The recent experience of R Rajagopal, former editor of The Telegraph, should worry every Indian citizen. Rajagopal has publicly stated that the renewal of his passport was held up after police verification because his name had been deleted from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). He received his renewed passport subsequently, but the fact remains: A distinguished journalist who had voted for decades suddenly found himself unable to obtain a passport because he no longer existed on the voters’ list.

When reports of large-scale deletions from electoral rolls first began to emerge, the reaction of many citizens was surprisingly indifferent. “I never voted anyway,” some remarked. “What difference does it make if my name is deleted?” Having spent years combating precisely this voter apathy through the Election Commission’s SVEEP programme, I recognised the sentiment immediately. It reflected the widespread belief that deletion from the electoral roll meant nothing more than losing an opportunity that many had never exercised.

The Rajagopal episode exposes how mistaken that assumption may be.

The Election Commission has consistently assured the Supreme Court that the SIR is confined to preparing electoral rolls and that deletion carries no consequences beyond the right to vote. The Supreme Court, too, has reiterated that deletion from the electoral roll does not determine citizenship. The developments on the ground, however, suggest that this constitutional separation is beginning to erode.

An early cautionary lesson came from Assam. The National Register of Citizens was an exercise directly concerned with citizenship. Yet even there, exclusion from the NRC did not by itself result in loss of citizenship; any such determination could follow only after due process before the Foreigners’ Tribunals. Even so, many families........

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