Until the mid-2010s, the idea that India’s middle class was destined to expand continuously seemed self-evident. India had enjoyed double-digit growth during the decade from 2004 to 2014 under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of the economic liberalisation of the 1990s driven by the IT sector and foreign investment. The middle class was expanding at that time thanks to the growth of new skilled jobs. This momentum led to the emergence of a social group comprising corporate executives, engineers, IT professionals and entrepreneurs. This middle class defined itself by its income, its consumption capacity, and a social ethos often associated with the higher castes – particularly evident in its opposition to affirmative action policies.

However, this category has remained difficult to measure, as the criteria used vary widely among organisations: income, consumption, wealth, educational level, type of housing, white-collar employment, or subjective self-identification. In the 2010s, several estimates fuelled the notion of a spectacular rise of the Indian middle class. In 2012, the NCAER estimated that it comprised approximately 142 million people, or nearly 12% of the population. Other researchers, using broader criteria, estimated it at 20% of the population. On this basis, firms such as Ernst & Young, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs predicted rapid growth in this segment, with some even forecasting several hundred million members by 2025–2040.

Narendra Modi, when he was chief minister of Gujarat and later as prime minister after 2014, even used the term “neo-middle class” to refer to people from rural areas who were entering a form of urban modernity thanks to economic growth. However, this term quickly disappeared from political vocabulary as the momentum for expansion ran out of steam.

Indeed, the Indian middle class plateaued in the mid-2010s. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2017, only 108 million Indians belonged to the middle class – defined as having an income of $10 to $50 per day in purchasing power parity – representing about 8% of the population. When the wealthiest segments – those situated above this group – are included, the proportion remains close to previous estimates, confirming the lack of significant growth of the Indian middle class. This is because real incomes for this social category stagnated between 2013 and 2014 and 2023 and 2024. Real wages even declined in several sectors: manufacturing, mining, energy, and services.

This situation can be explained by persistent inflation, particularly food inflation and by weak income growth. Between 2017 and 2018 and 2022 and 2023, real urban income showed virtually no growth. In certain sectors, such as IT, retail, and logistics, nominal wage increases fell short of inflation.

The social implications of a K-shaped recovery

These averages mask a growing internal differentiation within the middle class. Some households formerly classified in this category have joined the economic elite, while the majority of the middle segments have stagnated or regressed. Data from the World Inequality Lab indeed show a dramatic concentration of income at the top of society: the richest 10% held 57.7% of national income in 2022–2023, compared to 33.5% in 1990. The richest 1% held 22.6% of national income, and the top 0.1% held about 10%. India now has more than 300 billionaires. Conversely, the 40% below the top 10% saw their share of national income drop from 44.1% in 1990 to 27.3% in 2022–2023, while the share of the poorest 50% fell to 15%. This situation has led some researchers, such as Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty, to speak of a “missing middle class.”

This polarisation is reflected in consumption patterns. The poorest half of the urban population spends less than 5,000 rupees per month, while the richest 5% spend more than four times as much. Households drew heavily on their savings after the pandemic, but this was not enough: their debt has reached a record high, while demand for consumer goods is slowing. Car sales are telling, as only 12% of Indians are reportedly able to afford a car. Small cars, previously associated with the middle class, are declining, while SUVs and high-end vehicles are growing strongly, as are luxury housing, high-end hotel services, and business-class airline tickets.

This polarisation seems paradoxical in light of India’s officially reported growth rates, which have often hovered around 7 to 8 percent since 2014, excluding the Covid years. How can this paradox be explained? First, these figures have been disputed, particularly due to issues with national accounting and the overestimation of the informal sector. The IMF itself has criticised the quality of India’s data. In reality, growth is believed to have been overestimated by 1.5 to 2 percentage points. This is because several shocks have hit the economy hard: the 2016 demonetisation, which abruptly removed 85% of the currency in circulation and had a lasting impact on the informal economy; the poorly managed introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 2017, which disrupted small and medium-sized enterprises; and then the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a collapse in economic activity, a massive exodus of precarious workers, and a major social crisis.

Second, since the pandemic, India’s recovery has been described as “K-shaped” growth: the wealthiest are benefiting from growth, while the working and middle classes are stagnating or declining. In 2024, three quarters of Indians earned less than 15,000 rupees per month – about 140 euros. This unequal recovery explains why macroeconomic growth is not translating into an expansion of the middle class. It primarily benefits an elite capable of investing, consuming high-end goods, and capitalising on the opportunities of globalisation, while college graduates face a deteriorating job market.

Graduate unemployment and turbulence in the IT Sector

Young Indians with higher education face very high unemployment rates. In 2024, according to the International Labor Organization, the unemployment rate among graduates reached 29.1 percent – nine times higher than that of illiterate people. This new paradox stems in part from a mismatch between graduates’ expectations and employers’ needs – both in terms of quality and quantity. Families invest heavily in private education, often at the cost of significant debt, which leads young people to turn down low-paying jobs. At the same time, employers believe that many graduates lack the necessary skills. Top-tier institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, remain highly selective and train only a small minority of engineers. And even these institutions are facing placement difficulties, with a significant drop in job offers in 2023–2024.

The IT sector, long a driving force behind the rise of the middle class, illustrates this crisis. The growth of India’s IT sector was fuelled by outsourcing from the West – particularly in the wake of the Y2K bug – by the training of qualified engineers, and by supportive public policies, such as the creation of special economic zones. Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, and Satyam-Mahindra have made India a global powerhouse in IT services. The sector accounted for 7.4% of GDP in 2022, up from 1.2% in 1998, and its exports exceeded $200 billion in the mid-2020s, with the United States absorbing a dominant share of these exports.

But India’s IT sector is slowing down. Revenue growth has levelled off, investments have declined, and the workforce is no longer expanding. Automation and artificial intelligence threaten a significant portion of jobs. Major companies in the sector have begun to reduce their workforces: Infosys, Wipro, and TCS have laid off employees or scaled back hiring. The Indian IT sector could benefit from the rise of Global Capability Centers, or GCCs. These centers are established directly in India by foreign multinationals to bring certain IT, financial, HR, or innovation functions in-house. By 2025, India had approximately 1,700 GCCs employing 1.9 million people, with an annual growth rate of 19%. They could expand further due to the cost of skilled labour and visa restrictions in the United States. However, these centers do not recruit large numbers of recent generalist graduates; they primarily seek specialised, experienced professionals with advanced skills in AI, cybersecurity, or cutting-edge technologies. This trend is therefore likely to exacerbate polarisation in the labour market rather than help expand India’s middle class.

Overall, the middle class is not experiencing linear growth, as was imagined in the 2000s, but rather significant polarisation: while the elite is prospering, the lower middle class is becoming increasingly vulnerable. Social mobility – which was based on the three pillars of education, jobs in the service sector (particularly in IT), and urbanisation – is functioning less effectively than before. This situation is particularly problematic in a country where, every year, more than ten million young people enter the job market: it is from among them, and from Gen Z at large, that today’s street protesters are drawn.

Christophe Jaffrelot is the author of Modi’s India (Princeton University Press, 2021. His next book L’ambition indienne : les paradoxes d’une nouvelle puissance (éditions Taillandier) is due to be released in October 2026.

Courtesy: The Conversation

The post India’s middle‑class crisis: the great bifurcation and the Gen Z uprising appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It is important, however, to understand the change in Vande Mataram’s status beyond the simple paradigm of it being a diversion tactic to shift debate away from the Jantar Mantar-NEET protests. Why?

Because some 122 years ago, the slogan Vande Mataram galvanised large sections of Indians against British rule and became an integral part of the national imagination. Now, Vande Mataram is being sought to be used as a tool by the BJP to further its project of cultural imposition upon Indians.

This essay argues that the 2026 Amendment represents a transition from the idea of a more personal nationalism to a paradigm of imposed nationalism, arriving in the wake of the loosening grip of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The amendment, along with the push to bring Vande Mataram on par with Jana Gana Mana, fits neatly within the Hindutva project of rewriting the symbolism of the Congress regime. Through an examination of the song’s literary, political, and constitutional history, this essay will demonstrate that the 2026 Amendment does not represent historical continuity, but rather a contemporary majoritarian redefinition of a complex national symbol.

