SIR and the annihilation of rights, Pg7

Key Highlights:

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) is conducting the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in 12 States and Union Territories, covering approximately 51 crore voters.
• The SIR requires every elector to match their names and documents with the electoral rolls of 2002-2005, regardless of having voted in earlier elections.
• This new process shifts the responsibility of compliance from the state to the people, potentially disenfranchising women, migrants, and the homeless.
• The SIR's architecture resembles the Union government's technocratic approach in welfare delivery, which has led to large-scale exclusions in programs like MGNREGA.

Detailed Insights:

• The Representation of the People Act, 1950, states that any person "ordinarily resident in a constituency" can be enrolled in electoral rolls; previously, the ECI operated on the premise of presumed citizenship.
• The Gauhati High Court in 1999 defined "ordinarily resident" as someone who is a "habitual resident" with the "intention to dwell permanently," and whom a "reasonable man will accept...as the resident of that state."
• The current SIR inverts this by requiring citizens to prove their eligibility, potentially leading to disenfranchisement due to mismatches between current details and older, non-machine-readable electoral rolls.
• The Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS) in MGNREGA led to workers being deleted for being "unwilling to work" due to unclear procedures and officials focusing on achieving 100% Aadhaar linking targets.
• The introduction of the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app to digitally record attendance of MGNREGA workers has been misused, leading to further exclusions and corruption.
• The structural codification of exclusions in both MGNREGA and the SIR puts pressure on officials to focus on targets, leading to harmful consequences and inaccessible grievance channels for vulnerable groups.
• Social audits have been suggested as an alternative to the SIR to ensure inclusion and uphold constitutional morality, which emphasizes fraternity and inclusion as the norm.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Special Intensive Revision (SIR): An exercise conducted by the ECI to revise and update electoral rolls.
• Constitutional Morality: The idea that institutions must embody fraternity, implying inclusion must be the norm and exclusion the exception.
• MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act): A flagship employment scheme providing a legal guarantee for one hundred days of wage employment in rural India.