Intervention by UN Special Rapporteurs

According to the signatories, the United Nations has already taken note of this crisis. In May 2026, UN experts wrote to the Indian government to raise alarm over human rights violations caused by the SIR process, particularly noting the severe impact on Muslims and Bengali minorities in West Bengal.

“The UN Special Rapporteurs (UNSRs) of the UN Human Rights Council, by a Joint communication dated 1 May, 2026… formally raised many concerns regarding the SIR process. It is a communication by UNSR on Minority Issues along with the UNSR on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the UNSR on freedom of religion or belief, citing violations of human rights, particularly of the Muslim minorities in India due to the SIR process in India. It has further highlighted the SIR process in West Bengal, considering it as a matter of ‘particular concern’.”

The Bihar SIR: disproportionate exclusions

It is further stated by the petitioners that while the ECI claimed the revision was meant to ensure only eligible voters were listed, a 2025 pilot program in Bihar showed alarming bias. Millions of voters were removed in under 100 days. Muslims, women, and the poor were heavily targeted, with very few allowed to successfully appeal their deletion.

“According to the ECI, the goal of the SIR process is to ensure that ‘the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll’… The ECI ordered a SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar in 2025, seeking to re-verify the eligibility of over 81 million electors within a compressed timeline of less than 100 days. Muslims-approximately 17% of the state’s population-accounted for roughly one-third of the 4.7 million voters removed… Women reportedly constituted nearly 60% of those excluded from the draft rolls, despite comprising 47.8% of the electorate…” as stated 

52 million names deleted nationwide

According to the petition to the NHRC, following the Bihar SIR, the SIR process was expanded to 12 States and Union Territories. An estimated 52 million names were erased. West Bengal was hit the hardest, losing 9.1 million voters. People with valid IDs were removed over tiny spelling mistakes, with Muslims bearing the brunt of these deletions.

“Across the 12 States and Union Territories, approximately 52 million names have allegedly been removed, with West Bengal particularly affected, where a total of 9.1 million names were reportedly deleted from the register… Muslim voters are reported to have accounted for 34% of total deletions, against a 27% share of the State’s population; nearly two-thirds of those deleted belong to the minority community. It is reported that approximately 95% of deleted voters were Muslim… on the pretext of minor and administratively common spelling inconsistencies”  as wrote

Organised targeting via ‘Form 7’

The representation further emphasises that while the law allows citizens to object to names on the voter list using ‘Form 7’, this tool was hijacked by political affiliates to run organised campaigns meant to strike Muslims from the voter rolls in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam.

“Reports indicate that, in several States, this mechanism was used for organised, large-scale campaigns targeting Muslim residents: in Gujarat’s Somnath constituency, over 15,000 Form 7 applications are reported to have been filed by just 269 individuals… In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, over 11,000 such applications were filed, several traced to BJP-affiliated individuals… In Assam… the Chief Minister is reported to have publicly directed party workers to file such applications against Bengali-speaking Muslim residents, stating in January 2026 that a specified number of such residents ‘will get deleted’ and that his ‘job is to make them suffer’…”

The use of opaque AI systems

According to the signatories, to flag errors in voter data, the government used an Artificial Intelligence system. This system operated without transparency, meaning nobody knows its error rates or if it was biased against certain communities, leading to millions losing their right to vote without proper due process.

“The exercise reportedly employed an AI-driven system to flag ‘irregularities’ in voter data, without adequate transparency regarding its methodology, error rates, or safeguards against bias raising serious due-process concerns given the scale and finality of the consequences (loss of the right to vote) that flow from such flagging.”

Leaders conflating citizens with “infiltrators”

It is further stated by the petitioners that top government officials have publicly used dangerous language, referring to deleted voters as illegal immigrants. By using terms like “infiltrators” and “purifying” the voter rolls, leaders are turning legitimate Indian Muslim citizens into targets for discrimination.

It is further pointed out that “We submit that such statements by holders of high public office, made in the context of an ongoing administrative exercise, are liable to conflate lawful Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals… the Union Home Minister described the exercise in terms of a ‘Detect, Delete and Deport’ formula, and separately characterised it as a mechanism to ‘purify’ electoral rolls of ‘infiltrators’… risk normalising discriminatory treatment of a religious minority in the conduct of a State function.”

The Supreme Court’s “structurally impossible” timelines

The minimalist reliefs granted by the Supreme Court are also mentioned. According to the representation, when taken to the Supreme Court, the judiciary declined to stop the process. For West Bengal, the Court gave removed voters just a few days to file and win appeals before the elections. Because there were 3.4 million appeals, this timeline made it completely impossible for the tribunals to give anyone a fair hearing. It is stated that “The Supreme Court of India declined to stay the SIR process (order dated 6 April 2026)… the Supreme Court permitted West Bengal voters removed from the rolls to regain voting rights if their appeals were allowed by appellate tribunals before 21 and 27 April 2026… a compressed adjudicatory timetable applied to an exercise involving over 3.4 million appeals, which the Petitioner submits made it structurally impossible for tribunals to conduct fair and effective review of each case.”

The violation of international human rights

The NHRC has been alerted to the fact that the UN Special Rapporteurs have warned that removing millions of minorities from voter lists based on discriminatory rhetoric violates international treaties. Denying citizens their basic right to vote is a direct violation of human rights.

The communication explicitly expressed concern about discriminatory rhetorics by politicians and senior public figures… ‘amount to potential incitement to discrimination within the meaning of article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’… The Special Rapporteurs noted that the removal of an entire religious community through the SIR process risks constituting ‘an official endorsement of discriminatory attitudes towards Muslim citizens’… Therefore, we respectfully submit that being denied the ability to participate in the electoral process i.e., the right to vote and to be represented, is in itself a violation of human rights.

The appeal to the NHRC

According to the signatories, because the NHRC failed to step in during the initial Bihar pilot, the petitioners are now demanding that the Commission use its legal powers immediately. They want the NHRC to register a formal complaint, demand data from the Election Commission, hold open public hearings, and halt any further voter revisions until an investigation is done.

The signatories request the NHRC to:

“(a)  take cognizance of and register the present representation as a formal complaint under Section 12(a)(i), 12(a)(ii), 12(b) read with section 12(d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993;

(b)  call for detailed reports from the relevant authorities such as Election Commission of India, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, and the concerned State Election Machinery of Bihar and West Bengal, under Section 13 of the PHR Act, disclosing (i) the exact numbers of names deleted, State- and constituency-wise, with reasons for deletion; (ii) the number of objections and appeals filed and their outcomes; and (iii) data disaggregated by religion, caste/community and gender of persons excluded and of persons subsequently declared ineligible;

(c)  Immediately constitute and conduct an open, online public hearing into the matter  by summoning the petitioners, so that the allegations herein may be examined transparently and on record- even before issuance of notice to the Election Commission of India so that this Hon’ble Full Commission may have the benefit of hearing our presentations prior to issuing of such notice;

(d) Thereafter summon responsible officials of the Election Commission of India and the concerned Ministries to appear before the Commission and respond to the specific allegations set out herein, including in relation to the design, transparency and safeguards of the AI-driven flagging system used in the SIR exercise;

(e)  recommend, as an interim measure pending completion of the inquiry, that further extension or replication of the SIR exercise to additional States/Union Territories be held in abeyance, and that adequate time, transparent procedures and effective remedial mechanisms be put in place for any ‘claims and objections’ process already underway;

(f)  recommend such accountability measures in respect of public statements by functionaries that the Commission finds to have been discriminatory or to have incited hostility against a religious or linguistic minority; and

(g)  pass such other and further orders/recommendations as this Hon’ble Commission may deem fit and proper in the interest of justice.

(h)) In view of the recommendations been made by the Office of High Commission, this Hon’ble Commission should also provide them an opportunity of presenting their legal positions to the Commission in the light of international human rights law by way of an online hearing.”

NHRC set up under the Paris Principles

It is under India’s international obligations to international human rights standards that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India was established on October 12, 1993, under the Protection of Human Rights Act (PHRA), 1993. The PHRA and the NHRC are designed to comply with the United Nations Paris Principles, which set the foundational global standards for National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) regarding autonomy, mandate, and independence.

Signatories of the representation

According to the document, the representation was signed by a coalition of eminent citizens and specialists including M G Devasahayam IAS (Retd), Convener, Forum for Electoral Integrity Jawhar Sircar IAS (Retd), Madhav Deshpande, Software Specialist, Venkatesh Nayak, RTI Specialist and Dr. Sant Prakash, Professor, Delhi University.

The representation dated July 23, 2026 can be accessed from here:

Related:

UN Rights Experts flag Discrimination in ECI’s SIR exercise, seek India’s response

Disenfranchisement route to Majoritarian Rule: Political Logic of SIR

Exclusive Investigation SIR: How many voters did the ECI actually disenfranchise? Why do final figures show inexplicable ‘additions’?

Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded?

The post ‘Forum for Electoral Integrity’ petitions NHRC over mass voter disenfranchisement under SIR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In support of this claim, Shrivastava has relied on a purported account attributed to former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who was not in office during the Quit India Movement, to argue that it was the Indian National Army, and not the Quit India Movement, that ultimately compelled Britain to leave India.

“The leaders, be it Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, J Prakash Narayan, or Aruna Asaf Ali, all of them accepted that the movement was a flop,” said Shrivastava. These statements were met with loud applause from members of the audience in the video.

It certainly would be an oversimplification to attribute India’s independence solely to the Quit India Movement of 1942, and would overlook several other significant developments that shaped the British decision to leave India. The role of the Indian National Army, the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, growing labour unrest, and Britain’s severe economic exhaustion after the Second World War were all undeniably important factors in hastening the end of colonial rule.

Yet acknowledging these factors does not diminish the importance of the Quit India Movement which profoundly altered the political landscape, a fact reflected in reports and British correspondence, including those sent to the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This will be examined in greater detail below but to dismiss the significance of the 1942 Movement altogether is not a serious and independent reading of history as claimed by Shrivastava.

For decades, a recurring theme in Hindutva discourse has been to downplay the significance of the 1942 Movement and recast India’s freedom struggle as a contest between competing movements. It serves a broader political purpose. This framing, first, diminishes the mass, cross-community, non-violent, anti-imperialist, and secular civil disobedience popularly associated with Gandhi and Nehru, and second, undermines the idea of a secular, democratic republic that emerged from it- a constitutional vision that is at odds with the ideological project of the RSS, and affiliated Hindutva organisations.

The push to diminish 1942 today comes from the political tradition that did not participate in and in some documented instances actively counselled against that very Movement.

What was the Quit India Movement?

In protest against the British decision to involve India in World War- II, without consulting Indian political leaders, the Congress ministries in the provinces resigned from office. By contrast, V.D. Savarkar, then president of the Hindu Mahasabha, had met Viceroy Linlithgow in October 1939 and called for Hindu-British cooperation. The Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar even went on to say, “favoured an unambiguous undertaking of dominion status at the end of the war.” He also offered that the Hindu Mahasabha would replace the Congress in provincial governments if the Congress ministries resigned. Reported in the National Herald.

