The Modi government has initiated the unconstitutional Special Intensive Revision (SIR) through its puppet the Election Commission of India, which has already created unrest in 13 states.
In Karnataka too, the preliminary processes of SIR—mapping and matching—are being carried out inadequately and are nearing completion. As announced by the Election Commission, the SIR in Karnataka “is expected” to begin in April.
However, even at this stage, awareness and resistance against SIR are not developing in Karnataka as expected. Although there are several reasons for this, over the past month, many people’s organizations and coalitions have intensified awareness campaigns about SIR, creating a gradually more positive situation than before. As April approaches, these interventions are exploring, both individually and collectively, pathways to develop into an effective resistance.
These efforts must succeed in defeating the Modi government’s malicious plan of mass denial of citizenship. For that to happen, it is necessary at this stage to seriously examine the possibilities and challenges facing SIR resistance in Karnataka and to build a large-scale people’s movement that goes beyond them.
During the 2019–20 people’s struggle against the National Population Register (NPR), National Register of Citizens (NRC) brought in by the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, and the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA), Karnataka played a significant role. One of the main reasons was the rapid increase in awareness about NPR-NRC-CAA among organizations and communities—especially within the Muslim community—along with organized resistance. This also led to a shared understanding among opposition parties about the harmful nature of NRC. There was no confusion among the masses or opposition groups about the need to oppose the NRC.
However, in the case of SIR, such clarity of understanding and unity in struggle has not yet emerged.
The reasons may include:
The misconception that SIR is merely related to voter list revision and, unlike NRC, is not directly connected to citizenship.
While it is true that the Modi government has created several concerns regarding SIR, there is a belief that these can be overcome by submitting proper documents.
The interpretation that SIR can be made “people-friendly” by introducing certain democratic changes in its processes.
The illusion that since the Congress government has been elected in Karnataka, engaging in “dialogue,” “persuasion,” and “coordination” with it will ensure protection from SIR.
Due to all these reasons, the overall focus has shifted from opposing SIR to figuring out how to survive within SIR.
Organizational challenges that pro-people forces have long faced in building united struggles.
Therefore, there is a need for the anti-SIR resistance in Karnataka to collectively gain greater clarity through deeper discussion, analysis, and critique.
These notes are meant to contribute to such collective discussions.
SIR: Not just electoral roll revision – It is NRC-style citizenship verification
The Modi government and the Election Commission are spreading the false claim that SIR is merely another voter list revision exercise.
They are normalizing it as a routine process of updating electoral rolls, which typically involves:
(a) adding names of those who have turned 18 and those who have changed residence
(b) removing names of the deceased
(c) deleting names of those who have shifted ‘Ordinary residence’
For this purpose, the Election Commission has traditionally followed processes such as Summary Revision (SR) and Intensive Revision (IR) under the Registration of Electors Rules 1960 (RER). Before every election and every five to 10 years, election staff would conduct door-to-door verification to add new voters and remove names of the deceased or relocated. These SR and IR processes are necessary and have never been opposed.
However, the current process undertaken by the ECI is neither SR nor IR. It is SIR—Special Intensive Revision. The procedures and criteria being followed for this are not those used in SR or IR, but rather those formulated in 2019 for implementing NRC.
Most importantly, the Election Commission has now officially acknowledged that the reason for suddenly conducting a comprehensive intensive revision (SIR), instead of routine voter list revision, is to verify the citizenship of all Indians.
On January 22, the Election Commission clarified its objective in the Supreme Court as follows:
“This amendment came after the previous SIR. The amendment had never been applied in the intervening years, until now. Revision of electoral rolls had been done earlier on the basis of self-declaration of citizenship. This [SIR 2025] we found was an opportune time to take note of this statutory amendment of 2003 and examine citizenship for the purpose of preparing the electoral roll.”
The Election Commission has also claimed that after the 2002 amendment to the Citizenship Act, crores of illegal migrants have entered the country, and SIR is being conducted to identify them. However, it has not provided any study or evidence in court to support this claim, nor has it answered questions about how many such individuals have been identified in states where SIR has already been implemented.