What does the law say?

Before I go further, it is important to state the change brought in by The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2026 (hereafter, the 2026 Amendment), which amends the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 (the 1971 Act).

Section 3 of the 1971 Act, before the amendment, read as follows:

Prevention of singing of Indian National Anthem, etc. — whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Indian National Anthem or causes disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

The 2026 Amendment substituted the above section with the following:

3. Whoever, intentionally — (a) prevents the singing of the National Anthem or the National Song; or (b) causes disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

The question is why?

A simple question to ask while analysing any material event is to ask why. Why should any law be made? Naturally, to address and engage with an issue in society that needs the moral, political, and social force of the law for it to be solved. Why should this specific song be given protection? Because it is being disrespected, and therefore, a proper protection regime is needed.

However, if one looks at the Statement of Objects and Reasons (SOR) for the 2026 Act, one would be amused by the lack of a problem statement, that is, the issue the amendment seeks to address. The SOR is an interpretative tool used to understand the circumstances surrounding the enactment of a law, or the problem the law was intended to solve. The SOR for the Vande Mataram Act says, essentially, three things:

1. Jana Gana Mana is a protected National Symbol.
2. Dr. Rajendra Prasad said in a speech that Vande Mataram shall be equally honoured on par with Jana Gana Mana.
3. Therefore, to ensure that Vande Mataram is respected and protected, this amendment is being enacted.

There is no problem statement here. A problem statement would have looked something like this, even with minimum amount of effort on part of the government:

Owing to the fact that incidents of disrespecting the National Song have become frequent in recent times, it is fit to follow the ideal propounded by Dr. Rajendra Prasad to honour the National Song on par with the National Anthem, and to accord the former the same protection as the latter under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

We find no such basis for the amendment in the first place. We do, however, find the real reasons ex post. How? The government sent orders across the steel frame that is the Indian bureaucracy stating that official functions should be opened by singing the full version of Vande Mataram, that is, all six stanzas as opposed to the current convention of singing only the first two.

To put it in one sentence: the BJP wants India’s imagination with respect to its National Symbols reimagined in the way it sees them. Right now, Jana Gana Mana, the National Anthem, is written by Rabindranath Tagore, someone who a Modi can only try to imitate before an election but cannot claim to be either his guru or ideological predecessor. After all, Tagore’s nationalism was more humanistic than the most liberal ideas of nationalism. The flag, the song, and every other symbol bear the imprint of the Indian National Congress (INC) and its role in the independence movement. Therefore, the BJP wants to rewrite them using the means of law and power.

It is in this context that any further analysis of the current political developments, and of the Act, should be undertaken.

Reading between the lines

The operative provision of the act does two things. It punishes anyone who intentionally prevents the singing of the National Anthem or the National Song. It also punishes anyone who causes disturbance to an assembly engaged in that singing. Three years, a fine, or both.

Section 3A of the parent Act, inserted in 2003, adds a mandatory minimum of one year for a second conviction. Vande Mataram has thus been placed in the same level as Jana Gana Mana.

Weber’s old distinction between legality and legitimacy is useful here.[1] A statute may be perfectly legal, passed with the required majorities and notified on the appointed day, and still lack legitimacy, because it answers to the will of those in power rather than to any demonstrable public interest. The missing problem statement and reliance on a speech of a single leader is a testament to the fact that the government does not have a proper legitimate reason to do this, except for its aggressive enthusiasm to irk the cultural fabric of the country. Invoking Rajendra Prasad in these circumstances is a prop, not a justification. There is something faintly comic about a party pressing the words of a 1950 Congressman into service to authorise its own coercive statute.

What the government cannot invoke is more revealing than what it can. National integrity is off the table, because that would be a confession of failure over twelve years in office. The government’s own ideological ancestors on Vande Mataram are off the table too, because Savarkar, Golwalkar and Hedgewar were peripheral figures in the freedom struggle, and their writings on the song, where they exist, wilt on any honest comparison with those of Bose, Nehru or Tagore.

Historical Context

Origins

Bankim wrote the song around 1875 in a heavily Sanskritised Bengali and published it in Bangadarshan.[2] It was a regional lyric to the beauty of Bengal. It addressed the population of the Presidency and made no Pan-Indian claim. Seven years later Bankim placed it inside Anandamath, and its meaning was rewritten. The nation became a goddess, deified as a triad of Jagaddhatri, Kali and Durga. The song became the battle hymn of the santanas, the children who wage war for her honour. That war, and the point tends to get buried under a century of nationalist reception, is not fought against the British. It is fought against Muslims. The santanas torch houses, loot properties, and dream aloud of building temples on the sites of demolished mosques.[3] The novel’s climax welcomes British rule as friendly and necessary. A supernatural physician arrives to tell Satyananda to cease fighting, on the ground that the English will protect Hindu spiritual knowledge from further contamination.[4] It also important to note here that the current issue with the debate is not its origins. The analysis of the origins of the song should be done in a context that is more mature and is not charged with the fact the government wants every citizen to own it.

The slogan India chanted and the aftermath

Coming back to the timeline, in 1905, Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal along communal lines. Within months the opening stanzas of Vande Mataram were being sung at protests across the province. The stanzas travelled on their own, without the novel behind them. Protestors, weavers, students, boatmen carried the words into streets where most of those chanting had never opened Anandamath.

The ecumenical moment did not last. Aurobindo Ghose, writing in his weekly Bande Mataram between 1906 and 1908, undertook a deliberate sacralisation of the anti-colonial struggle. He called Bankim a seer. He called nationalism a religion. Patriotism, on his account, was Karma Yoga, Shaktipuja, a devotional discipline addressed to the Mother.[5] Aurobindo aligned the vocabulary of the national struggle with the theological structures of one religion, at the very moment the movement was acquiring a mass character.

The trouble was not that Hindus imagined the nation in Hindu terms. Every community imagines the nation in the vocabulary available to it.[6] The trouble was that this particular imagination was then offered as the imagination of all Indians, and those who could not sign on would be positioned first as reluctant, then as suspect. The line from Aurobindo’s Shaktipuja to the twenty-first-century slogan Iss desh mein rehna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga is neither short nor straight but it is a very real line.

The objections

By the late 1930s the fracture visible in the fine print of Anandamath had become audible in the public life of the Congress. Vande Mataram was by then the customary opening of party gatherings, and it was drawing objections. Muslim organisations found in it an idolatrous invocation of the motherland as a Hindu deity. Christian and Sikh groups objected too.

At the Muslim League’s Lucknow session in October 1937, Jinnah pressed this into a central charge against the Congress. His argument was that to insist on Vande Mataram was to insist on a majoritarian theological culture, and to require of the citizen that she be, in her aesthetic and religious sensibility, first a Hindu.

The Congress Working Committee met in Calcutta on 26 October 1937 under Nehru’s presidency, and it understood the danger. A subcommittee was set-up: Nehru, Gandhi, Azad, and Bose. The subcommittee with able advice from Rabindranath Tagore decided to endorse the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram and leaving out the later stanzas for they refer the country in a rather Hindu imagination or that other communities have objections to it.

The 1937 compromise is usually described as an accommodation of Muslim sentiment. That is true, and it is incomplete. What the CWC actually did was closer to what Isaiah Berlin later called value pluralism.[7] If a society is an amalgamation of communities with various commitments, be that of religious nature or otherwise, a single symbol cannot represent that society as a whole. The good thing about political wisdom is that in these kind of situations, it constructs bridges between various groups and creates a space that does not ask one section to fit into the imagination of the other. It is not a concession but a link in a long chain of actions that strive to create a pluralist society.

The Constituent Assembly and the Settlement of 1950

The compromise of 1937 cast a long shadow over the Constituent Assembly. As the Assembly moved towards finalising the national symbols, the argument that had been fought inside the Congress in the 1930s was fought again, this time on the floor of the House drafting the constitution of a new republic.