The failure of the Cripps Mission in 1942 had intensified public discontent with British rule. Until then, Gandhi had largely followed a policy of avoiding actions that would hinder the British war effort. Following the collapse of the Cripps negotiations, however, he called for an open non-violent revolution. On July 14, 1942, the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution declaring that the immediate end of British rule was essential not only for India’s freedom but also for the success of the Allied cause. The Quit India Resolution generated widespread enthusiasm across the country.

Meanwhile, RSS speakers had urged members to stay away from the Congress-led agitation, and these instructions, according to the British Home Department, were duly followed. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a Hindu Mahasabha leader and minister in the undivided Bengal government, went a step further when in July 1942, he wrote to the British Governor of Bengal advising on measures to suppress the Quit India Movement in the province while arguing that Indians should continue to place their trust in the British for the region’s defence.

Gandhi was entrusted with leading the movement. Addressing a gathering, he said “There is a mantra, a short one, that I give you. You imprint it on your heart and let every breath of yours give an expression to it. The mantra is ‘do or die’. We shall either be free or die in the attempt …. Every one of you from this moment consider himself a free man or woman and even act as if you are free and no longer under the heel of this imperialism.”

The Congress urged people to undertake ten forms of non-violent resistance which included refraining from any commercial transactions with the British or the colonial government, displaying the tricolour on every home and window, boycotting cinema halls on the ground that the proceeds benefited the colonial administration, avoiding the courts, refusing to purchase foreign goods, withdrawing money from government banks, socially boycotting those who served the British government, avoiding any transactions that required recourse to colonial courts, leaving cities for villages, and ensuring that grain and other produce remained with the peasantry.

Subhas Chandra Bose, broadcasting from Azad Hind Radio on August 17, 1942, himself did not dismiss it and called it “non-violent guerrilla warfare,” and told listeners the “administrative machinery can be brought to a standstill” if the campaign continued. Bose, whom Shrivastva implicitly elevates over Gandhi, was on record treating 1942 as a serious and continuing front in the freedom struggle, not a failure to be measured against Congress.

What was the impact of the Quit India Movement?

Over 60,000 people were arrested by the end of 1943 alone, mass fines were levied, and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging. Official casualty figures stood at 1,028 dead while Nehru’s own estimate put the toll closer to 10,000. Many national leaders went underground and continued their struggle by broadcasting messages over the clandestine radio stations, distributing pamphlets and establishing parallel governments. The underground Congress Radio run by Usha Mehta during Quit India recorded messages from Gandhi and other leaders, moving location to location to dodge authorities. It reported on events from every nook and corner of the country and was the first to inform the nation about the Chittagong raid, the atrocities in Ashti and Chimur, and the strike in Jamshedpur. It operated for nearly three months before their arrest in November 1942. When the police arrived, the programme was coming to an end with Vande Mataram playing. Upon being asked to stop the record, Mehta reportedly commanded the police to stand at attention for the national song. The film Ae Watan Mere Watan directed by Kannan Iyer was a fictionalised tribute to Mehta and the historic Congress Radio that kept the Quit India flame alive against overwhelming odds.

Fifty-seven battalions of the British Army, alongside the entire police force, were deployed to suppress the movement. The sabotage of communications was so extensive that ground forces often could not reach certain areas, leading the Viceroy Linlithgow to suggest machine-gunning mobs from the air to regain control.

While the revolt was underway, Viceroy wrote a telegram to Churchill, the then Prime Minister:

“I am engaged here in meeting by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857, the gravity and extent of which we have so far concealed from the world for reasons of military security. Mob violence remains rampant over large tracts of the countryside and I am by no means confident that we may not see in September a formidable attempt to renew this widespread sabotage of our war effort. The lives of Europeans in outlying places are in jeopardy.”

Contrary to his public pronouncements, Churchill gloomily disclosed to King George VI at one of their Tuesday luncheons in July 1942 that “the idea of the transfer of power in India had become an admitted inevitability in the minds of the British Party leaders.”

The movement’s structure, once its leadership was arrested within 24 hours, became spontaneous and largely leaderless. Parallel governments were established and functioned for extended periods.  In Ballia, UP, protestors overthrew the district administration and freed prisoners; it took the British weeks to reassert control. Railway lines, telegraph wires, and government buildings across the country were targeted to paralyse the war effort. The British kept a battleship on standby, reportedly to remove Gandhi and Congress leaders from India entirely, a step they ultimately judged too risky to take.

Exposing the Distortion: Why Attlee?

Like Shrivastava, many have relied on a purported statement by former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to downplay the significance of the Quit India Movement. The claim originates from a second-hand account written in 1976 by P.V. Chakraborty, former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, who recounted a conversation he claimed to have had with Attlee during the latter’s visit to India in 1956. According to Chakraborty, Attlee identified the activities of the Indian National Army and the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny as the principal reasons for Britain’s withdrawal. “When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in a smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, ‘Minimal’.”

But why Attlee? This is the question that is never asked, and it deserves scrutiny.

Attlee was the British Labour Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951 the man who, as head of the postwar British government, oversaw and ultimately signed off on India’s independence in 1947. He was not the incumbent prime minister when Quit India Movement took place and therefore, his assessment of the movement’s impact is questionable. The argument asks one to accept a private, unverifiable, retrospective opinion as the authoritative verdict on which Indian freedom movement “really” mattered while dismissing Linlithgow’s real-time telegram, Churchill’s statement to the King, Bose’s real-time broadcasts, and the testimony of Indians who lived through the movement, as insufficient.

In fact, according to Churchill, the Attlee government was from the outset keen to leave India as soon as possible, regardless of the political situation. On December 12, 1946 he deplored “the ruthless logic to quit India regardless of what may happen there.”

But a moot question here should or ought to be, should we as Indians living in an India free of colonial yoke rely on colonial documentation and sources? Or seek independent assessments and verifications of how India and Indians achieved freedom from centuries of exploitative British rule?

No serious historian claims 1942 alone delivered independence in isolation. The Indian National Army trials, the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, and Britain’s post-war financial exhaustion were all real and significant pressures, arguably the more immediate triggers of the 1947 transfer of power. That is a defensible historical position. But there is a wide gap between ‘1942 was not the sole cause’ and ‘1942 was a flop with no contribution’ According to Bipan Chandra, the INA’s public sympathy and the 1946 mutiny did not emerge in a vacuum and were given ‘fillip’ by the anti-imperialist sentiment and mass mobilisation that 1942 had already built. The movements were links in a chain, not rivals competing for sole credit. “After Quit India there cou1d be no retreat. Any future negotiations with the British Government could only be on the manner of the transfer of power. Independence was no longer a matter of bargain. And this became amply clear after the War,” Chandra wrote.

As for Aruna Asaf Ali, a figure Shrivastava names as having accepted the movement was a flop, is remembered specifically as the movement’s defining figure for hoisting the flag at Gowalia Tank.

Why This Matters

Reducing India’s freedom struggle to delegitimise the mass, cross-community, non-violent civil disobedience associated with Gandhi and the Congress follows a broader pattern in which organisations that have documented, historically-recorded records of aloofness from or active opposition to the 1942 movement now seek to rewrite it as inconsequential, while elevating alternative narratives more compatible with their own political lineage.

Acharya Kriplani (who was INC President in 1946-47) said, ‘It is my opinion that India could not have achieved its independence, but for the accession of strength which the nation received by the successive struggles started by Gandhiji. A nation which could throw a challenge to the Empire at a time when the armies of all the Allies were on Indian soil could no more be held in thraldom.’  Reported in Janata Weekly.

RS Sharma, Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Ramchandra Guha, and such historians Shrivastava has moved to discredit and insult without engaging their actual, published arguments, have also been separately accused in the current political establishment of distorting history through the education system.

But as Shrivastava claims, “All the letters of the leaders, all the books of the leaders, all the newspapers, reporters, the diaries of the British officers, the letters of the British officers, everything is in the National Archives. Take a look at it, the truth will be revealed.”

Sources that are interesting to examine also are:

Several American journalists famously covered Mahatma Gandhi, most notably United Press correspondent Webb Miller, who provided worldwide eyewitness accounts of the 1930 Salt Satyagraha. Other prominent figures include Louis Fischer, who spent a week at Gandhi’s ashram in 1942, and Chicago Tribune reporter William L. Shirer

The definitive account of the Congress Underground Radio was documented by historian and academic Dr. Usha Thakkar in her book, Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio Station of 1942, published by Penguin Random House India. [1, 2]

National Archives of India (NAI): Located in New Delhi, the NAI holds the Home Political Department files that contain intercepted correspondence, censorship reports, and data on the suppression of the “Secret Congress Radio” spearheaded by Usha Mehta. [1, 2, 3]

The film based on the historic Congress Radio is Ae Watan Mere Watan. Directed by Kannan Iyer, the 2024 Hindi-language historical thriller stars Sara Ali Khan as Usha Mehta, a 22-year-old college student in Mumbai who operated an underground, anti-British radio station during the Quit India movement of 1942  For many in Assam, citizenship isn’t a birthright taken for granted—it’s a legal battle fought after decades of living in the only home they’ve ever known.

Remembering the courageous Aruna Asaf Ali today. Her historic act of hoisting the Indian flag at Gowalia Tank during the Quit India Movement remains a powerful symbol of defiance.

Readers encountering this argument should ask questions: What is the primary source? Is it contemporaneous or retrospective? And who benefits from the comparison being drawn?

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Tanishka Shah)

Related:

How Hindutva forces colluded with both the British & Jinnah against the historic ‘Quit India’ movement: Archives

Past and Prejudice

The post Debunking the ‘Quit India Was Useless’ Myth appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The newly inserted section, described as a “declaration form”, requires applicants to state whether either of their parents was included in the last SIR. If the answer is yes, the applicant must provide the Assembly Constituency number, the polling station (Part Number) and the Serial Number under which the parent appeared in the last SIR. If the parents were not included, the applicant is required to provide their names and, wherever available, their Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers.

The introduction of this declaration changes the information sought from first-time applicants. However, the statutory Form 6 prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 has not been amended through any publicly available Gazette notification to incorporate this additional requirement.

The existing offline declaration form may be accessed from here:

Form 6 is a statutory form governed by the Registration of Electors Rules

Form 6 is the statutory application prescribed for inclusion of a person’s name in the electoral roll. It derives its legal authority from the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Article 326 of the Constitution guarantees registration as an elector to every adult citizen who is ordinarily resident in a constituency, subject only to the disqualifications provided by law.

Since Form 6 forms part of the Registration of Electors Rules, its contents are governed by delegated legislation rather than administrative practice. Under Section 28 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Central Government may frame or amend the Rules only after consultation with the Election Commission, and such amendments must be notified in the Official Gazette and laid before Parliament.

