The SIR exercise in Bihar is getting murkier and murkier. Pushed onto the back foot by the growing protests in Bihar, especially the July 9 chakka jam which evoked a great mass response across the state, the Election Commission has now sought to take steps to limit the scale of deletion of voters at the draft stage. After the first ten days of the SIR drive when only 14% enumeration forms had reportedly been collected, the EC realised that at this rate some 40 to 50 per cent voters might easily get eliminated at the draft stage itself. Hence the EC relaxed the time frame for submission of supporting documents and asked the administration to collect forms without documents and even photographs. The entire enumeration form distribution and collection exercise has now become a mockery.

Contrary to the EC’s assurance of three BLO (Booth Level Officer) visits to every house and supply of two enumeration forms to every elector, one for submission and one for retention as acknowledgement receipt or record, many households have not yet had a single visit and most electors have got only one form. There are reports of BLOs being suspended for telling the truth about the absence of documents and the unbearable pressure of work, at least one BLO succumbing to death, a BDO tendering resignation alleging harassment by the concerned ERO (a sub-divisional officer) and now a case being filed against renowned journalist Ajit Anjum for reporting the truth about the SIR drive. Instead of responding to this ground reality, EC 'sources' are busy planting stories in the media about BLOs discovering large numbers of foreign nationals - from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar - in Bihar's villages!

We do not know how the Supreme Court will respond to all the constitutional and legal issues raised in the petitions. Many in Bihar are applying for domicile and caste certificates, but whether they will get them on time for submission as supporting documents by the end of August is anybody's guess. This will of course mean quite a large number of enumeration forms submitted without documents and the ECI announcement giving discretionary powers to the EROs to deal with such cases on the basis of so-called 'local investigations' and 'available documents' only lends credence to apprehension about erroneous deletions and insertions, whether inadvertent or deliberate.

Four decades ago, the rural poor of Bihar waged a heroic battle to defeat booth capturing and break the feudal stranglehold over the election process. Today when Musahars of Bihar risk being branded as illegal refugees from Myanmar and Bihar's migrant workers and Muslims are liable to be lodged in detention camps as Bangladeshi infiltrators, Bihar will have to fight hard to foil this fascist conspiracy of targeted disenfranchisement and defend the universal adult franchise, the crucial cornerstone of the Constitution of India we won through India's freedom movement.

In Assam, for years we have been seeing the phenomenon of a section of voters being branded D-voters (dubious or doubtful voters), with some of them being put in detention camps and some even deported to Bangladesh. The Assam government does not recognise the NRC prepared in Assam under Supreme Court monitoring and has started picking out people from the NRC to refer to the foreign nationals tribunal. In Bihar, the State Assembly had unanimously resolved against any introduction of the NRC in the state on 28 November 2021, but today the indicative list of supporting documents includes the NRC as one of the eleven listed items and the EC says people who cannot produce the required documents will be referred to foreign national tribunals. From doubtful voters to disenfranchised citizens, and detention camps to deportation to foreign countries - the trauma that has been haunting millions in Assam is now all set to become a feature of life in Bihar.

What has been happening in Assam has now come to Bihar via the SIR route and the SIR express is scheduled to travel to every other state of India. Bihar's eastern neighbour West Bengal, where elections are due next summer, is already reported to have been identified as the next target. There are reports of Bengali-spealing migrant workers from West Bengal - Muslims as well as Hindus - being harassed with accusations of being ‘Bangladeshis’ in state after BJP-ruled state. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma says if Assam's Muslims records Bengali as their mother tongue, it will help Assam government to identify Bangladeshis.

In 2019, the Election Commission of India had told Parliament that there were hardly any cases of foreign nationals on the electoral rolls, with none reported in 2016, 2017, and 2018, and only three cases in 2019. But with the BJP’s seat tally coming down from 303 in 2019 to 240 in 2024, suddenly there is talk of large-scale infiltration of foreigners in India's electoral rolls. The classic fascist paradigm of a permanently disenfranchised and vulnerable group of second grade citizens is being sought to be developed through invasive surgery of the electoral roll in state after state. After more than seven decades of universal adult franchise, India is being sought to be pushed back to a state of restricted and selective suffrage. The democratic republic of India must foil this ominous fascist design.

(A version of this article appeared in The Wire on July 15, 2025.)