Purushottam Das Tandon led the conservative wing and pressed for the adoption of Vande Mataram as the sole National Anthem. The argument did have its force. The song had been sung on the gallows. It had been chanted in jails. It had been the last word on the lips of men and women marched to their deaths. To choose any other song, on this view, would insult the memory of the movement itself. Against Tandon stood a coalition of liberal Congressmen, minority representatives and others who saw that the historical memory of a movement cannot be the sole ground on which the symbols of a state are chosen. Jana Gana Mana had emerged in the interim as an alternative. Its language had no similar objections.

The Assembly did what has not been sufficiently appreciated. It chose not to resolve the argument by vote. It chose to resolve it by settlement. On January 24, 1950, Rajendra Prasad, in his capacity as President of the Assembly, made a statement rather than moved a resolution. Jana Gana Mana was the National Anthem. Vande Mataram was the National Song. The two would be honoured equally, and the National Song would have equal status.

Granville Austin noticed the framers’ persistent aversion to producing textual solutions that would freeze the resolution of live cultural disputes.[8] A statement by the presiding officer does not carry the force of law. It carries the force of morality. They were leaving room for the conscience of those who could not, for reasons rooted in the depths of their religious sensibility, sing the song without violence to themselves.

Compelled Speech and the Rights of Conscience

The 2026 Amendment converts this symbolic honorary status into a penal obligation. Its defenders will say, correctly, that the text prohibits only the intentional prevention of singing and the causing of disturbance to an assembly engaged in such singing. It does not, on its face, compel any citizen to sing. This is a formalist reading, and it disintegrates the moment one considers the environment in which the law will operate.

The Supreme Court addressed precisely this environment in Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala in 1986. Three Jehovah’s Witness children had refused to sing the National Anthem in their school, on the ground that their conscience forbade singing an anthem to anything other than God. Chinnappa Reddy J. held that standing respectfully during the anthem was sufficient, and that compelling the singing violated Article 19 (1) (a), which contains within the right to freedom of speech the right to remain silent, and Article 25, which protects freedom of conscience. The judgment is short. It rests on a proposition of considerable constitutional depth. The state cannot demand of the citizen a positive act of expression as the price of belonging. If the singing of the National Anthem itself cannot be compelled, the singing of Vande Mataram, whose theological register is far more textured, cannot be compelled either. Anything else would be a constitutional absurdity.

The trouble is that the Amendment does not need to compel singing on its face in order to compel singing in practice. In a polarised atmosphere the silent refusal that Bijoe Emmanuel protects can be re-characterised by a local complainant, an aggrieved neighbour or an ambitious sub-inspector as an act of causing disturbance or of showing disrespect. When the boundaries of a law are unclear and its penalties are severe, it poses a risk of citizens retreating well behind the boundaries. The right to remain silent becomes the risk of remaining silent, and the risk becomes prohibitive.

Briefly, the argument for the Vande Mataram Amendment is three pronged. One, if it was declared that anthem and song are to be treated same, then the statutory protections also should be the same. Second, the act does not ask everyone to sing. It asks people to not disturb the singing or prevent the singing. Third, the more boilerplate that the Parliament in its own wisdom has chosen to protect a national symbol and it does not need to give a layered justification for its decision.

These are respectable arguments but they fail for reasons worth spelling out.

If the framers wanted to legislate it or settle it, they would have, then and there. To make an active choice to not move it for vote shows that they let the national symbols be adoptable for all communities. Secondly, in an atmosphere where people have been deliberately charged with jingoism, the test in Bijoe Emmanuel will only hold until the Courts show the intention to. Once the crowd starts to expect that the whole of the song is to be sung, it is to the Crowd’s wisdom to act when someone does not sing the whole of the song, although it is not legally mandated. Thirdly, a polity’s right to protect its symbols cannot exceed the polity’s own core commitments. India’s foundational commitment, spelled out in the Preamble and vindicated across sixty years of adjudication, is to a plurality that does not require assimilation as the price of belonging and therefore, if the state wants to nevertheless protect the song, it should give not just a layered justification but also a constitutional one.

There is a deeper worry beneath all three of the above arguments. Ambedkar closed his final address to the Constituent Assembly with a warning about hero-worship in Indian public life. Bhakti in religion may be a road to salvation, he said. In politics it is a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship.[9] The 2026 Amendment is not, of course, a dictatorial measure. But its logic is the logic Ambedkar was warning against. It is the transfer of devotional intensity from the temple to the state, and the enforcement of such devotion, by criminal sanction. Once the state acquires the taste for compelling public affirmations of its own sacredness, the appetite tends to grow and that is a slippery slope.

Conclusion

The 2026 Amendment is best read not as a technical amendment to a sixty-year-old statute but as a political act of considerable ambition. Its ambition is to redraw the symbolic constitution of the Republic, and to accomplish through the ordinary instruments of legislation what its authors could not accomplish through the constituent process. It substitutes for the delicate settlement of 1937 and 1950 a punitive uniformity. And it does so in the absence of any demonstrable public harm that might justify the criminal law.

Defending the song against this treatment is not diminishing it. It is insisting on the terms on which the song became precious in the first place. It was sung by Bose in Berlin and by peasants in Chittagong. It was sung by Muslims in Bombay and by students in Madras. It was sung, in its truncated form, at Congress gatherings for a decade after 1937, and it was sung with more feeling for having been truncated, because the truncation was itself an act of respect towards those who could not sing the whole.

A republic honours its symbols by permitting their voluntary embrace. It dishonours them by conscripting the criminal law to enforce their recital. The framers understood this in 1950 with a clarity that their successors have chosen to forget. The task of the citizen in the years to come is to remember what has been forgotten, and to insist, patiently and in public, that a song sung under threat is not the song manifesting the true national consciousness.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

[1]Weber, Economy and Society, on the distinction between legality and legitimacy in modern domination.

[2]Bhattacharya, Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song, chapters 1 and 2.

[3]Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation, on the maternal figure in Bankim; Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, on the novelistic construction of nationalist imagination.

[4]Noorani, “How Secular is Vande Mataram?”, Frontline, 2 January 1999.

[5]Ghose, Bande Mataram (weekly edition, 1906 to 1908).

[6]Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, on the “inner” spiritual domain of Indian nationalism and its Hindu inflection.

[7]Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” and the essays in The Crooked Timber of Humanity.

[8]Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, on the framers’ preference for procedural over substantive resolution of cultural disputes.

[9]Ambedkar, address to the Constituent Assembly, November 25, 1949: “Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”

Related:

Rajya Sabha passes Vande Mataram bill as NCRB data reveals high pendency, low convictions

Vande Mataram Requiem for Jana Gana Mana

Identity issue to the fore: Vande Mataram controversy

The post Vande Mataram and the 2026 Amendment: From voluntary honour to penal coercion appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The violence did not end on the street. Singh was allegedly chased towards his third-floor residence and attacked again. His family heard him screaming. When his son opened the door, he reportedly found several men kicking and punching his father. Singh was eventually taken to hospital with severe injuries. He died the following morning.

A Manipuri music teacher, Chongtham Vikram Singh, living in Delhi’s Ashram area was mob lynched by 8 people following a dispute over alleged noise and nuisance outside his residence.

Police said seven accused have been arrested and a minor detained in connection with the case.… pic.twitter.com/4V0LVeVLiJ

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 7, 2026

Delhi, India. A music teacher from Manipur beaten to death at Kilokari under Sunlight colony police station, South Delhi. Chongtham Vikram has been residing in the area for atleast 10years in the area. He objected to loud noises and nuisance created in front of his house. What… pic.twitter.com/CJm0P5ZFAy

— huidrom athouba (@HuidromAthouba) September 7, 2026

The police have arrested seven adults and apprehended a juvenile. The FIR invokes Section 103(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita along with Section 3(5). Section 103(2) is particularly significant because it concerns group murder where specified identity-based grounds are alleged.

Singh was a Meitei from Manipur living in Delhi. Northeast community organisations have specifically demanded that the possibility of identity-based targeting be investigated. The North East Media Forum, while acknowledging that the motive remains under investigation, called for any possibility of racial or identity-based targeting to be thoroughly examined, pointing to continuing concerns over discrimination and intimidation faced by people from the Northeast.

According to The Hindu, Singh’s son told police that his father had mentioned being threatened by people associated with the nearby dhaba after earlier complaints about excessive noise. If established, that would make the incident considerably more serious than a spontaneous altercation: it would raise questions about a pattern of intimidation that preceded the fatal assault.