The existing offline Form 6 may be accessed from here

Whenever statutory electoral forms have been modified in the past, those changes have been carried out by amending the Registration of Electors Rules through Gazette notifications issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice. The legal requirement assumes significance because the additional parental declaration presently appears only during online submission through ECINET. The downloadable Form 6 available for offline submission continues to reflect the notified statutory format and does not contain this declaration.

The result is that the online and offline versions of Form 6 no longer correspond with each other, raising the question of whether a substantive addition to a statutory form can be introduced through the online portal without a corresponding amendment to the Rules.

The 2022 amendments illustrate how changes to statutory forms were previously made

The present position is markedly different from the process followed in 2022 when the electoral registration forms were comprehensively revised.

The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 amended several provisions of the Representation of the People Act. Pursuant to those amendments, the Ministry of Law and Justice notified the Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules, 2022 through a Gazette Notification dated June 17, 2022, and the revised Rules came into force on August 1, 2022.

The amended notification can be accessed from here

Those amendments substantially reorganised the electoral registration framework. Form 6 ceased to be a composite application and became a form meant exclusively for registration of a new elector. Applications relating to shifting of residence from one Assembly constituency to another were transferred to Form 8, whose scope was expanded to include correction of entries, change of residence within or across constituencies, replacement of EPIC cards and recording of disability status. Consequently, Form 8A, which earlier dealt with transposition of entries within the same constituency, and Form 001, relating to replacement of EPIC cards, were both discontinued.

The amendments also introduced Form 6B for furnishing Aadhaar details by existing electors. Importantly, this change was accompanied by amendments to the statutory Rules and a separately prescribed form. The framework also expressly provided that furnishing Aadhaar was voluntary and that non-submission would not result in denial of registration or deletion from the electoral roll.

The significance of the 2022 exercise lies in the legal process that accompanied it. Every change to the statutory forms was preceded by amendments to the Registration of Electors Rules and brought into force through Gazette notification. By contrast, the parental declaration now appearing in the online Form 6 does not appear to be supported by any corresponding amendment to the statutory Rules that has been placed in the public domain.

The modified Form 6 raises questions beyond the parental declaration

The issues surrounding the modified Form 6 extend beyond the newly introduced parental declaration. They also affect electors whose names have been deleted during the Special Intensive Revision.

The Election Commission has stated that electors whose names were deleted during the SIR may seek re-enrolment by filing Form 6 during the claims and objections process. This instruction raises an important legal question because, following the amendments that came into force on August 1, 2022, Form 6 is prescribed exclusively for the registration of a new elector.

The declaration contained in Form 6 requires every applicant to state that he or she has not been previously included in any electoral roll. A person seeking restoration after deletion during the SIR cannot truthfully make such a declaration because the very basis of the application is that the person was already enrolled and was subsequently removed from the electoral roll.

The statutory declaration and the process of re-enrolment therefore appear difficult to reconcile. The issue assumes greater significance because the declaration itself warns that furnishing false information or making an incorrect declaration constitutes an offence under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both. No public clarification has been issued explaining how deleted electors are expected to comply with this statutory declaration while applying for re-enrolment.

The parental declaration inserted into the online Form 6 gives rise to another set of practical questions. Young applicants may not know the Assembly constituency, Part Number or Serial Number under which their parents were enrolled during the previous SIR. The position becomes even more complicated where parents have shifted residence over the years, where they were themselves deleted during the SIR, or where proceedings challenging those deletions are still pending. The Election Commission has not clarified whether inability to furnish these particulars would affect the processing of an application or whether the declaration is intended only for record purposes.

The absence of category-wise disclosures leaves important questions unanswered

The concerns arising from Form 6 are part of a broader issue relating to the transparency of the Special Intensive Revision itself.

While the Election Commission has released aggregate figures relating to additions and deletions, it has not published category-wise information that would enable independent reconciliation of the final electoral rolls.

For instance, although the Commission has announced the number of newly added electors, it has not disclosed the categories under which these electors were added or the districts and Assembly constituencies where these additions have taken place. Without such information, it is difficult to independently assess how the additions have affected constituency-wise electoral rolls.

Similar questions arise in relation to Form 6A, which governs the enrolment of overseas electors. No constituency-wise or district-wise data has been published indicating where such electors have been added following the SIR.

The same absence of detailed disclosure extends to Form 7, which is used for objections and deletion of names from the electoral roll. While overall deletion figures have been released, there is no publicly available information identifying the constituencies where these deletions occurred or the categories under which they were sustained after verification.

Likewise, no detailed constituency-wise information has been published regarding Form 8, which deals with correction of entries and shifting of residence. It remains unclear how many electors were shifted between constituencies, how many merely corrected their particulars, and what impact these changes had on the final electoral rolls.

Without category-wise disclosures relating to Forms 6, 6A, 7 and 8, it is difficult to reconcile additions, deletions, corrections and transfers reflected during the SIR. It also remains unclear whether there is any overlap between these categories or how the aggregate figures released by the Commission translate into the final constituency-wise electoral rolls.

Taken together, these issues raise questions not only about the introduction of the parental declaration in the online Form 6 but also about the manner in which changes affecting statutory electoral forms have been implemented during the SIR. The absence of a publicly notified amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, the use of Form 6 for re-enrolment despite its post-2022 structure, and the limited category-wise disclosure of additions and deletions leave several aspects of the exercise without a clear statutory or administrative explanation.

Related:

Exclusive Investigation SIR: How many voters did the ECI actually disenfranchise? Why do final figures show inexplicable ‘additions’?

Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded?

SC greenlights SIR, upholds ECI’s power to revise electoral rolls

The Bihar Verdict 2025: How an election was engineered before votes were cast

The post EC’s new online Form 6 requirement raises questions over procedure and legality appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Indian Constitution was never conceived merely as a framework for governing an independent nation. Constitutional historian Granville Austin famously described it as an instrument of a “social revolution”; a document intended to transform Indian society by replacing entrenched hierarchies with the principles of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. This distinction lies at the heart of the debate surrounding the place of ancient Indian texts such as the Manusmriti in legal education.

Socio-political critic and columnist Solomon Mubash argues in his recent essay, From Constitutional Morality to Brahmanical Logic: Judicial Violence and Power, that the controversy extends far beyond curriculum design or the study of history. Instead, he contends that it reflects a deeper contest over the moral and ideological foundations of the Indian republic. Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of his argument, the questions he raises extend far beyond the classroom.

At stake is not whether students should read the Manusmriti. Any serious student of law, history, religion or sociology must engage with texts that have shaped the intellectual traditions of the subcontinent. The real question is how such texts should be situated within a constitutional democracy founded on equal citizenship.

History and heritage are not the same thing.

History seeks to understand the past—its achievements as well as its contradictions. Heritage often seeks to celebrate it. Confusing the two risks turning scholarly inquiry into cultural endorsement. Ancient texts deserve academic engagement because they reveal how societies understood law, authority and social order. They do not automatically acquire normative authority simply because they are old.

The Manusmriti occupies a distinctive and contested place in India’s intellectual history. As Indologist Patrick Olivelle, whose translation remains among the most authoritative, notes, it is one of the most influential Dharmashastra texts prescribing norms of social and legal conduct. Historians have also pointed out that while its actual legal authority varied across regions and historical periods, its prescriptions articulated a social order organised around hereditary hierarchy.

The text differentiates duties, privileges and punishments according to caste and gender. Women, Shudras and those placed outside the varna order occupy unequal positions within its normative framework. Scholars including B.R. Ambedkar, Nicholas Dirks and Christophe Jaffrelot have therefore interpreted the Manusmriti as a powerful symbol of graded social inequality, even while recognising that lived social practises were often more complex than any single text could capture.

Recognising this historical reality is not an act of hostility towards Indian civilisation. It is an acknowledgement that every civilisation contains traditions worthy of preservation alongside institutions that deserve critical scrutiny.

It is precisely this distinction that informed Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s understanding of constitutional morality. In his final address to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949, Ambedkar warned that political democracy could not survive unless it rested upon social democracy founded on liberty, equality and fraternity. He cautioned that India was entering “a life of contradictions”, where political equality would coexist with deep social and economic inequality unless constitutional values transformed society itself.

For Ambedkar, constitutional morality was therefore not blind allegiance to a legal document. It was a civic ethic that required citizens and institutions to judge inherited customs against constitutional principles rather than treating tradition as the ultimate source of legitimacy.

His public burning of the Manusmriti during the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927 has generally been understood by historians as a symbolic rejection of scriptural sanction for caste hierarchy—not a rejection of Indian civilisation itself. His later leadership of the Constitution’s Drafting Committee represented an attempt to replace birth-based status with equal constitutional citizenship.

That constitutional commitment found concrete expression in Articles 14, 15 and 17 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality before the law, prohibit discrimination on specified grounds and abolish untouchability. A Dalit labourer, a Brahmin scholar, an Adivasi woman and a member of a religious minority stand equal before the law not because tradition confers equal worth upon them, but because the Constitution does.

That was the revolutionary promise of the Republic.

Mubash argues that a continuing tension exists between constitutional morality and what he describes as Brahmanical social logic. Regardless of whether one adopts that terminology, the broader constitutional question remains relevant. The tension between constitutional ideals and entrenched social hierarchies continues to surface whenever caste-based discrimination is defended in the language of tradition, women’s autonomy is subordinated to customary norms, or inherited privilege seeks legitimacy through appeals to civilisational continuity rather than constitutional principle.

The danger lies in confusing antiquity with authority. No constitutional democracy derives its legitimacy from the age of its ideas. Its legitimacy derives from the justice of its institutions.

Constitutional morality asks a different question from historical tradition. It asks not whether a practice is ancient but whether it is just; not whether it is customary but whether it respects the equal dignity of every citizen. The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed this principle in decisions such as Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018) and Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala (2018), holding that constitutional morality must prevail where social morality infringes fundamental rights.

Yet the constitutional transformation envisioned by Ambedkar remains incomplete. Ambedkar himself distinguished between political democracy and social democracy, warning that the former could not endure without the latter. More than seven decades after Independence, the continued incidence of caste-based atrocities, manual scavenging, honour killings and structural exclusion—documented in reports of the National Crime Records Bureau, the National Human Rights Commission and successive government agencies—demonstrates that constitutional equality has not fully displaced social hierarchy.

The response to this challenge cannot be historical amnesia. Ancient texts should be read, debated and critically examined. But they must be approached as historical artefacts rather than constitutional guides. Legal education should encourage students not only to understand what such texts prescribed but also to examine who benefited from those prescriptions, who was excluded by them, and why independent India consciously chose a different constitutional path.

Every civilisation possesses traditions worth preserving. Every intellectual tradition contains ideas worthy of study. But no tradition becomes immune from criticism merely because it is ancient.

The Constitution occupies a unique place in India’s public life because it represents a conscious normative departure from systems that assign human worth by birth. As Granville Austin argued, it sought to facilitate a peaceful social revolution through democratic institutions rather than through coercion. It is therefore not merely a legal document but an aspirational framework for building a society in which liberty is not restricted by caste, equality is not constrained by status and fraternity is not defeated by inherited divisions.