Chronology: SIR–NPR–NRC
The argument that SIR is not merely an electoral roll revision but is functionally aligned with the NRC finds implicit support in signals from the Union government itself, including budgetary priorities. Historically, even Intensive Revision (IR), let alone Special Intensive Revision (SIR), has not been conducted by the Election Commission for a whole state let alone within such a compressed timeframe of three months. However, the current push is to complete SIR across all states by October 2026, indicating an unusual sense of urgency.
This timeline appears incongruous, particularly in states such as Karnataka, where the next Vidhan Sabha elections are scheduled for 2028. Despite this, SIR is being expedited for completion by October 2026. A key explanatory factor lies in the planned commencement of the national Census process around the same time. During the previous cycle, the Union government had prepared to conduct NPR alongside the 2020-21 Census, which was ultimately disrupted due to mass protests and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Union Budget for 2026–27, an allocation of Rs 6,000 crore has been made toward preparations for the Census and NPR. However, the official Census notification does not explicitly mention NPR, raising questions about the sequencing and intent behind these exercises. It is widely understood that NPR functions as a precursor to NRC. From this perspective, a sequential framework emerges: SIR first, followed by NPR, and subsequently NRC.
On the question of authority in determining citizenship
From a constitutional standpoint, the Election Commission of India does not possess the authority to determine citizenship. Under Article 324 of the Constitution, the ECI’s mandate is to ensure the conduct of elections and to enable eligible citizens—defined as individuals aged 18 and above—to exercise their voting rights.
In its submissions before the Supreme Court, the Election Commission has argued that verifying whether an individual is a citizen falls within its purview insofar as it relates to electoral eligibility. At the same time, it has maintained that it is “examining” rather than “determining” citizenship. This distinction, however, raises important conceptual and legal concerns. If, in the course of SIR, individuals are excluded from electoral rolls on the grounds of failing to establish citizenship, such exclusion effectively operates as a determination of citizenship status.
The Supreme Court, in the 1995 case of Lal Babu Hussein vs Electoral Registration Officer and Others, clarified that questions of citizenship constitute a quasi-judicial matter. As such, they require due process and cannot be arbitrarily decided by administrative authorities without adherence to judicial procedures. The Court further observed that prior inclusion in electoral rolls and participation in elections could serve as indicative evidence of citizenship.
Moreover, such verification processes are intended to be conducted by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) only under exceptional circumstances and in response to specific complaints within defined jurisdictions. In contrast, the current SIR exercise extends across the entire population, effectively treating all individuals as potentially non-citizens who must furnish documentary proof to establish their status.
Implications and concerns
The large scale exclusions in states where SIR has already been implemented, are nothing but disenfranchisement of the marginalised. Projections suggest that, if extended nationwide, such processes could impact more than 10-15 crores, ie, 15% of marginalised adults just because they lack access to documents demanded by the ECI.
The populations most vulnerable in this context include marginalized groups such as economically disadvantaged communities, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, migrant workers, women, transgender persons, nomadic groups, and others situated at the socio-economic margins. The concern is that documentation-based verification frameworks may disproportionately affect these groups due to structural inequalities in access to identity records.
Thus SIR is not a routine electoral revision process but a structural plan to disenfranchise the marginalised, especially Muslims.
The extent to which the collective understanding of these issues develops will likely shape the trajectory and intensity of resistance movements in the coming period.
The impossibility of democratizing SIR
Several civil society organizations have been making sustained and commendable efforts—both at the state level and before the Supreme Court—to constitutionally limit the ECI’s powers and to introduce procedural changes that could make SIR more accountable and “people-friendly.” Such interventions, especially those pursued through legal and institutional channels, remain important as forms of internal pressure, and it is necessary that sections of civil society and the legal community continue these efforts.
However, there is a critical concern that these initiatives should not foster the illusion that SIR can be fundamentally transformed into a genuinely people-oriented process without being withdrawn altogether. Nor should they divert the core direction of movements that demand the complete cancellation of SIR.
Developments following the implementation of SIR across various states reinforce this concern. The experiences of affected populations demonstrate that attempts to reform the process from within have not resolved its structural issues, but instead have led to growing disillusionment.