Arrests are not accountability

There is an uncomfortable history behind the reactions from Northeast communities. People from the Northeast living in Delhi have repeatedly spoken about racial stereotyping, slurs, discrimination and violence. That history is precisely why the killing of a Manipuri man inside the national capital cannot be understood only through the immediate trigger alleged by the police.

The Delhi Police have arrested the accused and the administration has promised lawful action. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that a strong chargesheet will be filed within two weeks. The Indian Express reported that CCTV recordings captured the accused leaving the building after the assault and, around ten minutes later, Singh’s family carrying him towards hospital.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge described the killing as a “chilling reminder” of what he called “utter lawlessness” under the BJP government. Congress leader and Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asked what Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s Ministry of Home Affairs and the Delhi Police were doing to stop what he described as growing lawlessness, particularly against people from the Northeast. Arvind Kejriwal also condemned the killing, while Manipur MP Bimol Akoijam demanded exemplary punishment.

Chongtham Vikram Singh ji, a renowned musician from Manipur, went downstairs to ask some men to lower the noise outside his home. He was beaten to death for it.

A father, killed outside his own home, in his own country’s capital. After many such incidents, every Northeast family…

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 8, 2026

The merciless lynching of Chongtham Vikram Singh ji, a well-known musician from Manipur, by a mob is yet another chilling reminder of the utter lawlessness under the BJP.

Students are unsafe. Women face atrocities every day. People from Northeast India face discrimination.… pic.twitter.com/uGfjNCYvbn

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) September 8, 2026

The senseless murder of renowned musician from Manipur, Chongtham Vikram Singh ji, in the heart of Delhi is a national shame. He was brutally beaten and murdered only for asking some people to make less noise.

Is this what it’s come to? Is there no safety for a young father…

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) September 8, 2026

The streets are already asking the question

People gathered outside Sunlight Colony Police Station demanding justice. A candlelight march was held. Northeast student and community organisations condemned the killing. These protests are not simply demands for punishment after a murder. They reflect a deeper anxiety: if a person can be attacked outside his own home after objecting to a disturbance, what protection does an ordinary Northeast resident actually have?

The North East Students’ Society at Delhi University and the North East Media Forum have both demanded a serious and impartial investigation. Their insistence that identity-based targeting be examined is important precisely because the burden of proving whether prejudice played a role lies with the investigation—not with the victim’s community.

A Manipuri (Meitei) music teacher Chongtham Vikram was beaten to death yesterday by at least 6-7 men in Ashram, New Delhi.

The men, allegedly drunk, came to his house and beat him to death after he objected to them over making noise at the night at the dhaba just opposite his… pic.twitter.com/c97JkpC9BV

— Meitei Heritage Society (@meiteiheritage) September 7, 2026

Who was Chongtham Vikram Singh?

Chongtham Vikram Singh was a guitarist associated with Manipur’s early rock music movement, having performed with bands including Ultra Vires, Phoenix and Eastern Dark. He had spent years teaching music in Delhi and had built a life there. He was the son of celebrated Manipuri singer Chongtham Kamala, associated with Matamgi Manipur, widely regarded as the first Manipuri feature film. His cousin Lakshmipriya Devi directed Boong, the first Indian film to win a BAFTA. For nearly 17 years, Delhi was his home.

Related:

Days of Demands, Hours of Protest: Swatantra Bhardwaj finally detained in assault case

Pune’s DJ Controversy, Ganeshotsav and Assault: The politics of who gets to make noise

The Normalisation of Suicide at IITs: Institutional blindness and failure

Two women journalists allege police assault after questioning Delhi CM, say attack intensified after police heard they were Muslim

The post Beaten to Death Outside His Own Home: What Delhi owes Chongtham Vikram Singh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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Sonya Gill was a member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee and the Mumbai district secretariat since long, a member of the AIDWA central executive committee for nearly two decades, the Maharashtra state general secretary of AIDWA for three terms from 2010 to 2019, and state vice president later. Along with her husband, the renowned journalist P Sainath, she was the co-founder and trustee of the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI).

Sonya hailed from a Punjabi Sikh family. Her father was an Army officer and mother a home-maker. Sonya was born on September 27, 1955, and studied at the Mater Dei School in Delhi where she excelled in academics, and was also adjudged the best all-rounder. She graduated from the S P College in Pune. From 1976 to 1980, she did her MA and MPhil in Sociology at the JNU in Delhi. She won A grades in both. It is in JNU that she was exposed to Left ideology. She then taught Sociology at the Sophia College in Mumbai for a year in 1981-82, and then worked at the Foundation for Research in Community Health (FRCH). Health was always one of the important subjects of her interest and study.

Sonya joined the AIDWA and became active in the women’s movement in 1989. She began her work among women in central Mumbai’s working-class areas in Worli BDD Chawls, Jijamata Nagar, and Delisle Road, under the guidance of Ahilya Rangnekar and Prabha Sawant. She was elected President of the AIDWA Mumbai District Committee in 1994. In this capacity, she paid meticulous attention to building up local units of AIDWA across the city. She also made special efforts in building joint activities with other secular, democratic and progressive women’s organisations in Mumbai. She remained a pillar of the Mumbai AIDWA till the end.

She was later elected to the AIDWA Maharashtra State Committee, then its State Secretariat, and then as State General Secretary in 2010. She ably carried out this responsibility for three terms till 2019. She moved widely in several districts and helped to strengthen the organisation. She was elected to the AIDWA Central Executive Committee (CEC) from 2007 up to 2023. Her contribution to the discussions on reproductive health, population policies and other health-related issues was very valuable. It helped AIDWA in formulating its positions on health issues at the national level. Sonya represented AIDWA in the Jan Swasthya Abhiyaan (JSA) and played an important role in bringing out the gender perspectives in its campaigns.

Sonya joined the CPI (M) in 1990; was elected to the CPI (M) Mumbai district committee in 1997, to the district secretariat in 2005, and to the Maharashtra state committee in 2012.

Sonya married P Sainath on March 29, 1986. They met when they were studying in the JNU.  Their extraordinarily strong four-decade long personal and political partnership came to an abrupt end with their evening walk together on August 25, when Sonya suddenly collapsed. None of us have ever seen Sainath so shattered as we did at Sonya’s funeral. Her contribution to PARI was immense, and it deserves a separate account of its own.

Sonya battled her serious illness for the last few years with magnificent courage. Words can never describe what she and Sainath went through in that period. But through it all, her commitment, her grace, and her radiant smile never left her even once. Not a word was ever heard from her about her pain or her difficulties. P Sainath says, “That was true even at home. In 40 years, I never heard her complain even once about her health, her pain, or narrate her unhappiness with it. She was extremely positive each time – after major surgeries, she’d be back at work, first online, then in office.” She continued to participate in the activities of AIDWA and CPI(M) till the end, right up to the nationwide Jail Bharo struggle in Mumbai on August 10, 2026. All this was courage and fortitude of the very highest order.

Sonya and I worked together in AIDWA for 32 years since 1994 when I joined the women’s movement after being relieved from the SFI. We worked closely together at all levels, and for one term as President and General Secretary of the Maharashtra AIDWA. It was a joy to work with her. It was inspiring to see her grit when facing the police during protests. It was so exciting when we travelled ticketless from Mumbai to Delhi with hundreds of women for the All India rallies. Songs, slogans and laughter reverberated in the train. Sonya easily melted into the bevy of women in the train, and became part of a collective strength.

Remarkable Comrade

Sonya was a grassroots organiser in the truest sense of the term. Her politics was rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, particularly working-class women. She diligently took up local issues of women, organising struggles, mobilising them for action. This helped women to realise their own strength and they became capable of raising their voice against injustice in various bastis of Mumbai. For decades, she devoted herself to strengthening the collective struggles of women for equality, dignity and justice.

Sonya also paid meticulous attention to the ideological and political training of women activists. Developing politically conscious, confident and independent women activists was for her the key.  She constantly encouraged younger comrades to understand the broader political and economic forces behind the problems faced by women. She explained that struggles over water, ration, housing, education, employment, health, and violence had to be connected to the larger struggle against class exploitation, caste oppression and patriarchy. She strongly opposed communal and casteist forces and emphasised the unity of women.

