Protecting the Right to Vote

THE ELECTION COMMISSION of India (ECI) has ordered a thorough revision of electoral rolls in Bihar just months before the Assembly elections in the state. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began late last month, an exercise last undertaken in 2003. The exercise will validate the voter base in Bihar as well as weed out voters who are not citizens. The move and the pro­cess have not gone down well with the Opposition that claims the exercise amounts to creating a National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the "backdoor". It is another matter that illegal immigrants do not have a right to vote and ECI is only verifying the integrity of the electoral rolls.

ECI has made elaborate preparations to ensure that no eligible citizen is left out of the electoral rolls even as it has tightened the requirements for enrolment. The Opposition, in contrast, wants a loose or lax process, preferably where prospective voters are not vetted at all.

In a letter to ECI on June 28, Asaduddin Owaisi, MP from Hyder­abad, said, "[W]e believe it is necessary for the Hon'ble Commission to provide a detailed explanation to our concerns and consequently grant our party's representatives and other opposition members an in-person hearing in order to ensure that all significant and relevant issues with respect to the revision exercise are put forth for this Hon'ble Commissions consideration." Other Opposition members were blunt in expressing their hostility to ECI's move.

The Opposition has found in­novative reasons to oppose the SIR exercise in Bihar. Apart from stan­dard excuses, such as the claim that the SIR will hit minority voters in particular, two stand out. For one, ECI's undertaking is claimed to be a mammoth exercise, being carried out in a very short time. The revision of electoral rolls will take place be­tween July 1 and August 31, when the draft electoral rolls will be pub­lished. After that, there will be time until September 1 to register claims and disputes and the final rolls will be published by September 30.

It is claimed that this is too short a period to revise the rolls of up to 4.96 crore voters. This is a spurious argument. ECI has experience of organising elections across India—the single largest exercise of its kind anywhere in the democratic world—and it can surely revise voter rolls within that period.

ECI has already uploaded the 2003 electoral rolls for Bihar on its website and it is available to all voters, constituency by constit­uency. Extensive arrangements have been made for door-to-door visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) who will give enumeration forms to prospective voters and will also take them back once they have been filled and the required documents submitted for verification. Prospective voters don't have to go anywhere: ECI has more than 77,000 BLOs on the job and is recruiting another 20,000. The process has already begun.

The second argument against such revision is that Bihar is a "document deficient" state and a large number of voters do not have the necessary documents to back their claims for inclusion on the revised electoral rolls. This too is a spurious argument. Every citizen—irrespective of education, income or any other life situation—is expected to be vigilant about these matters. Under the scheme of revision, citizens born after July 1, 1987 have to sub­mit one of 11 documents in support of the declaration that they are eligible for voting. In addition, they have to submit any one of the 11 documents for either of their parents. In case of prospec­tive voters born after December 2, 2004, documentation is also required for both parents.

These requirements constitute proof of citizenship and are in line with Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 after it was amended in 2003. (The Act came into force in 2004.)

The 'solution' proffered by the Opposition and its intellec­tual backers is to use Aadhaar as 'proof of citizenship'. This is a disingenuous and sinister argument. For one, Aadhaar is clearly not a document that proves citizenship. Aadhaar, as specified by the UIDAI itself, is a proof of identity and "it does not confer any right of citizenship or domicile in respect of an Aadhaar number holder." For another, a large number of illegal immi­grants—and the numbers are huge—have managed to acquire Aadhaar cards. The problem is especially acute in eastern and north-eastern India. Bihar is within this troubled zone.

A naïve explanation for the Opposition's idea of using Aad­haar for the enumeration and updating of electoral rolls could be ignorance about the require­ments of citizenship. This is dif­ficult to believe as political par­ties and their leaders are part of India's democratic process and are certainly aware of the re­quirements for citizenship. The charitable explanation is that they are concerned about pro­spective voters lacking the nec­essary documentation for registration/updating of electoral rolls.

The problem, and the entire Opposition is aware of this, is that a very large number of illegal immigrants—almost all from Bangladesh—has managed to enter India over time and acquired documents like Aadhaar. This is too well documented to be ig­nored. Constitutional bodies like ECI, which are mandated to ensure non-citizens do not participate in political processes, have devised methods to ensure this.

The problem is fully documented in border states like Mani­pur and Assam. In Manipur, the problem of 'fake Aadhaar gangs' is common knowledge. For a long time, these gangs and other criminal elements made it possible for citizens of Myanmar to ac­quire Aadhaar cards in Manipur. "[E]ach case of adult Aadhaar has to be mandatorily scrutinised and approved only at the level of State HQ in the office of Special Secretary Home," said the Manipur gov­ernment in a statement on July 1. The statement from the Manipur government followed one from Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who said Aadhaar cards would only be issued under the direct supervision of deputy commissioners in the state.

The result of a very large number of illegal immigrants ac­quiring Aadhaar documents in eastern and north-eastern states makes it impossible, even in theory, to rely on this document as proof of citizenship. The conflicts in Manipur and Assam are mainly due to the influx of illegal immigrants who have pushed the indigenous people out of their land and grabbed other ben­efits that ought to be available only to citizens.

Between 1950, when the Constitution became operational, and the early 2000s, India was woefully underequipped—legally, administratively and technically—to weed out non-citizens. The original Citizenship Act of 1955 simply listed that anyone born in India on or after January 26, 1950 shall be a citizen of India by birth. This provision was badly abused. The huge influx of immigrants, especially in Assam, forced the government to create the first Na­tional Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state based on 1951 Census data. But as experience showed, this proved to be insufficient.

Over time, the problem that began in Assam spread to the rest of India. It was not until 2003, that the original, 1955, Citizenship Act was amended. While moving the Bill in Rajya Sabha on May 7, 2003, then Home Minister LK Advani had outlined the issue in the statement of objects and reasons. The Bill sought to make the acquisition of Indian citizenship by registration and natu­ralisation more stringent. The Bill also sought to prevent illegal immigrants from becoming eligible for Indian citizenship and also provide for compulsory registration and issue of national identity cards to all citizens of India.

The last SIR in Bihar was carried out before the amended Citi­zenship Act of 2003 came into force. Since then there has been no systematic updat­ing of the electoral rolls, bringing them in line with the requirements of the Citizen­ship Act of 2003. This is the first test of that Act as well as the integrity of the electoral rolls in Bihar. In fact, it is the first test for rectifying electoral rolls across India on the basis of documentary proof of citizen­ship on the part of prospective voters.

It is not surprising that these steps are being opposed by a section of Opposition parties. Their politics depends, in part, on providing shelter to these illegal im­migrants who then go and vote for them. The process that has gone on silently for decades is now being challenged admin­istratively. Interestingly, the process to tighten citizenship laws and rules has almost exclusively been carried out under Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments. In contrast, a number of border states ruled by Opposition par­ties in the past have witnessed a huge influx of illegal immigrants. The situa­tion has reached such a point where the demographic security of India has been compromised. In Assam and Manipur, many border districts are now indistin­guishable from zones in neighbouring countries. This process has gone on un­checked and with patronage of political parties in these states.

This mass of illegal immigrants has now begun to settle down in different parts of India. The spate of Bangladeshis being arrest­ed, detained and deported from states as diverse as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Delhi points to the menace. The number of illegal immigrants caught and those actually present on Indian soil are badly mismatched. Only thorough­going exercises such as the SIR in Bihar and a nationwide NRC can weed them out. The Opposition clearly does not want that. Some amount of opposition is bound to take place. ECI should not bow to such unreasonable demands.