There are moments in the life of a democracy when the conduct of the government becomes more consequential than the controversy it is attempting to contain. India has reached such a moment. What began as a dispute over the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has developed into something more disturbing: a confrontation over the citizen’s right to question the institutions that regulate democracy itself.
On October 10, the United Nations Human Rights Office expressed concern over reports of mass detentions of demonstrators, civil-society members, lawyers and journalists in India. It called for the release of those arbitrarily detained and urged respect for peaceful assembly. The government rejected the criticism. Similarly, over 100 Harvard University alumni issued a statement condemning police brutality, unlawful detention and constitutional rights violations.
That response was predictable. The events that produced the criticism were not.
Delhi witnessed an extraordinary mobilisation of state power against demonstrations demanding accountability from Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. Protesters were prevented from assembling at Jantar Mantar. Police detained leaders, including MPs and former Chief Ministers. Police removed students from trains before they could reach the capital. Lawyers were detained. Journalists covering demonstrations were taken into custody. Police used force and violence against protesters, especially students: private parts of women were kicked and phones taken away. The internet was suspended in parts of central Delhi, Metro stations were closed, and railway services were severely disrupted.
The scale was extraordinary. On October 10, 45 Delhi Metro stations remained shut, while more than 250 railway services were cancelled or disrupted.
Eventually, Jantar Mantar itself got denotified by the Home Ministry as a protest site, even as right-wing groups were reportedly free to proclaim that they would “destroy all anti-Modi forces” and “slay protesters,” while the Delhi Police remained mute spectators.
Even a week later, the police continue to assault peaceful protesters carrying national flags, refusing to register an FIR over the police brutality. Leaders like Neha of AISA and Dipke are still being detained for prolonged periods, including at night, at undisclosed locations. Even delegations of lawyers and concerned citizens who march to police stations seeking answers are long-denied information about their whereabouts.
This was not proportionate policing of an unruly mob. Much of it was preventive action against citizens who had not committed violence. The distinction matters enormously.
Article 19 does not confer an unlimited right to occupy every road or disregard reasonable lawful restrictions. But travelling to a demonstration is not a crime. Reporting a protest is not participation in disorder. Representing protesters is not obstruction of justice. Peacefully demanding the resignation of a constitutional functionary is not an attack on the Republic.
When a government begins to erase these distinctions, law enforcement ceases to look neutral and begins to resemble political management.
The Supreme Court recognised the danger. In an exceptional Sunday sitting on October 11, it directed that peaceful and unarmed persons must not be illegally detained. It said Metro and railway services should function normally subject to genuine public-order necessities, free movement should be permitted, lawyers should not be obstructed in their professional duties, and internet services should remain undisturbed in accordance with law.
A constitutional democracy should find it sobering that its Supreme Court had to remind, after strong attention-seeking, the executive of propositions so elementary.
The government cannot hide behind the legality of SIR
Electoral rolls require revision. Dead voters cannot remain indefinitely registered. Duplicate entries must be removed. People who have permanently shifted must be correctly recorded. Persons legally ineligible to vote cannot acquire electoral rights merely because an administrative error went unnoticed. Indeed, on May 27, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the Bihar SIR, recognising the Election Commission’s authority under Article 324 and the Representation of the People Act to undertake intensive revision. The Court also permitted a limited inquiry into citizenship for electoral purposes.
But the judgment contained an equally important restraint. The Election Commission does not become the final authority for terminating a person’s citizenship. Formal adjudication belongs to the competent authority under citizenship law.
The government’s defence therefore answers only one question: Can electoral rolls be revised? Of course they can. It does not answer the far more important question: How has that enormous power been exercised? Has the motive of conducting the exercise been to “clean” up the roles or to exclude pre-determined sections of voters?
More than 13 crore names were omitted from draft electoral rolls across 30 States and Union Territories during the nationwide revision. When exclusion occurs on such a scale, transparency is not optional. Nor can the government dismiss every criticism as partisan agitation, because some of the most serious objections have come from inside the Election Commission itself.
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections on at least fourteen occasions within ten months concerning voter enrolment, deletion, restoration and control over electoral-roll systems. Among the descriptions reportedly used were “unauthorised” and “illegal”.