Sonya was an extraordinary combination of ideological firmness and personal warmth. Her quiet determination and ability to encourage others was exemplary. She did not seek the limelight. Her satisfaction came from seeing other women emerge as confident leaders. She believed in the capacity of ordinary women to transform their own lives and society.

Her death leaves a profound void. But a true tribute to Sonya cannot be just words of sorrow; it must carry forward the work to which she dedicated her life. It must mean strengthening the women’s movement, building struggles of the exploited and the oppressed, defending democratic and secular values, and fighting communalism, casteism, and patriarchy.

Comrade Sonya, the communist, never separated women’s emancipation from radical social transformation. She understood that revolutionary work requires patience, discipline, and sacrifice. She leaves behind not only memories, but also a rich collective of women activists.

Her absence will always be deeply felt by AIDWA, by CPI(M), by PARI and by innumerable comrades and friends. But her legacy will live wherever women organise, wherever workers and peasants raise their fists, and wherever people struggle for a just and equal society!

Comrade Sonya Gill, Lal Salaam! Comrade Sonya Gill Amar Rahe!

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The Election Commission and state election authorities have, however, clarified that exclusion from the draft electoral roll does not automatically amount to permanent deletion. The draft publication has opened the statutory process for claims, objections, verification and hearings, giving eligible voters an opportunity to seek restoration or inclusion of their names before the final electoral roll is published.

The claims and objections period commenced on August 31 and will remain open until September 30. Election authorities will examine the applications, objections and related cases until October 29, following which the final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on November 4, 2026.

The draft electoral roll for Maharashtra has been published. #SIR @ECISVEEP pic.twitter.com/wSvGgY9dyD

— ChiefElectoralOffice (@CEO_Maharashtra) August 31, 2026

State-wide draft roll: over 7.71 crore included

Before the commencement of the SIR exercise, Maharashtra had 9,78,54,049 registered electors. According to the draft electoral rolls, 7,71,65,562 electors, representing approximately 78.86 per cent of the pre-SIR electorate, have been included. A total of 2,06,88,487 electors, or around 21.14 per cent of the earlier electorate, could not be included in the draft roll at this stage. The authorities have emphasised that the figure of 2.07 crore should not be interpreted as the final number of voters who will ultimately be removed from the electoral rolls. The present draft remains subject to the claims and objections process, hearings and verification of documents.

Major urban districts account for largest share of exclusions

Pune, Thane and Mumbai Suburban have emerged as the three districts with the largest number of electors not included in the draft rolls. Pune has recorded 28,66,481 names outside the draft list, followed closely by Thane with 28,59,377 electors and Mumbai Suburban with 26,58,202 electors. Together, these three districts account for 83,84,060 electors, constituting approximately 40.5 per cent of the total state-wide number not included in the draft.

Other districts with substantial numbers of excluded electors include Nagpur with 14,43,267, Nashik with 10,27,792, Mumbai City with 9,50,720, Palghar with 6,68,709, Aurangabad with 6,07,660 and Raigad with 5,84,118.

Pune’s electorate falls from 90.80 lakh to 62.13 lakh in draft stage

In Pune district, the electoral roll before the SIR exercise contained 90,80,173 registered voters. The newly published draft roll contains 62,13,692 electors, leaving 28,66,481 names outside the draft at the present stage. Of the voters included in the Pune draft electoral roll, 31,51,297 are male electors, 30,62,012 are female electors and 383 are transgender electors.

The draft rolls for Pune were published in the presence of district and election officials, including Collector Jitendra Dudi, Deputy District Election Officer Minal Kalaskar and Tehsildar Sheetal Mule, along with representatives of recognised political parties.

The revision process is being conducted with October 1, 2026, as the qualifying date.

Reasons for exclusion: Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate Categories (ASDD)

The state-wide list of electors not included in the draft has been classified into several categories based on findings during the verification and enumeration process. Of the 2,06,88,487 electors not included across Maharashtra, approximately 75.52 lakh have been classified as Absent or Not Found, 76.80 lakh as Permanently Shifted, 34.81 lakh as Dead, 17.63 lakh as Already Enrolled Elsewhere or Duplicate, and approximately 2.23 lakh under other categories.

Election authorities have clarified that these classifications are not final determinations regarding the elector’s voting status. A person classified as duplicate at one location, for instance, may remain validly enrolled elsewhere. Similarly, an elector marked absent or not found may have been unavailable during verification and may still be entitled to seek inclusion after establishing eligibility.

Pune’s ASD list contains over 28.66 lakh electors

In Pune district, all 28,66,481 electors not included in the draft have been categorised under the ASD list, covering electors marked as Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate, along with certain other classifications.

The district-wise breakup includes 1,43,975 duplicate entries, 3,12,048 deceased electors, 17,83,058 voters classified as absent and 5,91,038 voters classified as shifted. Another 36,362 entries have been placed under other categories. The large number of absent voters forms the biggest component of Pune’s excluded entries, followed by those identified as having shifted from their registered addresses.

More than 13.32 lakh Pune cases identified for hearings

The SIR exercise in Pune has also identified 13,32,418 cases requiring hearings before the concerned election authorities. Of these, 5,77,821 cases involve discrepancies identified in electoral details, while 7,54,597 cases concern electors for whom no mapping or linkage with the 2002 electoral roll could be established.

Such cases will be examined by the concerned Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) at the respective roll-section level. Electors whose records contain discrepancies, as well as those marked with “No Linkage” because their details could not be connected with the earlier electoral rolls, will be given an opportunity to participate in the prescribed hearing process.

The final decision regarding retention or inclusion of such names will be taken after the concerned verification and hearing procedures are completed.

Claims and objections open until September 30

The publication of the draft electoral roll has formally opened the claims and objections period across Maharashtra.

Eligible electors whose names are missing from the draft electoral roll can seek inclusion by submitting Form 6 along with the prescribed declaration and supporting requirements. Form 6 can also be used by eligible new voters who have attained, or will attain, the age of 18 years on or before October 1, 2026. Any person seeking to object to the inclusion of a name in the electoral roll may submit Form 7.

Form 8 can be used for correction or updating of electoral details, including matters relating to name, address, age, gender and other particulars, and can also be used for matters concerning the Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC). The authorities will process claims, objections and related notices from August 31 until October 29.

Hearings to be conducted by EROs and AEROs

The state-wide claims and objections process will be handled through the election registration machinery at the Assembly constituency and local level.

Maharashtra has 288 Electoral Registration Officers, corresponding to its Assembly constituencies, along with more than 7,000 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers who will be involved in handling claims, objections, notices and hearings. Electors whose names remain unmapped with the 2002-2004 electoral rolls, as well as those whose records have been mapped but contain logical or factual discrepancies, may be issued notices and given an opportunity to submit prescribed or other valid documents. The documents and explanations submitted by such electors will be examined before a final decision is taken on their inclusion or retention in the electoral roll.

Weekly publication of claims and objections lists

During the claims and objections period, constituency-wise lists of applications and objections received are expected to be prepared every week.

These lists will be made available through the websites of the respective District Election Officers and the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra, allowing political parties, electors and the public to monitor the progress of the revision process.

Confusion reported over online search and changed part numbers

The publication of the draft rolls was initially accompanied by difficulties for voters attempting to verify their names online. While electoral-roll PDFs were uploaded on the Election Commission’s platforms, voters reported difficulty in directly searching the draft rolls through their EPIC or voter identification numbers. In several cases, electors had to download the relevant electoral roll PDF and manually search for their names.

The draft PDFs also did not initially carry photographs, adding to the difficulty of identification in some cases. Another source of confusion was the change in polling-station part numbers between the existing electoral rolls and the SIR draft rolls. The altered numbering led some voters to believe that their names had been removed when, in certain cases, their electoral details had merely shifted to another part or polling-station section.

Election authorities subsequently indicated that the online search facility was being developed and would be enabled to facilitate easier access for voters.

Pune adds seven polling stations, taking total to 8,424

The SIR exercise has also resulted in changes to the polling-station infrastructure in Pune district.

