By Arun Srivastava
In an unusual development, representatives of 20 Muslim organisations of West Bengal have called for a bandh on March 23 in the state protesting against the latest Special Intensive revision (SIR) under which Muslim voters have been targeted for deletion. They accused the Election Commission of India of taking away their citizenship in a deliberate manner. Muslims constitute 32 per cent of the state’s total population.
While the sponsors of the bandh called upon the small traders and shop owners to keep away from market and shut their shutters on that day, they also made it clear that they would be forced to resort to Gandhian mode of peaceful satyagrah and take this movement to every nook and corner of the state if the CEC and the centre do not redress their grievances.
Representatives of more than 20 Muslim organisations, including Muslim Personal law Board and famous religious site Furfura Shariff asked CEC at the press meet on March 18 not to test their perseverance and use the ECI to rake away their citizenship. Ever since the SIR exercise was launched in India, starting from Bihar in October 2025, the Muslim organisations have not come under one umbrella to register their protest against the move of the ECI to focus mostly on the Muslims and questing their identity.
But this time two reasons made them to join hands and prepare for a protracted struggle. First, the looming spectre of existential crisis and design to deny them the right to religious practice. The recent attacks by RSS and BJP cadres on religious places and forcing Muslims not to have namaz even inside their residences have been scaring. With a section of judiciary not finding any irrationality in the diktats of Hindutva groups, the Muslims now want to speak out against the impending danger.
Though the ECI denied allegations of religion-based exclusion, calling them “false, misleading, and without factual basis”, it could not substantiate its refusal through facts. The speakers at the press meet rebutted the ECI claim that SIR is a routine constitutional process to remove deceased, duplicate, and migrated voters, last conducted fully in 2002, they however sought to know why the process was not launched much earlier. Why it was rushed through just five months ahead of election.
For the organisers, the SIR exercise was a major conspiracy against the Dalits, poor and Muslims. In support of their allegation they cited that on December 16, but till that day the ECI had announced that 63 lakh voters were under adjudication. On that day it had announced that names of 58 lakh voters were being deleted as they were dead or left for some other place or there was double entry. The figure of 63 lakh which was put under adjudication was announced after a second thought.
The organisers were emphatic that people of Bengal would not forgive the agency or the people who have played with their dignity and identity. They sought to know why in states where the SIR is being carried out, lakhs of names are deleted. How many illegal migrants the union home ministry has come to trace? They expressed surprise at the narrative that was being put forward by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah; these give the impression that the country is the home of Muslim infiltrators.
Coming out with the call to “resist” and “protest”, the organisers made it specifically clear that people of Bengal will not tolerate the dirty game of the BJP and its top leadership. The mood of the meet made it abundantly clear that the organisers were ready to fight to the end. Inclusion of their names in the voter list is more important than fighting for livelihood. According to organisers, it was for the first time their existence was on test and they have to win.
Almost all the organisers were Bengali Muslims. On their part ,the BJP leaders, from state as well as from Delhi, were trying to create an impression that migrant Muslims, those from UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and even illegal migrants from Bangladesh were protesting against the SIR. But the fact is otherwise. The leaders present at the meet identified their interest with the Bengali Hindus of Bengal and were assertive that the people will not fall prey to the saffron narrative. The Muslim leaders and clerics were highly critical of the political parties. They accused them of not coming out of the narrow circle of their vested interest and fight unitedly against the ECI design.
They also mentioned how Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was insulted by the RSS and BJP. Sen was directed to produce documents to prove his Indian citizenship. A frustrated Sen had warned that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal was being carried out with ‘undue haste’ and could undermine democratic participation, with Muslims and other vulnerable groups at risk of exclusion ahead of the assembly elections due in April next..“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 had also observed; “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. Like many Indian citizens born in rural India (I was born in the village., I do not have a birth certificate, and my eligibility to vote required further paperwork to be presented on my behalf”.
Though once the issue of his summoning by election officials for verification got blown, they rushed to his place and performed their job. Nevertheless every individual is not Amartya Sen. But one thing is common; everyone is voter and like Sen, the vote of the ordinary person is important. He had however one important message for ECI; “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”.
Though opposition parties, civil society groups, and minority organizations had raised their voice against SIR, which is being used to systematically disenfranchise Muslims, they did not make it strong enough. It is worth mentioning that 25% of the 65 lakh excluded voters in the Bihar draft list were Muslims, though the ECI has refuted this as a communal interpretation. Over 200 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court of India challenging the constitutionality of the CAA, arguing that using religion as a basis for citizenship violates the secular principles of the Indian Constitution. If the apex court had adopted a pro-active stance ECI must not have dared to manoeuvre the process. (IPA Service)
