoral roll belongs to neither. The vote belongs to the citizen.
SIR SHOULD HAVE ONE SIMPLE TEST
Forget the hashtags. Forget the studio wars. Forget the accusations of conspiracy. Forget the counter-accusations of sour grapes.
Ask four simple questions.
Was every eligible voter given a fair opportunity to remain on the roll?
Was every deletion supported by a transparent and reviewable reason?
Could every voter easily appeal against an erroneous deletion?
And could every citizen independently audit the process sufficiently to trust its outcome?
If the answer is yes, the Commission should be able to demonstrate it. If the answer is no, the government should fix it.
And if there are genuine internal disagreements inside the Commission, the institution should explain them rather than expecting citizens to discover constitutional disputes through newspaper investigations.
That is what accountability looks like.
THE FINAL JOKE
India's political class has spent decades telling the citizen: “Your vote is your voice.”
Now the citizen has a small question: “Fine. But what if you delete my voice?”
Congress says: “It's the government's fault.”
The government says: “It's the Commission's fault.”
The Commission says: “Everything was unanimous.”
The Opposition says: “Arrest them.”
The government says: “Show us the court order.”
The court says: “Follow the procedure.”
The television anchor says: “EXCLUSIVE! DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK!”
And the voter stands outside the polling booth with his identity documents in one hand and asks: “Excuse me. Where exactly did my democracy go?”
That is the real SIR controversy. Not who shouted loudest. Not who scored the best television point. Not which party gets to wear the costume of democracy today. The real question is much simpler: Can an Indian citizen trust that when the republic asks him to vote, his name will actually be there?
Because democracy does not disappear only when somebody steals an election. Sometimes it disappears much more quietly. It disappears when a citizen arrives to vote — and discovers that, somewhere inside a computer, the republic has decided that he no longer exists.
And perhaps that is the one debate that deserves less shouting, more scrutiny, and absolutely no commercial break.
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