One frequently cited example concerns Aadhaar. The Aadhaar system was originally introduced under a Congress-led government, with the stated objective of streamlining identification. Critics, however, argued that its underlying function enabled increased surveillance by the state and market institutions over an individual’s movements and transactions, which led to significant opposition from sections of civil society at the time.
Despite these concerns, Aadhaar has since become a near-universal requirement for accessing government services, passports, and various forms of identification, resulting in its widespread adoption across the population. However, in 2016, the Modi government amended the clause to make Aadhaar serve only as proof of identity and not as proof of citizenship. Within the SIR framework, it has not been accepted as one of the 11 prescribed documents for establishing citizenship.
Although the Supreme Court has directed that Aadhaar may be considered as an additional (12th) document, no state government has accepted it as a standalone or sufficient proof of citizenship. Furthermore, the Election Commission has reiterated before the Supreme Court that Aadhaar cannot be treated as a sole proof of citizenship. Instructions issued by the Chief Electoral Officer in Karnataka are also perpetuating similar ambiguities by which the state government has exhibited tacit acceptance of this approach.
As a result, in states where SIR has been completed, large numbers of individuals—particularly from marginalized communities—have reportedly faced exclusion due to the inability to furnish the required documentation.
A second example is drawn from developments in West Bengal. Reports suggest that, even after individuals—particularly Muslims and Adivasis—successfully passed initial stages such as mapping, additional scrutiny has been introduced through criteria described as “logical discrepancies.” Under such criteria, individuals listed in the 2002 electoral rolls may be flagged as suspicious if they have more than six children or if the age difference between a mother and her children is less than 15 years.
In addition, there are claims that officials considered to be aligned with the central administration have been deployed from other states, such as Gujarat, to oversee verification processes at the local level. As a consequence of these combined measures, the number of individuals facing uncertainty regarding their citizenship status has reportedly increased significantly—from an initial exclusion of approximately 5.8 million during mapping to around 13 million at later stages.
Despite the incompleteness of the electoral rolls under these conditions, the Election Commission has proceeded with election announcements in West Bengal and the Supreme Court has not raised substantial objections to these developments.
Decentralization and participatory mechanisms: Limits and possibilities
In addition, there have been discussions among civil society groups about curtailing the the powers of the Election Commission through decentralization. However, Article 324 of the Constitution vests the authority to conduct parliamentary and state assembly elections, as well as the preparation of electoral rolls, with the central Election Commission. Within this framework, Chief Electoral Officers of the states function under the authority of the central Commission.
Only elections to local bodies fall within the jurisdiction of state-level electoral authorities. Any attempt to alter this institutional arrangement would require either a constitutional amendment or the enactment of new legislation by Parliament. Such changes, in turn, depend on the presence of sufficient political support within Parliament or the emergence of a large-scale mass movement capable of exerting sustained pressure—conditions that are currently not in place.
Therefore, while decentralization of the Election Commission’s functions may be articulated as a long-term democratic objective, it does not presently constitute a viable mechanism for halting the implementation of SIR.
Similarly, proposals to incorporate social audits and participation of Gram Sabhas (village assemblies) in the preparation of electoral rolls represent important normative aspirations. However, while the reading out of the draft list in the Gram Sabhas has been part of the 2023 manuals prepared to conduct SRs and IRs, such a provision is completely deleted in the SIR manuals prepared by the State CEOs, including Karnataka, following the directions of the central Election Commission. Furthermore, given that SIR is not categorized as a routine revision process, and considering the Supreme Court’s repeated emphasis that regulatory authority in such matters ultimately rests with the Election Commission, these proposals remain largely aspirational at present.
Importantly, neither Gram Sabha participation nor social audits can substitute for the documentary requirements mandated for citizenship verification. They do not provide alternatives for individuals unable to furnish the prescribed documents, nor do they prevent exclusion on that basis. In certain socio-political contexts, local institutional spaces themselves may reflect dominant ideological influences, raising further concerns about their capacity to function as neutral or protective mechanisms.