The Constitution is not a mirror reflecting India as it was. It is a blueprint imagining India as it could be, and ought to be.

The real challenge before Indian institutions is not that they have forgotten their roots. It is that they sometimes forget the purpose of the constitutional project itself. That project was never about recovering an idealised past. It was about constructing a more equal future.

The future of Indian democracy will not ultimately be determined by how frequently it invokes its civilisational inheritance. It will depend on whether its institutions continue to uphold the constitutional vision articulated by Ambedkar, embedded in the Constitution and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. India’s civilisational inheritance deserves careful study. Its Constitution deserves primacy. The Constitution is not the antithesis of Indian civilisation; it is arguably the Republic’s most profound civilisational achievement.

Oindrila Dasgupta is a doctoral researcher at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and teaches Social Inclusion and Journalism. Her work focuses on role of journalism in terms of social justice praxis and pedagogy in India.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Beyond the Manusmriti Debate: Why Constitutional Morality Must Remain India’s North Star appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a scathing comment on what the Election Commission of India (ECI) has become today, Justice Lokur said it has become Imperium in Imperio (a power within a power). Nobody can question it. Article 324 was not intended to give blanket power to the Election Commission. That is we have the Representation of the People Act and the guidelines under Article 327 of the Constitution:  once you have a field that is occupied by law, fine — you have to go by that law.

Justice Madan Lokur

Justice Madan Bhimrao Lokur Justice served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India from June 4, 2012 to December 30, 2018. He was speaking at a conclave on ‘One Nation-One Election, Federalism and Citizenship’, organised at the Constitution Club in Delhi. The conclave was organised jointly by the Constitutional Conduct Group and the Group on Federalism & Elections.

Also at the conclave were former Home Secretary Gopal Pillai, former Chief Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi, former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, former chairman of the Law Commission of India Justice A. P. Shah, political scientist Niraja Jayal, and transparency advocate Anjali Bhardwaj, among others.

Justice Lokur speaking on the occasion said:

First, I would like to deal with the issue of the controversy that we are facing right now, which was adverted to by Ashok Lavasa (former Election Commissioner)— the passport versus the citizen. If I have an Indian passport, am I a citizen of India? Am I recognised as a citizen of India? We have been told by the Ministry of External Affairs, in a press conference, that the passport is nothing but a travel document — that it does not mean you are a citizen of India just because you have a passport. Therefore, I had a look at the Passports Act of 1967. And I will read to you the Preamble to the Act, and then come to some other sections. The Preamble to the Act says that it is “an Act to provide for the issue of passports and travel documents, to regulate the departure from India of citizens of India and other persons,” and so on. So the Preamble itself makes a distinction — and so does the Act itself — between a passport and a travel document. A passport is defined in the Passports Act, and a travel document is also, separately, defined in the Passports Act.

Now, Parliament does not make laws using superfluous words, or words that have no meaning — I think that is a well-settled principle. So when the Passports Act talks about a passport, and separately talks about a travel document, it means that these are two separate documents. To say that a passport is nothing but a travel document is, I think, a complete misreading of the provisions of the Passports Act.

That is the first thing which I think should be clarified: since it is a complete misreading, a person who holds an Indian passport is a citizen of India. I think that should be very clear.

Now, look at it from the point of view of somebody from outside the country.

You go to an Embassy for a Visa because you want to travel abroad, and the officer there says: “I am giving this visa to you on the basis that you are a citizen of India, but your Ministry of External Affairs says that the document you are presenting to me is not a passport in that sense, and does not certify that you are a citizen of India. So, I am sorry, I can’t give you a visa!”

What happens then at such a time? Does it mean that all the Indians who have gone abroad — to Europe, to the United States, and so on — are persons who are not citizens of India, just because they have a passport? It doesn’t mean anything at all. The passport is effectively reduced to a ticket. Not even an airline ticket, but perhaps a bus ticket — something that entitles you to travel from one destination to another and nothing more.

Now, I think, with great respect to the officer in the Ministry, this is saying something which is totally contrary to the law, and totally contrary to the Constitution of India.

The third thing is what people have been saying — and they said so on TV.

This is that Section 20 of the Passports Act enables the Government of India to give a passport to a person who is not a citizen of India. Fair enough — it does. But how many people who are not citizens of India have actually been given passports of India? We don’t know. I will be surprised if there is anybody who has been given an Indian passport who is not a citizen of India and is admittedly a foreigner. So to quote Section 20 and what it enables is neither here nor there, because we don’t even have the facts. We don’t know how many such people have got passports, who those people are, or the circumstances in which such passports were given. We don’t know anything about this. So Section 20, at least on the evidence available today, is a dead letter.

Take something like the Bharat Ratna. It can be given to a foreign citizen. How many foreigners have actually got the Bharat Ratna? Just two — Nelson Mandela and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, that’s it. But we know them, and we know what their nationality is; we know they are citizens of different countries. Under Section 20, first of all, we don’t even know whether such a passport has been given; we don’t know who that person is; we don’t know the nationality or the citizenship of that person. So we are just talking about something which is hypothetical. I think even this submission — that, well, it can be given to a foreign national — is neither here nor there.

There has been a mention of citizenship by birth. Yes, the Constitution of India and the Citizenship Act do mention citizenship by birth. There has also been a reference to the recent judgment of the United States Supreme Court. By the way, the US Constitution talks about citizenship by birth — but the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 5, says that Congress can make a law with regard to citizenship. And the Constitution of India also says the same thing, and it is on that basis that the Citizenship Act has been framed. So perhaps that is what the President of the United States is looking at — the possibility of framing a law under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to do away with citizenship by birth. We have done it. We have done it — we have put in some conditions, some riders: one parent being a citizen of India, one parent not being an illegal immigrant. I don’t know what the United States Supreme Court would or will do.

The last point I want to make on this is something I think is very, very important, and that is that the Constitution of India gives certain fundamental rights only to citizens. Among the most important of these are the right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to travel and move to any place within India, the right to carry on any business, profession, occupation or activity. These are granted only to citizens; they are not granted to everybody else. Article 21, the right to life and personal liberty, is granted to everybody, whether you are a citizen or not. Article 14, the right to equality, is granted to everybody — it doesn’t matter whether you are a citizen of India or not.

But Article 19 is granted only to citizens of India.

So if a person is declared to be a person who is not a citizen of India — why? Because he or she does not satisfy the requirements of the Election Commission, and therefore is not able to vote, and therefore, under Article 326, is perhaps deemed not a citizen of India — then that person is not entitled to any of the fundamental rights under Article 19. Can you imagine that? Somebody takes away your fundamental right to freedom of speech. You go to the court and say, I am a citizen of India, and my fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression has been taken away. And the judge asks you: what proof do you have that you are a citizen of India? What is your answer? You don’t have a single document to show that you are a citizen of India. You have a passport — but the judge says, sorry, the passport is a travel document, it is not a document of citizenship.

So, in effect, all these persons who have not been allowed to vote, and are therefore held not to be citizens of India, and are perhaps stateless persons, have been deprived of a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed under Article 19. So you have these 27 lakh, or 22 lakh, or

6.5 crore persons — whatever the figure — roaming around the country without the fundamental right to freedom of speech, to movement, to expression, to carrying on any business or occupation, because they are not citizens.

So really, when we are looking at this controversy about citizenship and passports, or about citizenship per se, we are looking at something which is extremely serious and which requires considerable debate and discussion — not some press conference where a joint secretary says that just because you have a passport, it does not mean you are a citizen of India. It has very, very serious consequences, which must be debated.

The second thing I would like to mention is about the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, and the judgments that have been rendered recently by the Supreme Court in the last year or two.

I do not want to say anything about the judgment on the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner, because that judgment is still to be delivered. The only thing I would like to say is that this was debated in Parliament, and one of the suggestions given was that Parliament should appoint the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners. That was mentioned, it was discussed, but it was turned down. The reason given was that the Election Commission is going to decide who is elected to Parliament, so we must have a person who is totally impartial. The Constituent Assembly was very clear that the Election Commission should have nothing to do with the executive. But today we have been told that two-thirds of the members of the selection committee to select the Chief Election Commissioner are members of the executive — the Prime Minister and a Cabinet Minister. So what the Constituent Assembly postulated — that there should be a complete separation between the executive and the Election Commission — has been done away with. But beyond that, there is not much I would like to say, because the judgment should be delivered any time now.

The recent judgments of the Supreme Court, particularly the ADR judgment, recognise the right to vote as a constitutional right. Now, way back in 1950–52, in the N.P. Ponnuswami case, a six-judge bench of the Supreme Court said that the right to vote is nothing but a statutory right — it is there in the Representation of the People Act, it is a statutory right. But now, in a sense overruling that six-judge decision, the Supreme Court has consistently taken the view — and it has been reiterated in that ADR judgment — that it is a constitutional right. That is good. I am not saying it should not be a constitutional right — but it is a constitutional right, and therefore it is very important.

So you can’t take away a constitutional right of a person. Apart from Article 19 and so on, if you say that you can’t vote, you are taking away a constitutional right — and you can’t just take it away by saying, listen, you produce certain documents. That is where the idea of a rebuttable presumption comes in. The presumption is that I am a citizen of India.

Somebody has to say that, no, you are not a citizen of India. I don’t have to prove that I am a citizen of India. Whereas now, what has happened is that I have to prove that I am a citizen of India. So that rebuttable presumption has been inverted, and the burden has been cast upon me — someone says to me, you please prove that you are a citizen of India, and if you are able to prove it through the production of these documents, I’ll allow you to vote.

It is actually the other way around. The presumption is that anybody who is here is a citizen of India. I can have an objection and say, listen, I don’t think this person is a citizen of India — in which case I can rebut that presumption and prove it, to the satisfaction of the Election Commission that this person is not a citizen of India. So there is a distinction to be made between a rebuttable presumption and the existence of a presumption which can be rebutted. I think the Election Commission has, in the recent past, kind of overturned that burden of proof.

What is the consequence of that? The consequence is that something like 27 lakh people, perhaps, in West Bengal have been disenfranchised. I met one of the tribunal members last week — last Saturday. She told me that on average — there are 18 tribunals; 19 were constituted, but one member resigned, and I don’t know if a replacement has been appointed. Out of the 18 tribunals, the daily disposal is about 20 to 25 cases per tribunal. On a rough calculation, that comes to about 500 cases being decided per day. I don’t know how many working days there are, but try and imagine: if 500 cases are decided in a day, how much time will it take for 27, or 22, or 23 lakh cases to be decided? And then to say, listen, you need not vote in this election, you can vote in the next election — perhaps that person’s turn may not even come in the next election, since the rate of adjudication is at 500 or 600 cases a day.

I also think that one of the important points the Supreme Court has missed is the expression “reason to believe,” which is there in the Act — that you can have an SIR if you have reason to believe that there is something wrong in the electoral roll. What is that reason to believe?