The total number of polling stations in the district has increased by seven and now stands at 8,424. Bhor Assembly constituency has the highest number of polling stations in Pune district at 567. It is followed by Chinchwad with 560 polling stations and Hadapsar with 525 polling stations.

The constituency-wise distribution of polling stations in Pune district shows considerable variation across the 21 Assembly constituencies. Bhor has the highest number of polling stations at 567, followed by Chinchwad with 560 and Hadapsar with 525. Khadakwasla has 502 polling stations, while Bhosari has 491 and Shirur has 459. Vadgaon Sheri has 438 polling stations, Purandar 413, Maval 402, Pimpri 397, Khed-Alandi 393 and Baramati 388. Kothrud has 387 polling stations, while Junnar has 356 and Ambegaon and Parvati have 344 each. Indapur has 339, Daund 315, Pune Cantonment 270, Kasba Peth 268 and Shivajinagar has the lowest number at 266 polling stations.

Polling stations marginally rationalised cross Maharashtra

At the state level, the SIR exercise has resulted in a marginal rationalisation of polling stations. The total number of polling stations in Maharashtra has changed from 1,00,253 to 1,00,216. During the process, 394 new polling stations were added, while 431 existing stations were deleted. In addition, the locations of 1,403 polling stations were changed. The relocation exercise included polling stations in Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Thane and Palghar that had earlier functioned from temporary structures and have now been shifted to permanent premises within the same polling-station area.

Draft rolls available online and at government offices

The draft electoral rolls have been made available through multiple physical and digital channels. In Pune, the rolls can be accessed at the offices of the respective Electoral Registration Officers, the Pune District Collectorate and the offices of district presidents of recognised political parties.

The draft electoral rolls are also available through the Pune district administration website, the Election Commission of India’s ECINET platform and the Voter Service Portal. At the state level, the rolls are available through the Election Commission’s Voter Service Portal, the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra, and the websites of the respective District Election Officers.

How electors can check their names

Voters can search for their names and electoral details through the Election Commission’s electoral search facility.

After opening the ECI’s “Search Your Name in Voter List” facility, an elector can select the relevant language and choose Maharashtra as the state. The search can be conducted using the EPIC number, elector details or registered mobile number.

After entering the required information and completing the captcha process, voters can search to determine whether their names and electoral details are reflected in the available records.

Electors can also download the electoral roll PDF relating to their particular polling station or part.

For this purpose, voters may access the Election Commission’s electoral-roll download facility and select Maharashtra, followed by the relevant district, Assembly constituency and language. After selecting the appropriate polling station or part number, the electoral roll PDF can be downloaded and searched manually using details such as the elector’s name or EPIC number.

Final electoral roll scheduled for November 4

The publication of the draft rolls marks only an intermediate stage in Maharashtra’s SIR process.

With claims and objections open until September 30, election authorities will continue scrutiny, verification, hearings and disposal of applications until October 29. The final electoral roll for Maharashtra is scheduled to be published on November 4, 2026.

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The latest round of increases came into effect on September 1. As India Today reported, Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) raised CNG prices by ₹2 per kg to ₹88 in Mumbai and surrounding areas, while domestic PNG became ₹1 per standard cubic metre more expensive. The CNG increase is the fourth hike in the current financial year, following two ₹2 increases in May and a ₹1 increase in April. Around 13 lakh CNG vehicle owners and nearly 30 lakh domestic PNG consumers are expected to be affected.

MGL attributed the increase to higher international gas prices amid the continuing crisis in West Asia and the consequent rise in the cost of spot RLNG. However, for households, the reason matters less than the cumulative effect: higher fuel costs feed into transport, deliveries and other everyday expenses.

Public and private transport have both become more expensive. The minimum auto-rickshaw fare in Mumbai has risen from ₹26 to ₹27, while the minimum black-and-yellow taxi fare has increased from ₹31 to ₹33. The per-kilometre auto fare has gone up from ₹17.14 to ₹18.22, and the taxi rate from ₹20.66 to ₹21.90. India Today noted that Mumbai has more than 4.5 lakh autos and over 50,000 taxis, meaning the increase touches a substantial part of the city’s daily commuting population.

Milk has taken another significant hit. The Bombay Milk Producers’ Association raised the wholesale price of tabela milk from ₹93 to ₹102 per litre. NDTV reported that retail prices could reach around ₹110 per litre, depending on the supplier and locality. The association has cited rising production and operating costs, with key cattle-feed ingredients such as green fodder, chuni and oil cakes reportedly becoming up to 25% more expensive over the past year.

This comes soon after another milk price increase across Maharashtra. Hindustan Times reported that cow and buffalo milk prices were raised by ₹2 per litre from August 11. The Milk Producers and Processors Welfare Association attributed the increase to higher diesel, procurement and packaging costs, with packaging expenses alone reported to have risen by around 30%.

The pressure is not restricted to households that buy milk or use autos. Commercial establishments are also facing higher input costs. NDTV Profit reported a ₹9.50 increase in the price of 19-kg commercial LPG cylinders from September 1. The report linked the increase to supply pressures following disruptions to imported cooking gas amid the West Asia conflict.

The escalation in everyday costs has been building for months. In July, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) raised bus fares by an average 13.5%, with the minimum fare for a six-kilometre journey increasing from ₹13 to ₹15. The Times of India noted that this was the second major fare increase for the state transport undertaking within a year, compared with the 4–5% annual revisions that had been more typical in the past. MSRTC carries around 55–60 lakh passengers every day, making even modest fare increases significant for workers, students and rural commuters.

Food prices have also been moving upwards. Clarion India, reporting from Mumbai on September 2, said residents were already dealing with higher prices of sugar, packaged milk, pulses, rice, eggs and other essentials. One resident cited in the report said sugar prices had risen by ₹20–25 per kilogram within a few weeks, while other routine household purchases had also become more expensive. Families, the report noted, were struggling to balance rent, education and food expenses amid stagnant incomes and employment pressures.

The squeeze is therefore not simply about a ₹1 increase in an auto fare or ₹2 more for CNG. The problem is cumulative. A household pays more to travel to work, more to buy milk, more to cook, and increasingly more for basic groceries. Businesses facing higher fuel, transport and input costs then pass at least some of those expenses on to consumers.

Even the state’s farmers are confronting the same inflationary pressure. A report carried by ThePrint noted that the cost of producing a quintal of cotton in Maharashtra has risen from around ₹3,500 in 2018 to approximately ₹5,000 today. Fertiliser, pesticide, tractor and labour costs have all increased, while the area under cotton cultivation has declined by 2.5 lakh hectares between 2024–25 and the following year.

Taken together, these developments point to a broader problem than isolated price revisions. The cost of maintaining an ordinary household is rising across multiple fronts, while the ability of families to absorb those increases depends on whether their incomes are keeping pace. For many, they are not. That is what makes the latest round of hikes significant. Each increase may appear manageable in isolation. However, when milk, fuel, transport, food and other essentials rise together, the question is no longer what one additional rupee or five additional rupees means. It is how much more a family must spend simply to maintain the same standard of living it had before.

In a city where rent and education already consume a large share of household incomes, the steady rise in the price of necessities is turning the ordinary act of getting through the day into an increasingly expensive proposition.

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In its memorandum dated September 2, the organisations have collectively argued that the incident cannot be dismissed as an isolated administrative lapse. The memorandum has called for a comprehensive investigation into how thousands of original election documents came to be outside official custody, why they were being reproduced at a commercial establishment and whether the breach points to wider vulnerabilities in the handling of voter information during the SIR exercise.

The Kharghar incident assumes added significance because of the scale of the ongoing revision process. According to figures cited by the Chief Electoral Officer, around 2.07 crore Enumeration Forms have been classified as uncollectable in Maharashtra at the draft stage. While the Election Commission has clarified that being classified as uncollectable does not automatically mean that an elector has been permanently excluded from the electoral roll, CJP has argued that the sheer magnitude of the figure makes the integrity of every stage of the verification process a matter of exceptional public importance.