One dispute involved Form 6, used for registering new voters. Changes introduced through the Commission’s digital system required applicants to answer questions linked to previous SIR records and their parents or grandparents. Sandhu and Joshi reportedly objected that the alteration had not been lawfully authorised and risked harassing first-time voters. The Commission subsequently removed the disputed addition from its ECINET portal in states where SIR had concluded.
That is not an insignificant administrative disagreement. It goes to the heart of who enters the electorate and under what conditions.
An institution weakened by the way its guardians are chosen
These developments cannot be separated from the altered architecture governing Election Commission appointments.
In Anoop Baranwal, the Supreme Court created an interim selection arrangement comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Chief Justice of India until Parliament enacted legislation. The Modi government subsequently did enact legislation—but removed the Chief Justice from the committee and substituted a Union Cabinet minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The result is straightforward: the executive now holds two of the three positions on the selection committee. The Supreme Court itself has recorded that this replacement lies at the heart of the constitutional challenge to the 2023 law.
This does not establish the allegation that Indian elections have been “rigged”. But institutional independence is not sustained merely by the absence of proven misconduct. Constitutional bodies survive because citizens can reasonably believe that they are insulated from the government whose political fortunes their decisions may affect.
The Modi government weakened that perception even when it constructed an appointment system in which the executive enjoys a built-in majority.
Now, when questions arise inside the Commission itself, the government’s instinct appears not to be radical transparency but political defence.
That is precisely the wrong response.
This is how democratic erosion occurs
India is not formally under an Emergency. There has been no proclamation under Article 352.
Democracies rarely collapse in a single constitutional explosion. They are hollowed out institution by institution. The judiciary may continue to deliver important interventions, yet public confidence in its ability to consistently confront executive power has been strained. Large sections of the mainstream media, meanwhile, operate in an environment of concentrated ownership, political alignment and governmental pressure; India now ranks 157th of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 Press Freedom Index. Overall trust in news among respondents to the Reuters Institute’s 2026 India survey fell to 39 per cent.
Then comes the machinery of everyday coercion: a journalist detained, a lawyer obstructed, a student pulled from a train, an internet connection suspended, a Metro station closed, a peaceful assembly prohibited, a constitutional institution stripped of visible independence, a voter suddenly required to prove an entitlement once presumed secure.
Each abuse can be rationalised in isolation. Together they reveal the steady normalisation of a state in which institutions meant to restrain power are themselves losing credibility, independent scrutiny is treated as hostility, and coercion substitutes a democratic response.
An Emergency need not always be proclaimed and democratic freedoms can also be extinguished by accumulation.
If the Election Commission’s SIR is legitimate, accurate and procedurally fair, they should not fear scrutiny. If Gyanesh Kumar’s decisions can withstand examination, barricades cannot strengthen his credibility. If the allegations are false, the appropriate answer is evidence.
Instead, the spectacle presented to the country has been one of police buses, blocked stations, disrupted trains, internet restrictions and preventive detention.
The state has used coercive power to contain a crisis of institutional trust. In doing so, instead of an uncomplicated right approach, it has enlarged that crisis.
Publish the records. Explain the major categories of voter deletion. Make restoration simple and accessible. Answer Sandhu and Joshi’s objections point by point. Establish transparent audit trails for electoral databases. Investigate allegations of misconduct by police against journalists, lawyers and other demonstrators. Permit peaceful protest.
And above all, stop treating scrutiny of the institutions as hostility towards India.
The Chief Election Commissioner derives authority not merely from statutory tenure but from public confidence that the referee is independent of every player—including the one occupying the government benches. His resignation is thus non-negotiable.
The Modi government should understand a fundamental truth that every democratic government eventually learns: institutions cannot be protected from criticism by protecting them against criticism.
A confident democracy answers questions. An insecure state arrests those who ask them.
When the question is who remains entitled to vote, there can be no bigger test of the Republic.
(Amal Chandra is an Indian author, policy analyst, and columnist, currently serving as The Statement Fellow and Coordinator, South Asia at Students for Liberty; Shabnam K. is an alumnus of the University of Delhi and a former SBI Youth for India Fellow)
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