The expression “reason to believe” has been interpreted a hundred times under the Income Tax Act. You have an assessment order; the income tax officer has reason to believe that you have some income which has escaped assessment; he has to give the reasons why he has come to that belief; that has to be seen by the Commissioner, and then a notice is issued to you for reassessment. The PMLA, which the Enforcement Directorate is using day in and day out, also has the expression “reason to believe” — there is reason to believe that you are guilty of money laundering, or that you have some income which you have not shown and which you have perhaps laundered. The Representation of the People Act — the 1950 Act — also talks about “reason to believe.” The Election Commission has reason to believe that the electoral roll has been wrongly prepared in any constituency. The Supreme Court has said that “any constituency” can mean the entire country. Fair enough. But the reason to believe must be there — and the reason to believe has not been specified in the judgment of the Supreme Court. So we don’t even know what the reason is. Questions have been raised: what is the reason that you have? The electoral roll was prepared in January, elections were held in January; in June you said, well, I have reason to believe that it has to be revised. What were the reasons? Nobody knows. And the reason is, well, I think it should be done.

The Constituent Assembly used an expression, in the context of the judiciary — Imperium in Imperio, a power within a power. That is what the Election Commission is becoming today: Imperium in Imperio. Nobody can question it. Article 324 was not intended to give blanket power to the Election Commission. That is why you had the Representation of the People Act; that is why you had Article 327, which gives certain guidelines. So if the field is occupied by law, fine — you have to go by that law. If the area is unoccupied, then Article 324 comes into the picture. The Supreme Court said as much in Mohinder Singh Gill’s case, and that has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in ADR. I don’t agree with the interpretation, but that is a separate point. I believe that if the field is occupied, you go by what the law says; if it is not occupied, you go by what Article 324 says. It is not that Article 324 can, in a sense, say: well, I don’t think the field is occupied — even though it is occupied, I don’t think it is, and therefore I will do what I feel like doing. That is where the Imperium in Imperio concept comes in with the Election Commission, and I am afraid that has been given to the Election Commission.

There were two more things, actually. One: Mr Ashok Lavasa mentioned the piecemeal revision of electoral rolls. If you look at the statute, the revision or updating of the electoral rolls is expected to be a continuous process. You are supposed to do it all the time, because births are taking place all the time, deaths are taking place all the time, migration is taking place all the time. So you have to keep doing it continuously — not every day, but maybe once in six months, once in three months, once in a year, whatever it is. And when you come to the conclusion that there is something wrong, that is when you exercise the power to have this SIR. That is the reason to believe — that my study, of something I was supposed to do on a regular basis, is what has given me the impression, the empirical evidence, that the roll is incorrect and needs a revision, and therefore I order an SIR.

It could not have happened between January and June 2025. It could not have happened throughout the country. To say that because there has been no revision for the last 20 years, therefore I am going to have an SIR, is not correct. It means that for the last 20 years you have not been doing your job. You should have been doing it. Why have you not done it? How about explaining that to the people of the country? And if you have been doing it, then there is no reason for you to revise the electoral rolls of the entire country. So this piecemeal argument is, I think, of considerable significance. It just shows that either the Election Commission has not been working, or it has on its own decided that whatever happened in the past is wrong, we want to correct it, and we are going to do it in a period of three or four months in Bihar, and maybe some shorter period elsewhere.

The last thing I want to say is about welfare benefits. You had the situation in Bihar, you had the situation in West Bengal — people whose names are not on the electoral roll are not entitled to benefits. It is said, well, if you file an appeal, it’s okay, we’ll consider it. But in some places

— in Bihar, that is what I read in the newspapers — they are being deprived of the benefits. So just imagine the consequence. First of all, you are deprived of a fundamental right that you have under Article 19. Then you are deprived of certain benefits that you are entitled to because of your poverty. So advantage is being taken of your poverty to deprive you of the benefits that you should get because of your poverty. And you can’t carry on any business, profession or occupation, because that right has been taken away — because you are not a citizen. So where do these people go?

So the point is that this entire controversy that has been raised with regard to citizenship, and with regard to the SIR, is something so serious that a couple of discussions here or there is not going to make a difference. It is time that the Supreme Court actually looked into it — not simply saying that, because the Election Commission has done it, and it has the power under 324, we hold 324 to be a plenary power, and so on and so forth.

Look beyond the law. What is the consequence of the law? What is the consequence of an action taken under the law?

This is my closing comment. Just two days ago, you had one judgment from the Bombay High Court, where a person was externed from Mumbai because he had said something about a Cabinet Minister, and a couple of other things — completely innocuous — and he said, I have a right to protest. The Commissioner of Police externed him from Mumbai. So he had to leave his residence, go out of Mumbai, and find a place to stay. I was wondering whether the externment order had been stayed by the Bombay High Court. Whatever the exact position — the newspaper report is not entirely clear on that — the fact is that for seven months he lived outside Mumbai. He was sharing a flat with somebody. His family was in Mumbai. His children were in Mumbai. His work was in Mumbai. His political activities were in Mumbai. He was not allowed to enter the city because of that externment order. And the Bombay High Court said the externment order was illegal, and quashed it. But nothing followed from that. It was just a simple quashing. I believe that is where accountability comes in. Shouldn’t the executive, the Commissioner of Police or whoever it was who passed that externment order, have been made to pay for it, by way of compensation to this person, or by some other method?

The second judgment is from the Delhi High Court. A father and a son were arrested by the police and beaten up. The father was released the same evening. The son was not released; the next morning, the son was found dead, hanging. And the defence given by the police was — is material for committing suicide so easily available in a police station, that you tell a person, okay, in case you want to commit suicide, here is the material available? The Delhi High Court held — and I think rightly

• that custodial death is still actionable, and it gave compensation to the family, for whatever it is worth. That is where accountability comes in
• that you have deprived a person of his life illegally, unconstitutionally, so compensate him for that.

The Bombay High Court, according to me, should have done it. The Delhi High Court has done it. And this entire controversy about the SIR

• not being able to vote, not having fundamental rights, not getting welfare benefits, and all that — somebody has to be held And I think we need to discuss that as well. Thank you.

Related:

The Battle of Belonging: Why India’s Passport Controversy Matters

Not What the Court Decided: Re-reading the Bombay High Court’s passport judgment

Rejected as Voter, also denied a Passport? Here is how ‘New India’ deals with exclusion complaints under SIR: Former editor, Telegraph, R Rajagopal

The post Justice Madan Lokur: ‘Passport Reduced to a Bus Ticket’, ECI an “Empire within an Empire’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The UN communication points to reports showing that the Home Minister presented the electoral updates before Parliament using the policy formula “Detect, Delete and Deport”. The text also notes that senior leadership repeatedly used this framing, describing the SIR as a process to “‘purify’ electoral rolls of infiltrators”.

The joint letter was sent by Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Operating under Human Rights Council mandates, the experts requested explanations from the Indian government regarding actions that may amount to “serious violations of multiple human rights obligations”.

The scope of the ‘Special Intensive Revision’

The inquiry by UN experts centres on the large geographic scale of the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) voter roll update.  According to the details sent to the UN mandate holders, the ECI announced a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process on November 4, 2025. This administrative exercise covered nine states: Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. It also included three Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry. In total, the revision applied to 321 districts and 1,843 Assembly Constituencies.

This updating process, which concluded its second phase on December 4, 2025, followed an initial revision conducted in Bihar between June and September of the same year. The ECI stated that the program’s official goals were to ensure that “the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll,” that “no ineligible voter is included,” and to maintain full transparency when adding or removing names.

Reports sent to the UN indicate that approximately 52 million names were removed from the voter rolls across the 12 participating States and Union Territories. The UN experts noted that the preliminary update in Bihar had already “caused alarm over potential large-scale disenfranchisement and denationalization, particularly of Muslims and other minorities”.

Detailed reports and complaints sent to UN experts led up to this. After examining the on ground details of the allegations, the United Nations (UN) has contacted the Government of India regarding the recent voter roll updates through Special Intensive Revision (SIR). In a formal communication dated May 1, 2026, three UN Special Rapporteurs have raised serious questions concerning the potential systematic removal of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities from electoral registers, focusing particularly on Muslim voters and people of Bengali descent.

Impact in West Bengal and the Nandigram

The removal of names heavily affected West Bengal just before its state assembly elections took place on April 23 and 29, 2026. The UN communication notes that West Bengal was “particularly affected,” with a reported 9.1 million names removed from the state’s voter registers.

Individuals affected by the deletions reported being “wrongfully excluded despite having provided valid identification”. The communication states that “Muslim voters were reportedly disproportionately impacted by the SIR process”.

Data from specific local areas highlighted significant discrepancies. The UN mandate holders pointed to the constituency of Nandigram, where reports indicated that “allegedly 95 per cent of the deleted voters were Muslims, even though Muslims only make up 25 per cent of the constituency’s electorate”.

The affected voting population in Nandigram includes “men, women, and elderly citizens who are Indian nationals with valid identity documents”.

The communication also highlights that minor issues, such as “minor spelling inconsistencies in documents”—which are “reportedly common across India due to administrative challenges”—were used as the basis for removing voter names.

Additionally, the UN mandate holders noted concerns regarding the use of technology, specifically reports pointing to “the alleged use of an AI-driven system that flagged ‘irregularities’ in voter data”. The experts stated that using automated systems in this high-stakes context introduces “serious issues related to transparency, errors, and potential bias,” which risks removing valid voters and “undermining democratic fairness”.

Official statements and rhetoric

The UN communication connects the administrative actions to the broader political environment and public statements regarding minority communities. The Special Rapporteurs noted “discriminatory rhetoric by politicians and senior public figures of the Government in the context of the SIR exercise”.

The letters state that the public comments “appear to reflect and reinforce a pattern of discriminatory rhetoric directed at Muslim, Bengali, and other minority communities”.

The communication also cites public statements from senior government figures, including the Union Home Minister, who “publicly framed the deletion of voter names as targeting ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants'”. The UN letter states that this description “conflates legitimate Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals”.

The UN communication points to reports showing that the Home Minister presented the electoral updates before Parliament using the policy formula “Detect, Delete and Deport”. The text also notes that senior leadership repeatedly used this framing, describing the SIR as a process to “‘purify’ electoral rolls of infiltrators”.

The Special Rapporteurs warned that this phrasing “could amount to potential incitement to discrimination within the meaning of article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)”. This article prohibits the advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that leads to incitement, hostility, or discrimination.

The UN experts stated that this language functions to “construct Muslim citizens as presumptively foreign, criminal and undeserving of civic rights, without any individualized determination of their legal status”. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief reiterated that religious groups “must not be instrumentalised to incite hatred and violence, including for electoral purposes or political gains”.

The UN concluded that basing a state-run voter update on the removal of a specific religious group “risks constituting, at minimum, an official endorsement of discriminatory attitudes toward Muslim citizens,” and could represent the “instrumentalisation of State administrative machinery for the purpose of political targeting of a religious minority”.

