Democracy Denied: Systematic Voter Exclusion Moves Eastward to Bengal

By Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has released the elector database for West Bengal based connected a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls carried retired successful 2002, stirring a hornet’s nest. 

The governmental slugfest going connected successful the authorities of Bihar implicit the deletion of 6.5 cardinal voters from the electoral rolls pursuing a akin workout is simply a precursor to what is apt to travel successful West Bengal.

The conflict lines for the adjacent State Legislative Assembly elections successful West Bengal, present little than a twelvemonth away, therefore, look to have  been drawn.

The ECI’s abrupt merchandise of the earlier SIR-based elector database of 2002 for West Bengal and the hasty attempts astatine grooming booth-level officers suggest that the adjacent revision of electoral rolls volition instrumentality spot connected the eve of the polls. 

The 2002 SIR successful West Bengal acceptable the full fig of voters successful the authorities astatine 45.8 million, dispersed implicit 80,000 polling booths.  However, the governmental statement has heated up arsenic the elector database for Kulpi Assembly spot successful South 24 Parganas district was recovered missing from the published list. 

Similarly, the elector lists of astir a 100 booths successful the Gaighata Assembly constituency, and a fewer others successful South 24 Parganas, Birbhum and Howrah districts, were besides recovered missing. 

SIR is not caller successful the discourse of electoral rolls successful India. However, the 2021 census could not beryllium conducted due to the fact that of the COVID-19 pandemic. With elections astir the country successful Bihar and West Bengal, the caller steps of ECI person raised galore eyebrows. While the census and the SIR are abstracted exercises, the elector colonisation successful the 2 lists tin different beryllium tallied. 

Although polls are besides going to instrumentality spot for the legislative assembly successful Tamil Nadu, the confederate authorities is improbable to person a SIR. 

Given the Bihar developments, determination are apprehensions astir the imaginable disenfranchisement of galore nonmigratory Indians done the process of SIR. 

The insistence connected proving the citizenship of voters has drawn attraction successful West Bengal arsenic determination is simply a perceptible emergence successful the harassment, humiliation, and curtailment of the basal close to beingness and livelihood of Bengali-speaking migrant labour moving successful Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana, Maharashtra, and different states successful India ruled by the Bharatiya Janata enactment (BJP). 

Bengali-speaking individuals are being hounded and dubbed arsenic ‘Bangladeshis’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ implying that they are not citizens of India. Bengali migrant workers from West Bengal not lone person to beryllium their citizenship successful the remainder of India  but volition present beryllium asked to bash truthful successful their location authorities erstwhile the SIR is conducted.

While the neoliberal system has facilitated the mobility of superior and technology, the question of labour has been severely restricted, coupled with the gradual retreat of the authorities from the system to assistance firm capital. 

These developments successful caller decades person not lone securitised cross-border migration, including that of Indian labour, crossed the globe, but person besides raised walls wrong India. 

This clip it is the Bengali-speaking Muslims who are facing the wrath of the police, administration, and section populations of the migrant-receiving states of the country. Earlier, particularly successful Mumbai, migrant workers from southbound India and bluish India person faced the wrath of the section Maharashtra governmental parties.

The BJP’s targets are Bengali-speaking Muslims whom they fishy to beryllium Bangladeshi migrants. However, adjacent Hindu Bengalis, chiefly belonging to the alleged little castes, person not been spared. Hearing them talk the Bengali connection has been triggering suspicions of their being ‘Bangladeshis’. 

The rounding up, convulsive questioning, and carnal harassment by the section medication of specified radical continued successful galore cases adjacent aft the migrants produced their photograph individuality cards, including elector cards, Aadhar cards, and sometimes income taxation Personal Identity Number (PAN) cards. 

The hapless migrants wonderment which papers tin amusement their Indian citizenship portion the medication seems to bespeak that these documents they person are chiefly for accessing antithetic services and benefits provided by the government, and that bash not needfully beryllium citizenship. 

Therefore, the SIR successful West Bengal volition instrumentality spot successful the discourse of dispossession of the close to livelihood of migrant labour from the state. 

There whitethorn beryllium a fig of Bangladeshis surviving successful India without valid documents. However, tin the recognition of those Bangladeshis beryllium imaginable done the exclusion of Indian Bengalis? In fact, done this process, the abstraction for migrant workers from West Bengal successful low-paid jobs is shrinking further wrong the country. 

Migrants from West Bengal, Bihar, and eastbound Uttar Pradesh, among different states, determination into the much prosperous municipality areas successful different parts of India attracted by employment opportunities successful the concern oregon work sectors. They bash so  arsenic they are pushed retired of the cultivation assemblage owed to adverse human-land ratio, and due to the fact that of little cultivation yields owed to clime change. 

However, arsenic modern concern accumulation progressively requires less workers successful the industries, these migrants go babelike connected low-productivity – low-wages employment successful the municipality informal sector. 

With the expanding level economies successful India, peculiarly since the COVID-19 pandemic, much and much migrant labour is getting associated with those precarious jobs. The migrant women mostly enactment arsenic housemaids. 

The mediocre economical conditions of these migrants compel them to huddle unneurotic successful the slums of cities specified arsenic Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, oregon Mumbai, lone to beryllium identified arsenic imaginable ‘Bangladeshis’. This results not lone successful harassment but adjacent deportation to Bangladesh arsenic the section constabulary and radical neglect to separate betwixt Indians and Bangladeshis. 

As Bangladeshis without valid question documents are perceived arsenic unsafe threats to the authorities security, successful this ascendant information discourse, the information of the Bengali-speaking migrants, and their close to livelihood and quality dignity get easy eclipsed. 

In this context, it is wide that determination are governmental connotations underlying the determination of ECI astir SIR. 

The contiguous concern whitethorn payment antithetic governmental parties successful antithetic ways to mobilise selective sections of the electorate. However, successful the agelong run, this effort astatine proving citizenship successful bid to debar disenfranchisement, that excessively conscionable earlier the elections, volition lone erode Indian ideology and marginalise migrant labour crossed the country.

Originally published nether Creative Commons by 360info™.

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