Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen has expressed grave reservations about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls presently taking place in Bihar.
According to Sen, there must be checks and balances in the administrative working, but they must not impede the rights of the most vulnerable citizens. He states that millions of Indians do not have documents stating who they are and, therefore, being rigid about documentation risks disallowing huge swathes of poor and marginalized citizens from exercising their fundamental right to vote.
“One Mistake Cannot Be Fixed by Creating Seven More”
Amartya Sen emphasized the perils in pursuing procedural precision ahead of inclusivity. He warned that while electoral roll verification might be intended to strengthen the democratic process, it may end up causing mass disenfranchisement.
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“Many cannot vote because they lack documents. If, in the name of fixing a small issue, the process causes harm to millions, that is a grave mistake,” he stressed. “Democracy cannot be built by taking away voices of the people.”
Bihar SIR Controversy
Electoral commissions initiated the SIR exercise in Bihar to clean and purify the electoral list of the State for the assembly elections. The exercise carried some amount of controversy since commission authorities stated that over 65 lakh enumeration forms have been excluded from the draft rolls. This decision brought the total list of those voting to change from just under 7.9 crore to 7.24 crore, thereby raising questions about the magnitude of these removals.
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Political leaders, activists and civil society organizations contend that the process has a disproportionate bearing on rural voters, the daily wage earners and the marginalized who might lack access to proper documentation or encounter many bureaucratic obstacles. With such mass exclusions, critics fear, the democratic fabric will be shredded, especially in a State like Bihar, where electoral participation is crucial.
Political Discourse and Larger Implications
The incident soon made its way into the arena of politics, with opposition leader Rahul Gandhi landing in Bihar to launch the “vote adhikari yatra”, speaking of what he labels the blunders of the SIR process. Gandhi and other opposition voices contend that the Election Commission has followed a flawed route for disenfranchising lakhs of deserving voters.
This strife goes on to highlight the very critical issue: Can democracy say that it is inclusive if millions are denied participation in the name of procedural accuracy? Sen’s warnings abrasively distinguish themselves not just as warnings meant for Bihar, but for the very values that constitute democratic governance. To take away the vote from the marginalized, in a country where the vote is the strongest leveler, in all probability will serve to enhance existing inequities rather than rectify them.
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