The appeals process and judicial timelines

The UN letter reviewed the legal avenues available to affected citizens and how tight deadlines impacted the outcomes. Voters originally sought recourse through the ECI and filed petitions for judicial review with the Supreme Court of India. On April 6, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to put a stay on the revision process.

On April 16, 2026, the Supreme Court utilised its special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. The Court ruled that removed voters in West Bengal could restore their names if their appeals were approved by appellate tribunals by the deadlines of April 21 and April 27, 2026. The ECI was directed to update supplementary lists for these individuals, but the Court specified that “those with pending appeals would not be allowed to vote”.

The UN experts expressed concern over the logistical challenges of this legal remedy. The revision exercise led to more than 3.4 million appeals. The UN observed that “the short timeframe and sheer scale of the appeals meant to be resolved before the deadlines set by the Court… appear to have led to the exclusion of millions of eligible citizens from the elections in West Bengal”. The pressure on tribunals to process millions of cases in a few days left many voters without a resolved appeal before the voting deadlines.

Alignment with international human rights law

The UN mandate holders evaluated these events against international treaties that India has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified on April 10, 1979, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), ratified on December 3, 1968.

The annex to the communication outlines these specific standards. Article 27 of the ICCPR states that ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities have the right “to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language”. The 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities similarly requires nations to protect minority identities and ensure their participation in public life without discrimination.

Furthermore, Article 25 of the ICCPR guarantees citizens the right to participate in public affairs and vote in periodic elections “without unreasonable restrictions” and without religious distinctions. The Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 25 (1996) states that voter registration processes must be facilitated, objective, reasonable, and non-discriminatory.

The UN expressed “grave concern that the SIR process of electoral rolls conducted by the ECI in West Bengal appears to have imposed conditions and procedural burdens that were neither reasonable nor proportionate, and which have disproportionately impacted Muslim citizens”. They noted that the tight timelines, the “opacity of the algorithmic methodology employed,” and the barriers faced by economically and linguistically vulnerable voters combined to form unreasonable restrictions on voting rights.

Specific questions put forward by the UN

The communication asks the Indian Government to provide detailed observations on seven specific points:

“1. Please provide any additional information and any comment you may have on the above-mentioned allegations.

2. Please provide detailed information on any steps your Excellency’s Government may have taken to ensure that the substance and implementation of the SIR process, including the administration of the claims and objection period, complies with India’s obligations under international human rights law and standards. In particular, please provide details on steps taken to ensure that the SIR process has not resulted in the exclusion of eligible voters from their participation in the public elections of 2026.
3. Please provide details on safeguards ensuring that members of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities are not discriminated against in the framework of the SIR process and the determination of their voter status. In this context, please provide detailed information on the exact number of names that have been removed from the electoral rolls, during the SIR process, specifying the reason for deletion, as well as the number of objections and appeals filed in front of the various organs and the resulting decisions. Please also provide disaggregated data on the ethnicity and religion of individuals who have been excluded from electoral rolls, as well as individuals who have been declared ineligible after judicial adjudication. If unavailable, please explain why.
4. Please provide more details about the “claims and objections” period and, in particular, whether the process ensured a fair and effective opportunity to contest exclusions, particularly in light of reports that millions of voters were declared ineligible after judicial adjudication despite presenting valid identification.
5. Please provide details on measures taken to ensure access to effective remedies before the two-phase Assembly elections, which took place 23 and 29 April 2026, for all individuals excluded from electoral rolls.
6. Please provide information on measures undertaken to eliminate any discriminatory treatment of minorities, including Muslims and persons of Bengali descent, as well as other minorities, with regard to the right to vote and to choose their representatives freely.
7. Please provide information on measures that the State is taking to provide effective remedies to individuals found to have been wrongfully removed from electoral rolls and consequently deprived of their right to vote, particularly in cases where no timely remedy was available before the elections took place. What steps are taken to ensure accountability and to safeguard the affected individuals’ right to political participation?”

The UN provided a 60-day period for the Indian government to respond before the communication is permanently hosted on the public reporting website. The Rapporteurs noted they might issue a public statement sooner, as they consider the initial information “sufficiently reliable to indicate a matter warranting immediate attention”.

The Special Rapporteurs requested that “all necessary interim measures be taken to halt the alleged violations and prevent their re-occurrence,” and if the details are confirmed by investigation, to “ensure the accountability of any person(s) responsible for the alleged violations”.

The UN’s official Communication dated May 1, 2026 can be accessed from here

Related:

Disenfranchisement route to Majoritarian Rule: Political Logic of SIR

Exclusive Investigation SIR: How many voters did the ECI actually disenfranchise? Why do final figures show inexplicable ‘additions’?

Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded?

SC greenlights SIR, upholds ECI’s power to revise electoral rolls

The Bihar Verdict 2025: How an election was engineered before votes were cast

The post UN Rights Experts flag Discrimination in ECI’s SIR exercise, seek India’s response appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The statement caused bewilderment not because the government’s legal position was new, but because it exposed a deeper Indian contradiction: citizenship is foundational yet curiously undocumented. In a constitutional republic of 1.4 billion people, citizenship exists as a legal status but not always as an easily demonstrable document. While India issues citizenship certificates in limited cases such as registration and naturalisation, it has never institutionalised a universal certificate for all citizens, especially those who acquire citizenship by birth. The MEA’s remark did not create this paradox—it merely forced the country to confront it.

At the heart of the confusion lies the persistent conflation of nationality, citizenship, identity, and residency, terms often used interchangeably in public discourse despite their distinct meanings. Citizenship is the legal bond between an individual and the state, determining political rights such as voting and constitutional protections, while nationality, in international law, refers to the state’s recognition of an individual for external purposes like diplomatic protection and travel. Though the two often overlap in many countries, in India the distinction has blurred through administrative practice and conceptual ambiguity. Indian institutions have long treated nationality and citizenship as nearly synonymous, making the state’s sudden insistence on a technical distinction all the more bewildering for ordinary citizens.

The Indian passport itself embodies this ambiguity. It explicitly states “Nationality: Indian,” leading ordinary citizens to reasonably assume that a state-issued passport, granted after rigorous verification, serves as proof of citizenship. Legally, however, the government argues otherwise: under the Passports Act of 1967, a passport is primarily a travel document, and courts have treated it as strong but not conclusive evidence of citizenship. Yet this legal distinction does little to resolve the deeper issue of public trust, which rests not merely on statutory technicalities but on reasonable expectation. An Indian passport is issued only after one of the most rigorous civilian verification processes in the administrative system, involving document scrutiny, identity and address checks, police verification, and database cross-checks. If even a document issued after such extensive sovereign verification cannot provide documentary certainty, citizens are left wondering whether such certainty is possible at all.

The government’s defenders argue that this distinction is standard administrative prudence. Fraudulent passports exist. Errors occur. Illegal entrants have occasionally obtained legitimate-looking documents through forged papers. Therefore, they say, no single document should be considered infallible proof of citizenship. That argument has limited merit. No document is immune from fraud—not birth certificates, not voter IDs, not Aadhaar, not passports. But that observation raises a different question: if every document can theoretically be fraudulent, does that justify treating every citizen as perpetually unverified? Reported NDTV.

This is where the debate ceases to be technical and becomes political.

The anxiety around citizenship in India cannot be separated from a decade of documentation politics. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Citizenship Amendment Act protests, detention fears, and repeated rhetoric around “infiltrators” have transformed citizenship from a settled constitutional status into an administrative obstacle course, where documentation functions not merely as a tool of governance but as a test of belonging. The MEA statement came amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, when heightened scrutiny of voter eligibility had already reignited fears of exclusion and disenfranchisement. In that context, citizens did not hear a sterile legal clarification; many heard a warning that even the strongest state-issued documents may not protect political belonging. This fear is rooted in lived precedent. In a 2019 NRC in Assam, nearly 1.9 million residents were excluded despite many possessing multiple identity documents, shifting the burden onto individuals to prove belonging through legacy records and multi-generational paper trails. Mechanisms such as Foreigners Tribunals and the “D-voter” classification have further institutionalised citizenship uncertainty, forcing ordinary people into adversarial proceedings to prove they belong. For many, documentation politics remains inseparable from the spectre of detention, where documentary failure can lead to physical confinement.

India’s documentation architecture is fragmented and often exclusionary. Birth certificates remain unavailable for many older and rural Indians; Aadhaar is explicitly not proof of citizenship and can be issued to non-citizen residents; voter IDs, ration cards, driving licences, and PAN each establish limited forms of eligibility or identity, not citizenship. Even passports, despite their prestige, are now reduced to “travel documents,” leaving the average Indian in a peculiar legal limbo—surrounded by identity papers yet lacking a universally accepted proof of citizenship. This contradiction is sharpened by the state’s own inconsistency: while past government deliberations on the Right to Information Act treated Indian passport holders abroad as citizens entitled to citizen-only rights, the state also disclaims passports when legal precision demands it. Such selective elasticity erodes trust; a state cannot demand faith in documentation while reserving the right to deny its meaning.

Modern states depend on documentation because scale makes personal recognition impossible. In a village, identity once rested on community knowledge: everyone knew who belonged. In a nation-state of continental scale, belonging must be mediated through paper, databases, and official recognition. Documents are therefore not merely administrative artifacts; they are instruments through which the state acknowledges personhood and membership. When the meaning of those documents becomes unstable, so does the citizen’s relationship with the state. History shows that documentation systems are never neutral; they can serve welfare and recognition, but also surveillance, sorting, and exclusion.

In the digital state, this problem grows even more complex. Exclusion no longer requires explicit denial; it can emerge silently through database mismatches, transliteration errors, biometric failures, OCR mistakes, and algorithmic flags. Citizenship can become vulnerable not only to missing documents but also to broken data. For migrant workers, rural citizens, linguistic minorities, and the elderly, such invisible failures can become life-altering. The irony is stark in the era of chip-enabled e-passports: even as the state invests in biometrics, cryptographic security, and advanced identity verification, documentary certainty remains elusive.

India’s citizenship regime also suffers from the legacy of Partition. Citizenship law evolved amid displacement, migration, refugee flows, and border anxieties. The Constitution initially addressed citizenship under Articles 5 to 11, while Parliament later enacted the Citizenship Act of 1955. Citizenship could be acquired by birth, descent, registration, or naturalisation. But unlike several other countries, India never institutionalised a universal citizenship certification system. This omission mattered little earlier because citizenship itself was rarely contested at mass scale. Today, however, in an era of biometric databases, surveillance, migration politics, and aggressive verification regimes, that old ambiguity has become dangerous.

Most modern democracies recognise that while no document is fraud-proof, state-issued identity documents must carry strong presumptive legitimacy. In countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, passports are widely accepted as authoritative proof of citizenship or nationality for most practical purposes. India’s problem, therefore, lies less in legal technicality than in its institutional reluctance to provide documentary finality. If the government merely intended to clarify that a passport is not legally conclusive in every dispute, that could have been communicated responsibly; instead, the blunt assertion triggered predictable panic—bureaucratically precise, yet politically reckless. Reported IndiaToday.