The “Congress Illusion”
Since the initiation of the SIR process, the Indian National Congress has not articulated a strong opposition to it, either at the national or state level. This position is often interpreted as a reflection of a broader political calculation. The concern that opposing SIR might lead to being perceived as aligned with minority interests, particularly Muslims, is a chronic illness of Congress—namely “soft Hindutva” politics. From this perspective, the issue is not one of insufficient awareness or lack of consultation, but rather a deliberate political stance.
In Karnataka, for instance, the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has publicly stated that the government would not politicize the issue of SIR, while Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has expressed full cooperation with its implementation.
At the same time, organizations associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are reported to be actively engaged at the grassroots level, including providing training to Booth Level Officers (BLOs). This contrast—between perceived institutional passivity and active grassroots mobilization—is already visible at the mapping stage of SIR implementation.
In this context, the assumption that the Congress can be persuaded through dialogue, consultation, or coordination to take a more oppositional stance is but a reflection of the limitations or illusions of weakened movements rather than a viable strategic approach.
SIR- BJPs electoral anxiety or onward march of Hindutva
The argument that the implementation of SIR is driven primarily by the electoral insecurity of the Bharatiya Janata Party is also an overstatement. Historically, the party’s trajectory suggests a more complex process of political consolidation.
In 1984, the BJP secured only two parliamentary seats and approximately 7% of the vote share. However, throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and the early decades of the 21st century, the BJP and affiliated organizations such as the RSS expanded their influence through sustained ideological mobilization, including strategies that contributed to social and political polarization. This expansion occurred even during periods when electoral systems relied on ballot papers rather than electronic voting machines, and when the Election Commission was led by assertive figures such as TN Seshan and JM Lyngdoh.
Over time, this process enabled the party to consolidate a significant and stable electoral base, translating into substantial political power regardless of fluctuations in electoral outcomes.
From this perspective, the continued growth of the BJP and its ideological network is attributed not only to its own strategies but also to the accommodative or “soft” ideological positions of opposition parties, combined with opportunistic political practices. These dynamics are seen as having weakened opposition forces structurally, thereby strengthening the ruling formation.
Even in contexts where an overwhelming parliamentary majority has not been achieved, the NDA government has been able to pursue policy initiatives comparable to those envisioned under stronger mandates. Within this broader trajectory, measures such as SIR, delimitation, and proposals for simultaneous elections are part of a longer-term structural agenda for realisation of Hindu Rashtra and a Hindutva Society.
Thus, interpreting SIR primarily as a response to electoral vulnerability risks mischaracterizing its underlying political and ideological context.
Defeating SIR-Defeating Indian fascism
Thus the SIR is nothing but a massive disenfranchisement pogram, a different kind of ethnic cleansing of economically and socially marginalized groups, including Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), masked as electoral list cleansing. It is a fascist design of a fascist government which can not be democratised. What ECI is doing is not just verification of citizenship, but determination and elimination of citizenship by compelling a fixed set of documentary requirements which millions will not be able to provide.
Regional variations further complicate the picture. For instance, in states like Kerala, historical and administrative factors may have enabled greater access to documentation. However, even in such contexts, instances of exclusion have been reported. In other states—both relatively developed and less developed—large numbers of individuals are similarly vulnerable to exclusion.
While those with adequate documentation may be able to secure their status within the SIR framework, this raises broader ethical, political questions about the fate of those who cannot. The issue extends beyond procedural or legal considerations to encompass questions of collective responsibility and social justice and egalitarian nationhood.
Since Germany failed to answer such questions during the inert War period, fascism prevailed. India is also on the same cross roads. Will India learn from history?
Thus the only way to stop this electoral genocide is to oppose SIR in toto. Hence the anti-SIR movement in Karnataka might as well:
Demand that the Congress Party take firm stand against SIR and declare it as a means of fascistic disenfranchisement and also educate its leaders and cadres to oppose SIR in the streets
Demand that the Congress government in Karnataka to approach the Supreme Court to stay the SIR in all other states where SIR is going to take place in the third phase and where elections are at least years away, till the SC pronounces its final verdict on the constitutionality of the SIR.
Both of these are possible only when the ocean of masses are on the streets against the SIR, creating such upsurge against the SIR instead of wasting time in finding non-existent escape routes.
Shivasundar is an activist and freelance journalist.
Views expressed are the author’s own.