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One of the key elements of the enticing dream Narendra Modi wove before becoming the Prime Minister was “ease of living”. He parrots that phrase every now and then. But how easy life is rendered when the Election Commission of India all of a sudden strikes a poor man’s name from the voter’s list and asks him to prove his citizenship before the Union home ministry that is wallowing in the “detect-delete-deport” mania? That’s nothing but strangling the lovely ease-of-living doll to death.

Citizens can’t even level the charge of abetment to murder against the Supreme Court which so patiently oversaw the elaborate disenfranchisement exercise and finally sanctified it. But we can discuss whether the verdict legitimising the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) demonstrated the Supreme Court’s sympathy for the marginalised. Everybody knows the grim reality that the majority of poor Indians do not possess the requisite documents to satisfy the government that has weaponised its ghuspaithiya illusion.

 The real scenario is much more frightening than it appears. The poor, wandering aimlessly to scratch a living, are left with little energy and resources to arrange for food, medical treatment and school admission for children. They have now been thrown into the cauldron of legal wrangles. 

They can digest the ignominy of the denial of rights to vote. But how do they handle the fear of losing their citizenship? Being rendered state-less is a destruction of identity. Chief ministers of West Bengal and Bihar have already threatened that every privilege of being a citizen, including the welfare schemes, will be snatched from those whose name is not in the voter’s list. Add to that the possibility of being thrown out of the country. Is that ease of living, Mr Prime Minister? Are these the acchhe din you promised?  

Millions of people are in the grip of fear. And it’s not just the poor who are grappling with apprehensions, even the elite are facing the music. A powerful, well-entrenched gentleman in Kolkata could not renew his passport because the police refused to give clearance as his name had been struck off the electoral roll. He had voted in previous elections. He tried in vain........

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