This debate goes far beyond semantics because documentation burdens are never distributed equally. The affluent, with digitised records and institutional access, can navigate verification with relative ease, while the poor, displaced, migrant workers, linguistic minorities, the elderly, and marginalised communities remain far more vulnerable. Once citizenship becomes document-dependent, inequality becomes destiny: those with paperwork belong, while those without must plead. This raises a constitutional question—whether citizenship is an inherent right of belonging or a status subject to endless bureaucratic revalidation. In a democracy, the burden must remain on the state to prove exclusion, not on citizens to repeatedly prove inclusion; otherwise, documentation becomes an instrument of coercion rather than a service. The gravest danger is not merely bureaucratic inconvenience but functional statelessness—a condition in which individuals possess histories, documents, and social belonging, yet remain unable to satisfy the state’s shifting documentary demands.

The stakes are not merely symbolic. Citizenship determines access to rights reserved exclusively for citizens, including voting, public office, and constitutional freedoms such as speech, assembly, and movement under Article 19. Uncertainty around citizenship, therefore, threatens not only identity, but the practical enjoyment of democratic rights

The strongest public reaction was not to legal technicality alone, but to what it symbolized: a deep erosion of trust. When institutions repeatedly blur the line between governance and suspicion, even routine clarifications begin to feel threatening.

A passport is undeniably a travel document, but it is also the republic’s assurance of belonging and sovereign protection in moments of crisis. Reducing it to mere travel facilitation strips it of its civic meaning, since passports are issued not to transients but to members of a political community. While citizenship may be challenged in exceptional cases involving fraud or unlawful acquisition, such exceptions cannot define ordinary belonging. The possibility of fraud cannot justify normalising uncertainty for all. The MEA may be legally correct that a passport is not conclusive proof of citizenship, but legality without civic logic becomes absurdity. If documents issued after sovereign verification carry no presumptive trust, the problem lies not with the document but with the state. That is the unsettling truth this controversy has exposed: citizenship must confer certainty, dignity, and belonging—not permanent doubt.

The author is an Indian author (his first book being The Essential,2023), policy analyst, and columnist. His research and commentary regularly appear in scholarly and popular publications. Follow @ens_socialis.

Related:

Hegemony: Kerala’s Bharatapuzha as a political stage

The post The Battle of Belonging: Why India’s Passport Controversy Matters appeared first on SabrangIndia.

At first glance, one appears to be a labour struggle and the other a dispute over nomenclature. Yet viewed together, they reveal an important political trend. The emergence of local resistance to the convergence of economic dispossession and symbolic communal politics. These movements show that ordinary people often understand how struggles over jobs, land and livelihoods can be linked to disputes over identity and history, even when political leaders treat them as unrelated issues.

Giral Mines & “Benefits” from Development

Giral (often also spelled Girel/Girol in media reports) is a lignite-mining project located near Giral village in Barmer district, Rajasthan, about 43 km from Barmer city. The mine is operated by the state-owned company Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited (RSMML). It was the first modern opencast lignite mine in Rajasthan after the closure of the Palana underground mine. Mining operations began in 1994 and commercial production started in May 1995. The Giral lignite field forms part of the larger Barmer Basin, which contains significant lignite deposits and has been the subject of geological and coal studies The mine was developed primarily to supply lignite to the

Giral Lignite Thermal Power Plant (GLTPP)

A major agitation began on 9 April 2026 and continued for weeks in Giral village. Protesters included mine workers, contract labourers, local youth, farmers and land-losers from surrounding villages. According to protesters and local residents, land in Thumbli-Giral and neighbouring villages was acquired by RSMML roughly three decades ago. Villagers allege that the acquisition was accompanied by assurances of local employment, preference to affected families as the long-term economic benefits from mining activities.

These claims form the central basis of contemporary agitation. The protesters’ principal demands reportedly have included: restoration of jobs lost by local workers, priority employment for land-losers and local youth, regularisation and protection of labour rights, action against alleged exploitation by contractors, payment of bonuses under the Bonus Act, 1965 and fulfilment of employment commitments allegedly made during land acquisition.

The Independent MLA of Sheo constituency, Ravindra Singh Bhati became the most visible political face of the agitation. On May 6–7, 2026, about two months ago, he joined the sit-in at Giral village and announced that he would remain with the protesters until their demands were addressed. Bhati joined the workers at the protest site, spent nights with demonstrators, participated in negotiations with the administration, and insisted that discussions include the contractors involved in mine operations. As frustration grew over the lack of progress, he led large protest mobilisations, including a march involving hundreds of vehicles to the Barmer Collectorate.

The agitation reached a dramatic turning point when Bhati attempted self-immolation on May 19 during a protest, drawing state-wide attention to the protest and increasing pressure on the administration. Yet the most tragic moment came on June 4, with the death of Jaisaram Meghwal, a worker associated with the agitation. His death transformed the movement from a labour dispute into a powerful symbol of the people’s sacrifice/martyrdom: the human costs of neglecting workers’ grievances.

Unlike many mining conflicts in India, the Giral agitation centred less on opposing mining itself than on demanding that the promises accompanying development be honoured

Islampur and the Defence of Historical Memory

While Barmer witnessed a struggle over livelihoods, Jhunjhunu witnessed a struggle over history.

The controversy began when a proposal was mooted by Jhunjhunu’s BJP MLA Rajendra Bhamboo to rename Islampur village as “Shrirampur.” Supporters described the move as a cultural correction. Residents of the village, however, saw it as an attempt to erase a historical identity that had existed for centuries.

According to local historical traditions, the village was founded by Islam Khan, an Afghan officer who served under the command of Rao Shekha Kachhwaha, the eponymous founder of Shekhawati. Another notable Afghan officer associated with the Shekhawat court was Farid Khan—later renowned as Sher Shah Suri—who is said to have served under Rao Shekha’s descendant, Raja Raisal Shekhawat. The presence of Afghan military officers in the service of the Shekhawats, together with the history of Jhunjhunu’s Kayamkhani rulers, who were Muslim Chauhans, reflects the region’s layered political and cultural landscape. These intertwined histories complicate rigid religious interpretations of Rajasthan’s past, revealing instead a history shaped by political alliances, military service, and shared regional identities that often-transcended confessional boundaries. For villagers, therefore, the name Islampur was not merely a religious marker. It represented a historical legacy linked to the region’s own evolution. Many residents argued that changing the name would not restore history but erase it.

What made the movement particularly noteworthy was its broad social character. Opposition was not limited to Muslims. Villagers from different backgrounds emphasised that the issue concerned heritage, local autonomy, and communal harmony. They questioned why a settlement that had existed peacefully under the same name for generations had suddenly become the subject of political intervention.

The movement gained wider visibility when Rajendra Singh Gudha joined the protests. Gudha participated in marches to the Jhunjhunu Collectorate and argued that Shekhawati’s history was rooted in coexistence rather than communal division. Highlighting the historical origins of Nawab Islam Khan, he maintained that place-names must reflect their history and should not be altered to satisfy contemporary political agendas, warning against transforming local heritages into a battleground for symbolic politics.

Residents submitted memoranda, organised padyatras, and presented historical records supporting the antiquity of the village’s name. In doing so, they transformed a naming controversy into a broader defence of historical memory and local self-determination.

Unlike many place-name controversies framed as Hindu-Muslim disputes, opposition in Islampur was articulated largely in terms of local history, administrative continuity and communal coexistence.

Rajasthan’s Democratic Legacy 

Post-princely Rajasthan witnessed important shifts in rural power. In many regions, the decline of traditional feudal powers did not eliminate local hierarchies but reconfigured them, with new dominant landed and political elites emerging alongside expanding corporate influence in recent decades.

In western Rajasthan and parts of Shekhawati, changing political coalitions altered the composition of local elites rather than eliminating unequal structures of rural power. The Giral and Islampur movements suggest that communities today are increasingly questioning both economic and symbolic forms of domination Although Giral and Islampur emerged from different circumstances, they illuminate two dimensions of the same political process.

Across India, economic insecurity has intensified through unemployment, contractualisation of labour, land acquisition, and unequal patterns of development. Simultaneously, public debate is increasingly dominated by disputes over names, monuments, historical symbols, and religious identities. These two developments are not always directly connected. Yet they frequently coexist in ways that benefit entrenched power structures. Economic grievances become fragmented while symbolic controversies occupy public attention.

The significance of reading Giral and Islampur together is not that they concern identical issues, but that both involve local communities asserting agency against decisions made elsewhere. In Giral, villagers questioned who benefits from extraction undertaken in the name of development. In Islampur, residents questioned who has the authority to redefine a region’s historical identity. The significance of these movements lies precisely in their refusal to accept the separation of material and cultural concerns. People require both livelihoods and dignity. Development without justice breeds resentment; attempts to reshape local history through top-down cultural politics can similarly provoke resistance. That shared insistence on local agency—over livelihoods in Giral and historical identity in Islampur—may be the most significant form of democratic resistance emerging in Rajasthan today.

(The author is a mechanical engineer and an independent commentator on history and politics, with a particular focus on Rajasthan. His work explores the syncretic exchanges of India’s borderlands as well as contemporary debates on memory, identity and historiography; he can be contacted on adityakrishnadeora@gmail.com)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of SabrangIndia.

Related:

Rethinking the ‘Rajput State’: The Neemuchana & Tiladi agrarian movements

When History substitutes Governance: Hindutva’s Politics of Manufacturing Pasts

Rajasthan: Gogamedi, a Rajput-Muslim shrine and the politics of communal capture

Hindutva’s Rajasthan Project: Brahmin-Bania Power, not just Muslim baiting

The post Rajasthan: From Giral to Islampur, how locals are contesting development and historical identity appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to Hindustan Times, the IDC will now examine the contents of the film and make recommendations to the Union government regarding any further action. The committee forms part of the government’s oversight mechanism for OTT platforms and digital publishers and comprises senior representatives from the Ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Home Affairs, Electronics and Information Technology, Law and Justice, Defence, External Affairs, Women and Child Development, along with other ministries or domain experts that the MIB may nominate. It is chaired by an authorised officer of at least the rank of Joint Secretary.

The latest development follows the government’s directive to ZEE5 to take down Satluj under Section 69A of the IT Act, read with Part III of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Section 69A empowers the Central Government to block or disable public access to online content on grounds including the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, defence of India, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, or to prevent the commission of cognisable offences.

Unlike theatrical releases, which require certification from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), OTT platforms fall outside the CBFC’s jurisdiction and are governed by Part III of the 2021 IT Rules. These rules extend a regulatory framework to publishers of online curated content and digital news, enabling the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to issue directions regarding online content under specified circumstances.

