SIR may pave way for ‘democracy of the few’, says Parakala Prabhakar
“The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will create two classes of citizens — those who can vote and those who cannot. At the current pace, an
“The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will create two classes of citizens — those who can vote and those who cannot. At the current pace, an estimated 16 crore people could be disenfranchised. SIR is, in effect, carving out sections of the country from the democratic process,” economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar said while delivering the P.V. Narasimha Rao Memorial Lecture at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University in Hyderabad on Thursday. Political parties, he said, are viewing the removal of names from electoral rolls only through the prism of electoral gains and losses.
“They are concerned about whether those being removed are supporters of one party or another. But in the long run, all political parties will be ‘BJPised’. They will increasingly resemble the BJP as the polity is reshaped to make sections of society politically inconsequential,” he said. Linking the Special Intensive Revision with the proposed delimitation exercise, Mr. Prabhakar alleged that minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and economically weaker sections risk being pushed out of the democratic process. “The result will be a democracy of the few, for the few,” he said. Citing replies obtained under the Right to Information Act, he claimed the SIR had been planned and implemented in an opaque manner without placing sufficient material in the public domain to justify the exercise.
“The delimitation will shape Hindu majoritarian consolidation and create a Hindu savarna polity as this is not going to be the last SIR,” he said. “Every abnormality is being normalised. The rising dollar, petrol prices, Manipur, lynchings, paper leaks, NEET, unemployment, and now SIR and the removal of names from electoral rolls are all being normalised. Minorities will be made politically inconsequential,” he said. He also claimed that India was moving towards becoming “a country like Israel. Questioning the fairness of elections in West Bengal, Mr. Prabhakar said about 28 lakh voters had allegedly been removed from the electoral rolls and that many of those cases were still pending before tribunals.
Earlier, Ghanta Chakrapani, Vice-Chancellor of BRAOU, said: “The Election Commission has deployed its army to eliminate a section of the people from electoral rolls. This is an inversion of democracy where the rulers are deciding who is going to be a voter.”
The BriefWire