Indian election officials have given voters in Bihar state only a few weeks to prove their citizenship, a requirement for which few possess the necessary documents. This registration overhaul, slated for nationwide implementation, is triggering significant fears of disenfranchisement.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the revision of voter rolls in June, ahead of upcoming polls in the eastern state. The ECI stated that this exercise will subsequently be replicated across the nation of 1.4 billion people.
According to the ECI, the “intensive revision” is partly necessary to prevent the “inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants.” Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have long alleged that a large number of undocumented Muslim migrants from neighboring Bangladesh have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls.
Critics, however, contend that this overhaul could effectively prevent vast numbers of Indian citizens from voting. Asaduddin Owaisi, a prominent Muslim lawmaker, remarked, “You are being asked to produce documents that very few people have.” He further warned, “It will lead to mass disenfranchisement.”
Opposition lawmakers specifically argue that the changes will disproportionately impact minorities, including Muslims and Dalit communities, who occupy the bottom rung of India’s rigid caste hierarchy.
‘Engineered Exclusions’
All prospective voters in Bihar must provide proof of citizenship by July 25. Individuals registered in 2003, the last time voter lists were scrutinized in Bihar, can submit a copy of that registration. However, the remaining population — an estimated 30 million people, according to ECI figures — must provide evidence of their place and date of birth. Furthermore, those born after 1987 are also required to furnish proof of their parents’ Indian citizenship.
This stringent requirement affects more than a third of potential voters in Bihar, which is India’s third most populous and poorest state. It also serves as a crucial electoral battleground, being the only state in India’s northern Hindi-speaking belt where Modi’s BJP has historically only governed in a coalition.
Bihar’s main opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, along with other parties and activists, has challenged the Election Commission’s move in the Supreme Court. The court petition asserts that the revision “is being used to justify aggressive and opaque revisions of electoral rolls that disproportionately target Muslim, Dalit and poor (Indian) migrant communities.” It further claims, “They are not random patterns but… engineered exclusions.”
Unlike many other countries, India does not possess a unique national identity card. Significantly, the widely used biometric-linked “Aadhaar” identity card is not among the documents listed by the ECI as acceptable proof. Documents that are accepted include birth certificates, passports, and matriculation (school-leaving) records.
Among these, most people are likely to rely on their matriculation certificates. However, even these are in limited supply in Bihar, a state where literacy rates are among the lowest in India. An analysis published in The Indian Express newspaper revealed that only 35% of people in the state possess such a document.
Jagdeep Chhokar from the New Delhi-based Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) stated, “In Bihar, where literacy is not very high, many people are not likely to have the kind of documents the ECI has demanded.” He concluded, “The poor, poorly educated, uneducated and minorities will be the most impacted.”