3,404 original forms found at private photocopying centre

The controversy emerged on August 27, when election-related forms were reportedly found at a photocopying centre in Sector 19, Kharghar. According to reports cited in the memorandum, the recovered documents were original SIR Enumeration Forms relating to multiple polling stations under the 188-Panvel Assembly Constituency. A revenue team subsequently examined the documents, and election authorities reportedly confirmed that they were genuine election forms. Reports have stated that the forms related to 11 polling stations.

The incident reportedly came to light following a complaint concerning the photocopying of the forms. A person identified in media reports as Suraj Patil, described as a BJP functionary, was allegedly found handling the forms. The police subsequently seized the documents and an FIR was registered. Five Booth Level Officers associated with the forms were also suspended, with a departmental inquiry initiated into how the documents reached the private premises.

In the memorandum, the groups state that culpability must be established through an impartial investigation. At the same time, the memorandum argues that the reported political connection makes it particularly important for the State Election Commission to establish whether access to the forms was authorised and, if not, how such access was facilitated. The central question, according to CJP, is therefore not simply who was found with the forms, but how the forms travelled from the official election machinery to a private establishment in the first place.

Where did the documents leave the official chain of custody?

The memorandum places particular emphasis on the chain of custody (chain of command in law) of the Enumeration Forms. SIR forms are part of an official electoral exercise and contain voter-related information. Their handling therefore requires safeguards that ensure that the documents remain accessible only to persons authorised to use them for election-related purposes.

The discovery of thousands of original forms at a commercial photocopying centre raises questions about every stage of their movement. CJP and others has therefore called for the reconstruction of the entire chain of custody, beginning with the collection of the forms from electors and continuing through their storage, transportation, access and eventual recovery.

The organisation has also stressed that the inquiry should not automatically end with the suspension of the five BLOs. If the evidence points towards supervisory, administrative or other responsibility, those aspects too must be investigated. The issue is particularly significant because of the sheer number of documents involved. The presence of 3,404 forms cannot be explained simply as an isolated document inadvertently carried outside an office. The authorities must establish who had access to them, who authorised their movement and why they were taken to a private photocopying facility.

A voter-data security concern, not merely a paperwork lapse

The memorandum has also raised concerns about what may have happened to the information contained in the forms. The organisation has urged the authorities to determine whether the documents were merely photocopied or whether they were also scanned, photographed, digitally stored, transmitted or reproduced in any other manner.

This is an important distinction. Physical recovery of the original forms does not necessarily establish that no copies remain elsewhere. CJP, VFD and BCS have therefore called for relevant CCTV footage, electronic records and equipment used in the photocopying process to be preserved and examined as part of the investigation.

The memorandum argues that once voter-level information leaves the controlled environment of the election machinery, the potential risk extends beyond the physical documents. Copies could potentially be retained or disseminated without the knowledge of election authorities.

For CJP, VFD and BCS, citizens who provide information to the State as part of the electoral process are entitled to an assurance that such information will be used only for legitimate electoral purposes and handled through secure procedures.

The 2.07 crore figure makes the breach more consequential

The memorandum has linked the Kharghar incident to the wider concerns surrounding the SIR exercise in Maharashtra. The Chief Electoral Officer has stated that approximately 2.07 crore Enumeration Forms have been classified as uncollectable, comprising categories including voters who were absent or not found, those who had permanently shifted, deceased persons, duplicates or persons already enrolled elsewhere.

The Election Commission has emphasised that these classifications are provisional and that the draft electoral roll is not the final roll. Eligible voters whose names are missing can participate in the claims and objections process and seek inclusion or correction. The memorandum has acknowledged this position but has argued that the availability of a remedy does not, by itself, eliminate concerns arising from the scale of exclusion. An elector who does not know that their name has disappeared from the draft roll may not necessarily approach the authorities. Similarly, an elector incorrectly classified as shifted, deceased, duplicated or absent may face a significant administrative burden in establishing that they remain eligible.

In this context, the Kharghar incident raises a broader question: can the public have confidence in the accuracy of the electoral roll if the documents on which that roll is being prepared are not demonstrably secure? For CJP, this is why the Kharghar episode cannot be treated merely as a local dispute.

CJP and others seeks statewide audit

The organisation has called for the Kharghar incident to trigger a statewide audit of the custody and handling of SIR Enumeration Forms. Such an audit, CJP argues, should establish whether similar instances of unauthorised possession, removal, reproduction or mishandling have occurred elsewhere in Maharashtra.

The memorandum also calls for the Election Commission to strengthen and publicly disclose uniform safeguards governing the custody, movement, reproduction, storage and disposal of SIR documents. This, CJP says, is necessary not only to identify wrongdoing after it occurs but to prevent vulnerabilities in the system from being repeated.

Transparency is essential to restoring public confidence

The memorandum has also called for the findings of the Kharghar inquiry to be made public, subject to legitimate restrictions relating to personal information or an ongoing criminal investigation. The organisation argues that the public should not be left to choose between competing political claims about what happened. The State Election Commission, as the institution responsible for the electoral process, must establish the facts and communicate them transparently. For CJP, the issue ultimately extends beyond the Kharghar photocopying centre.

An electoral roll determines who is recognised by the State as entitled to participate in an election. Its preparation therefore forms part of the foundation of the democratic process itself. The discovery of thousands of original SIR forms outside the expected chain of custody, followed by the suspension of five BLOs and the registration of an FIR, has already exposed a serious administrative vulnerability. When viewed alongside the 2.07 crore forms classified as uncollectable, that vulnerability assumes greater significance.

The memorandum therefore calls upon the Election Commission to treat the episode as an institutional matter rather than merely an isolated breach. Its demand is ultimately for something fundamental to any electoral exercise: that every eligible citizen’s place on the electoral roll be determined through a process that is secure, transparent, impartial and capable of independent scrutiny.

The credibility of an election does not begin on polling day. It begins with the integrity of the electoral roll—and with public confidence that the machinery preparing that roll is not vulnerable to unauthorised access, administrative failures or partisan interference.

The complete memorandum may be on the CJP website here.

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In the 1970’s and the 1980’s for leftist activists and researchers looking for risen-from- the-ranks left-oriented but independent trade union leaders, white-collar D Thankappan, president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU) was the go-to man in Mumbai (then Bombay). This period also saw the raise of Dr Datta Samant the militant trade union leader whose reputation was spreading all over the industrial pockets of Bombay and Thane. Samant’s bargaining tactics was unique. He simply refused to look at the balance sheets and account statements prepared by the management and demanded pay increases which to some sounded “ridiculously high”. Yet, faced with prolonged strikes, the man managements did pay up. The fact that the same industries continued to grow and prosper was proof in retrospect that the balance sheets drawn up by the management had something to hide.

Every success of Dr Samant attracted workers from factory after factory, who deserted their existing union leaders to join Dr Samant in the eastern suburbs of Bombay. However, the Kamani Employees’ Union stood unmoved by this growing tide. The reason was simple: D Thankappan. If Samant relied on raw militancy to get workers a better deal, Thankappan’s approach combined brain with brawn. If Samant refused to look at balance sheets, Thankappan was adept in beating the Kamani management in their own game.

Thus it was that while factory after factory around the Kamani establishment in Kurla, Kamani workers kept their faith in Thankappan and the union he led. While other union leaders were losing out to Samant, Thankappan not only rode a steady ship, but felt unthreatened and always appreciated the better deals that Samant was able to gain for his union workers.

Left activists who kept constant touch with Thankappan as they learnt a lot from him not only about his own negotiating skills but also about the state of the working class movement in the country. A particularly endearing aspect of Thankappan’s character was his inclusive, non-sectarian approach. He regularly engaged with activists who ideologically were often at daggers drawn against each other.

At the union level, while Thankappan’s union was limited to Kamani he was never insular, always among the first to joint action.

While Thankappan could look back at much of the achievements of the union led by him, of one thing he remained regretful. The man who devoted his entire life to working class solidarity, was deeply saddened by the fact that when the communal fire raged in Bombay in December 1992-January 1993 in the after math of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, even the workers of Kamani turned out to be Hindus first and workers later.