Government sources, quoted by PTI and Hindustan Times, stated that the takedown was prompted by “security concerns” and the obligations imposed on OTT platforms under the IT Rules. According to officials, the makers had originally submitted the film, then titled Punjab ’95, to the CBFC in 2022 for theatrical certification. The Board reportedly sought an unprecedented 127 cuts before granting certification. The filmmakers declined to accept those edits, following which the project remained stalled for several years before eventually being released directly on ZEE5 under the new title Satluj on July 3.

Officials told PTI that after the uncut version became available online, the government intervened and directed ZEE5 to remove it. “If they want to release the film in theatres and OTT, they should follow the laid down norms,” one official was quoted as saying by PTI.

Following the government’s direction, ZEE5 confirmed through an official statement on Instagram that Satluj would be “unavailable in India until further notice” due to “current developments”, without elaborating further. The platform thanked viewers for the overwhelming response the film had received following its release. While inaccessible in India, the film reportedly continues to be available internationally through ZEE5 Global.

The controversy has also highlighted the distinct regulatory regimes governing cinema and digital platforms. Newly appointed CBFC Chairperson Shashi Shekar clarified that the certification board had no role in the OTT release, observing that “OTT platforms don’t come under the jurisdiction of the CBFC.”

A film about one of India’s most important human rights cases

Directed by Honey Trehan, Satluj chronicles the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the prominent Punjab human rights activist who exposed the illegal cremation of thousands of unidentified bodies by the Punjab Police during the militancy and counter-insurgency period between 1984 and 1994.

Khalra was abducted outside his residence in September 1995 after documenting these disappearances and was never seen alive again. His case later became one of the most significant instances of enforced disappearance and custodial killing in India. In 2005, four Punjab Police personnel were convicted for his abduction and murder, and in 2007, the Punjab and Haryana High Court enhanced their sentences to life imprisonment.

Despite the historical importance of Khalra’s work, the film has faced repeated obstacles since its completion. Apart from the demand for 127 cuts by the CBFC, Punjab ’95 was also removed from the official line-up of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival shortly before its scheduled premiere, without any public explanation from the festival organisers.

Detailed report may be read here.

Legal basis invoked by the government

The government’s action relies on the framework created under the Information Technology Act and the 2021 IT Rules. Part III of the IT Rules incorporates a Code of Ethics applicable to publishers of online curated content. The Code requires publishers to exercise due caution when content may affect India’s sovereignty and integrity, threaten national security, disturb public order, harm friendly relations with foreign States, or incite violence. It further requires publishers to be mindful of India’s multi-religious and multi-racial social context while depicting communities and sensitive subjects.

Notably, aspects of the Code of Ethics have themselves been the subject of constitutional challenges before various High Courts. The Bombay High Court had stayed certain provisions relating to governmental oversight under the IT Rules in 2021, a stay that the Madras High Court subsequently observed would operate across India. As reported by Mint, it remains unclear whether the Centre specifically relied upon the Code of Ethics while issuing the takedown direction to ZEE5, or whether the order rests exclusively on its powers under Section 69A.

More on IT Act may be read here and here.

Political and public backlash

The removal of the film has triggered sharp criticism from political leaders, filmmakers and free speech advocates. As reported by Scroll, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal described the decision as “not mere censorship” but “an assault on our collective memory, truth and freedom of expression”, arguing that Punjab must be allowed to confront its history rather than suppress it.

AAP leader Baltej Pannu similarly alleged that the removal was intended to prevent younger generations from learning about a painful chapter in Punjab’s past, claiming that both the BJP and Congress had an interest in suppressing the historical record.

Related:

From Punjab ’95 to Satluj: When cinema becomes a battlefield over history, memory and censorship

Satluj: A film encountered

Kerala’s LDF govt to defy Centre’s diktat, to screen all films as per schedule at IFFK

Erasing Resistance: How the CBFC is censoring films that challenge caste and state power

Safe harbour or shadow censorship? The battle over India’s digital speech

The telegram NEET case and the expansion of platform-level censorship in India

The post Centre escalates action against Satluj, refers film to high-level committee after ordering OTT takedown appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Within just four days of the commencement of SIR (SIR commenced on June 30, 2026), two BLOs have died in Karnataka. Another person collapsed due to severe stress and has been admitted to hospital.

In addition, as newspapers reported on July 6, yesterday, senior officials ‘have threatened BLOs with disciplinary action’, including removal from their jobs, if they fail to complete the distribution of forms today itself. This has created even more dangerous pressure on them. It is certain to have even more fatal consequences in the coming days.

Furthermore, voters across the state are facing numerous difficulties while filling out the Enumeration Form and are experiencing immense anxiety. In what is described as a simple process, election officials are failing to provide proper answers even to simple questions, thereby further increasing public anxiety.

It is only natural that this anxiety among the people will increase further after the publication of the draft roll-on August 5. During that period, the state is likely to witness even greater chaos and helpless anxiety among the people.

Therefore, conscious sections of society must remain alert, understand the causes behind all these tragedies, and stand against the danger.

In this context, it is necessary to understand the real reasons behind the inhuman pressures being created by the Commission.

What is causing the deaths of BLOs and the anxiety among voters?

In Karnataka, the process of distributing and collecting Enumeration Forms, which began on June 30, must be completed and digitised by July 29—that is, within one month. This is because the Election Commission (ECI) has, without any rational basis, imposed an unscientific and undemocratic deadline requiring the entire SIR process to be completed by October 2026—that is, within a total period of three months. It is this deadline that is creating enormous pressure on both BLOs and voters. This, when elections to the State Assembly are due only in mid-2028, that is at least 18 months after October 2026. Why then the unholy hurry?

What is the urgency behind the cut-off date of October 2026?

The ECI itself admits that the previous SIR in 2002 was carried out gradually over a period of one-and-a-half years.

The real motive and intention of the Commission and the ruling BJP regime is to complete SIR in 31 states across the country by December 2026, before the Census begins in February 2027. That is why this unscientific deadline has been imposed.

What is the connection between the Census and the SIR?

A Census is generally conducted to enumerate/count the population of the country. However, the Modi government –which heads an ideological majoritarian state– had intended to use the 2020 Census to verify people’s citizenship and to strip communities it did not want of their citizenship.

That is why the CAA was enacted in 2019.

For the 2020–21 Census, questionnaires had been prepared for creating the NPR (National Population Register) by asking people for ‘proof of citizenship.’

The plan was then to separate those who could prove their citizenship and prepare the NRC (National Register of Citizens). Those who could not provide proof of citizenship were to be excluded from the NRC, placed on a list of ‘suspected foreigners’, and subjected to processes aimed at deporting them from the country. Or else…

However, this could not be implemented because of a massive public outcry and sustained public protests. The Census itself was not conducted in 2020–21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, the Census is set to begin again in February 2027. (The house-listing exercise will be completed in 2026.) While only ₹3,000 crore was allocated for the Census in the 2025 Budget, ₹6,000 crore has been allocated in the 2026 Budget for conducting the NPR alongside the Census. Reported Moneycontrol.

This only means one thing: that the Modi government is now moving ahead to complete, during this Census, what it could not accomplish in 2019.

It is possible to carry out the NRC through the Census process itself. But instead of conducting the NRC directly, the same questions are now being asked through SIR, thereby completing the groundwork for the NRC.

Isn’t the SIR just a Voter Verification process?

No. The lawyers for the Election Commission in the proceedings contesting the controversial SIR before the Supreme Court have made it clear that SIR is being conducted to examine citizenship and not merely to revise electoral rolls:

“Revision of electoral rolls had been done earlier on the basis of self-declaration of citizenship. This [SIR 2025] we found was an opportune time to take note of this statutory amendment of 2003 and examine citizenship for the purpose of preparing the electoral roll.” – the Hindu

Understand the Chronology

First, SIR.
Then, the Census.
Alongside it, the NPR.
Immediately after that, the NRC.

Therefore, SIR is being rushed through in order to prepare lists of citizens and non-citizens required for the NPR, which is to be conducted alongside the 2027 Census, and for the NRC that is to follow.

This is the only reason why the present SIR enumeration process is being hurriedly completed within a three-month period even in states such as Karnataka, where elections are not currently due. SIR has to be completed across the country before the 2027 Census.

This is precisely why Chief Electoral Officers are pressuring BLOs to distribute, collect, and digitise SIR forms within one month.

Without providing proper and comprehensive training or the necessary time, BLOs are being threatened with various disciplinary measures if they fail to meet the targets within the prescribed period. That is why, as has happened in other states, a series of deaths among BLOs has now begun in Karnataka as well, with BLOs unable to withstand the pressure.

Although the SIR enumeration questionnaire may appear simple at first glance, it has created considerable confusion. It has been designed by officials who have little understanding of the lives and awareness levels of ordinary people, in order to serve the needs of their political masters.

People unfamiliar with the language of administration are filling out the forms in ways they understand and are consequently getting into difficulties. Here too, instead of creating awareness and collecting the forms patiently, the rushed process is causing anxiety among the people.

Following this difficult, non-transparent and unfriendly process, ‘the draft roll’ will be published on August 5. Those whose names are missing as well as those who receive notices because the information they have provided ‘fails to satisfy 12 categories of logical consistency checks’, (Logical Discrepancy), will thereafter get only one month to get their names re-inserted in the roll.

If they fail to provide documents that satisfy the administration within one month, they will be excluded from the roll.

This will then create even greater chaos and anxiety and may have fatal consequences for voters.

This then is the real reason behind the brutal administrative push to complete SIR before the Census begins.

This is the real reason. The only real reason

SIR is being conducted in order to unconstitutionally implement the BJP government’s politically malicious intentions and Hindutva’s agenda. To implement an untested, contested NRC through the backdoor.

To implement this plan of action (POA) aggressively, the Election Commission—acting as a puppet of the BJP—has devised extremely unscientific SIR criteria, impossible deadlines, an undemocratic process, and an anti-people questionnaire.

This is the cause of the deaths of BLOs, voters’ anxiety, and the developing anarchy.

There is only one solution:

Scrap The Unconstitutional SIR.
Let voter-roll revision be carried out patiently and in a people-friendly manner.
Let’s Act to save democracy.

[1] The National Population Register (NPR) is a comprehensive database of all ‘usual residents in India’, recording both citizens and foreign nationals.

[2] National Register of Citizens (NRC) was a requirement inserted by the 2003 Rules to the Indian Citizenship Act (CA) of 1955. In 2019-2020 the amendment to the CAA drew huge protests, delaying the process of excluding ‘undocumented’ Indians into a list of ‘suspected foreigners’

Related:

SIR 2025-26: Dismantling the very Idea of India?

Karnataka launches SIR with 5.5 crore voters, State Govt voices transparency concerns

Karnataka’s new PRC rules are people-friendly, but will the ECI accept them?

To Karnataka’s Anti-SIR Movement: A note of caution and concern

Anti-SIR Activists Beware: A mere Residential Certificate does not satisfy SIR requirements

The post SIR 2025-2026: A backdoor exercise to bring in the NRC? appeared first on SabrangIndia.