New Delhi: Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has expressed deep unease over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, cautioning that the exercise is being carried out in undue haste and could unfairly exclude eligible voters ahead of the state’s assembly elections.
Speaking to PTI from Boston on Saturday, Sen said that while revising electoral rolls can strengthen democracy when done carefully, the current process in Bengal lacks sufficient time and procedural fairness.
“A thorough review of electoral rolls done carefully with adequate time can be a good democratic procedure, but this is not what is happening in West Bengal at this time,” Sen said. “The SIR is being done in a hurry, with inadequate time for people with voting rights to have sufficient opportunity to submit documents to vindicate their entitlement to vote in the coming assembly elections. This is both unjust to the electorate and unfair to Indian democracy,” he added.
Time pressure even on officials
Drawing from his own experience during the revision process, Sen said the time constraints appeared to affect even Election Commission officials.
“Sometimes, the officials of the Election Commission themselves seem to lack enough time,” he said.
Sen recounted being questioned about his eligibility to vote from Santiniketan, his home constituency, despite having voted there earlier and his details being part of official records.
“When they questioned my right to vote from my home constituency in Santiniketan – from where I have voted earlier, and where my name, address and other details are registered in official records – they questioned me about my deceased mother’s age at my date of birth, even though, as a voter herself, my mother’s details, like mine, were stored also in their own official records,” he said.
‘I do not have a birth certificate’
The economist highlighted a common documentation problem faced by many Indians, especially those born in rural areas.
“Like many Indian citizens born in rural India (I was born in the then village of Santiniketan), I do not have a birth certificate, and my eligibility to vote required further paperwork to be presented on my behalf,” Sen said.
Although the issue was eventually resolved in his case, he said the experience left him worried about others without similar support systems.
“Even though I could happily say (like the Beatles) — ‘Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends’ — I worried about others who do not have so many loyal friends. My friends helped me to get through the rigid gates of the formidable EC,” he said.
Sen was later called for a hearing after a “logical discrepancy” was flagged regarding the age gap between him and his mother.
Who stands to lose the most
Asked whether the SIR could politically benefit any party, Sen said he could not offer a firm conclusion.
“I am not an election expert, so I cannot answer the question with certainty. I have been told by those who seem to know more, that the BJP will benefit from the under-accounting,” he said, adding, “I don’t know whether that is true, but the real point is that the EC should not insist on a faulty arrangement and force our proud democracy to commit an unnecessary error, no matter who benefits.”
He warned that the poor and underprivileged are most vulnerable to exclusion due to documentation requirements.
“An obvious answer must be the underprivileged and the poor. The documents needed for being allowed into the new electoral roll are often difficult to obtain for the underdogs of society,” he said. “The class bias that may show up in the necessary requirement of getting and showing particular documents in order to qualify to enter the new voters’ list will tend to work against the indigent,” he added.
Sen also flagged concerns about minority communities.
“Indian Muslims are sometimes relegated to disadvantaged positions through the activism of the recently bolstered Hindutva extremists. Some categories of Hindus also may face discrimination and targeting,” he said.
Calling for institutional safeguards, Sen said voting rights must be protected.
“The EC and the Supreme Court must make sure that no adult Indian citizen has difficulty to qualify for voting,” he said.
Expressing his desire to participate in the upcoming elections, Sen said it would depend on the polling schedule.
“I would very much like to do that. It depends, however, on the exact date on which my constituency’s voting is fixed,” he said, recalling that on one earlier occasion he travelled across three countries within 48 hours just to cast his vote in Santiniketan.