Ashok Choudhary, ex-General Secretary & Working President of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP)

Comrade D. Thankappan was fully committed to uniting diverse sections of working people’s movements. Although he belonged to the Kamanis Employees Union (KEU), an organised sector union, he was simultaneously very engaged with the Kamani Construction Workers Union which was a Union in the unorganised sector. He was also instrumental in organising several other unions from this sector into the Unorganized Workers Federation and linking them to individual unions in the organised sector. He was also a firm believer in the independence of trade unions from company managements, government and even political parties. For Comrade D Thankappan, any trade union leader or member could individually belong to any political party but the union itself should not function under the control of any political party. This principle is very important for the working people’s movement.

On behalf of the Presidium of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP), Roma writes:

It is with deep sorrow that we share the news of Comrade Thankappan’s passing today.

He was the architect and a founding member of our union. It was he who spearheaded the campaign starting in 1992 to raise awareness about the concept of forming a union for forest workers (Van Shramjeevi). He also established the National Centre for Labour (NCL)—a coalition for the country’s unorganised sector—of which our forest workers’ organization was a part. It was through the NCL that we connected with other unorganized sector unions across the country.

Back in 1992, at his initiative, we prepared a document titled “Comprehensive Legislation on Forest Rights”—a draft law concerning forest resources. In a sense, it was through his initiative that we, for the first time, worked to secure the status of “forest workers” for forest-dependent communities across the nation and brought their numbers to public attention.

Later, in 2006, he played a founding role in the formation of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), in which our union played a pivotal part. His tireless contributions can never be forgotten; our union exists today because of his ideology.

His greatest dream was to see the union led by women. He used to spend hours discussing women’s leadership with Sokalo-ji and me. When we formed the union in Odisha and elected Jarjum Ete-ji as its president, his joy knew no bounds. As women gradually took on leadership roles, he told me that his dream had been realized.

To us, he was truly like a parent—a guardian of the organization, even more than our own parents.

We are proud to have been associated with Comrade Thankappan; it is a matter of great honor for us.

Red Salute to Comrade Thankappan.

Roma (On behalf of the Presidium) AIUFWP

Teesta Setalvad, senior journalist and secretary, Citizens for Justice & Peace adds:

D Thankappan, an icon for the trade union movement, especially for his novel approach and pioneering the concept of co-operative ownership by the workers who ran Kamani, was unique in so many ways. My first close association with him was over the wider mobilization and collective that emerged countryside after the Bhopal Gas disaster, where his articulation of corporate and state accountability for the ghastly irresponsible and murderous leak of the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly dangerous chemical used to make pesticide took the articulations of sustained action against first Union Carbide Corporation (then Everready, MP government and finally Dow Chemicals). Patient and thoughtful, Thankappan, comrade Thankappan was willing to engage in creative and new methods of articulation, protest and organisation.

History will decide whether the Kamani workers struggle with comrade D Thankappan at its helm was ‘successful’ or not, path-breaking it certainly was. He gained nationwide prominence for pioneering a historic experiment in workers’ self-management and cooperative capitalism at Kamani Tubes Limited (KTL) in Mumbai. As the leader and working president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU), Thankappan spearheaded one of India’s most significant labour-led industrial turnarounds during the late 1980s His close association with my father Atul Setalvad, senior counsel to pursue the legal battles for the union in India’s constitutional courts brought together two interesting persons from two sides of the intellectual and ideological spectrum.

Understanding the brief trajectory of that struggle is significant. In line with the pattern followed by several ‘family-owned’ companies, following internecine family disputes and financial mismanagement by the original promoters, Kamani Tubes Limited was abandoned and shut down in 1985. Instead of silently accepting their fate, and the liquidation, D Thankappan as working president of the KEU moved the Supreme Court of India under Article 32. A master strategist, he realised and valued the counsel of Setalvad, and together worked and thereafter presented a comprehensive scheme under the Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) to restart the factory using a workers’ cooperative. The landmark judgment delivered in September 1988, had the Supreme Court approving the scheme. The court ordered banks and the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) to back the cooperative, establishing that the “right to livelihood” extends to workers taking over management to revive a company. This was a first, and though finally the initiative stumbled, it remains a turning point in the history of the working class movement of the country.

His sustained involvement and articulation of Adivasi ownership on cultivation and forest produce resulted in sharp and in-depth articulations for the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP) at whose annual and bi-annual meetings we met—and deliberated, despite his failing health. My dear friend and colleague Roma has articulated D Thankappan’s close mentorship of the Forest Worker’s Movement best.

Related:

AIUFWP’s second National Conference to discuss land, legal, constitutional rights and more

AIUFWP submits letter LoP Rahul Gandhi, calls for action as forest rights remain in limbo

Struggle for forest rights, not an isolated movement: AIUFWP

The post Adieu Comrade Thankappan – Javed Anand, Roma, Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to the Times of India, Vandan was still dealing with jet lag when he participated in the tournament. After completing his four games, he went to bed without immediately telling his parents that he had played Carlsen.

Father found the result later

Vandan’s father, Alankar Sawai, a former banker, later checked his son’s Chess.com profile and found the game against Carlsen. He then asked Vandan about the result. The teenager confirmed that he had played against Carlsen and won.

As reported that Vandan’s mother, Dr Madhuri Alankar Sawai, said her son had simply informed the family that he had finished his four rounds. The significance of the result became clear to the family only after his father checked the games.

Vandan himself was initially unsure whether the result had come because of an error by Carlsen. He reportedly considered the possibility of a “mouse slip”, referring to an accidental online move.

His school friends also learnt about the result the following day. According to TOI, some of them initially did not believe that Vandan had defeated Carlsen. Vandan subsequently shared screenshots of the game with them.

The 50-move game

Vandan played with the white pieces and opened with e4. Carlsen replied with e5. The game developed through a Giuoco Piano variation.

The game remained competitive during its early stages. The Times of India reported that a key moment came around the 26th move, when Vandan’s bishop put Carlsen’s king under attack. Carlsen moved his king rather than taking the bishop, after which Vandan gained material. Vandan continued the game and eventually won after 50 moves. Carlsen had a rating of 2,823 for the game, while Vandan was a Candidate Master with a FIDE classical rating of 2,288, as reported

He was initially reluctant to play

Vandan had not originally planned to participate in the tournament. His mother told the Times of India that she encouraged him to play after his return from Europe. He also did not inform his coach beforehand that he was taking part.

The tournament was organised online through Chess.com. According to the earlier TOI report, titled players participate in the platform’s events, where Carlsen also plays.

Vandan played his usual opening approach in the game rather than making specific changes because his opponent was Carlsen.

Started playing chess at eight

Vandan began playing chess when he was eight years old. According to the Times of India, his mother introduced him to the game after learning it from her brother.

He initially developed an interest in chess puzzles and later began participating in competitive chess.

Vandan has trained with FIDE Master Gurpreet Pal Singh and International Master Kushager Krishnater, according to the newspaper.

The Delhi report also stated that Vandan is a class topper. He has not yet decided whether he wants to pursue chess professionally, although he has set his sights on becoming an International Master. After the victory, Vandan’s family planned a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The family also planned to undertake sewa during the visit.

The family’s plans followed the online victory and the attention it received after details of the game became known.

Ambedkarite background

Vandan is being identified by his family and community as an Ambedkarite student. His achievement has subsequently been discussed within the Ambedkarite community in the context of education and academic development.

The details reported about Vandan’s academic record, chess training and family support form part of his background as he continues his schooling alongside competitive chess. His victory over Carlsen came in an online blitz game, while Vandan continues to compete and train as a young chess player.

From school and puzzles to international competition

Vandan’s chess journey began with learning the game at eight and solving chess puzzles before moving into competitive play. He has since obtained the Candidate Master title and reached a FIDE classical rating of 2,288, according to the Times of India.

The August 18 game against Carlsen was one of four games Vandan played that night. He won three of them and only later discussed the Carlsen game with his family.

His immediate response after completing the tournament was to go to sleep. As his mother told the Times of India, the family’s reaction came only after his father examined the games on Vandan’s Chess.com account and realised that one of his opponents had been Magnus Carlsen.

Related:

“The Ambedkarite movement in India is about the power of articulation”

From RSS to Ambedkarite, Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s journey

Who was behind the #Gandhi Jayantivs #Godse_Amar_Rahe: India’s Twitter War?

Mahatma Gandhi on Caste: the Varna-Ashrama System

The Mechanism of Caste

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