The Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar is becoming a travesty. It is hard to disagree with the formal objective of the exercise: No eligible voter should be excluded, and no ineligible person should be included. But this reasonable aim is being transformed into a bureaucratic dystopia that threatens the rights of ordinary voters.The last intensive revision of electoral rolls was carried out in 2003. Now, the Commission announces a special revision just weeks before an election — on the heels of a special summary revision that involved extensive surveys barely six months ago, with an updated list published as recently as January. Yet voters are now required to furnish documentary proof of citizenship from a list of 11 prescribed documents — most of which they are unlikely to possess. This demand is unprecedented in the history of electoral roll creation.AdvertisementThe new documentation requirements are not just onerous, they are bewilderingly complex. Those whose names appeared in the 2003 rolls may furnish an extract as proof. But others face steeper hurdles. Those born before 1987 must provide a document with place and date of birth. Those born between 1987 and 2004 must produce a document with their parents’ date of birth and one of 11 documents proving their own place and date of birth. Those born after 2004 must go further, furnishing proof of both parents’ date and place of birth in addition to their own. This process places an extraordinary burden on the citizen and risks mass disenfranchisement.The logic of the order is perverse: Every principle turns into its opposite. The Commission boasts of giving voters a choice among 11 documents — what liberty! But this liberty is hollow. The Commission refuses to recognise the documents most citizens actually have — like Aadhaar or MGNREGA cards — while demanding documents that are beyond the reach of most. Even conservative estimates suggest that lakhs of voters could be excluded. Almost all the petitions against the order provide data on the minuscule number of citizens who possess all the relevant documents. And the arbitrariness is striking: Why should a family register carry more weight as proof of citizenship than, say, other excluded cards?Dissect the list of the 11 acceptable documents, and its social bias becomes evident. Most relate to education, government employment, or property rights — echoes of an era when suffrage was tied to privilege. This is not a direct return to educational or property-based qualifications, but the privileges conferred on the educated and propertied are stark. It is almost a throwback to the 19th century, when the privileges of the educated and propertied were taken for granted.AdvertisementIn principle, the Election Commission allows for safeguards: Electoral registration officers (EROs) must conduct inquiries and provide a fair hearing before deletion. But these procedural protections, in context, can invert their meaning. They expose vulnerable citizens to local officials’ discretion, particularly in a state like Bihar where administrative capacity is uneven. The time frame is implausibly short, and it is unrealistic to expect lakhs of inquiries to be conducted fairly and consistently. Even worse is the looming threat that the citizens flagged in this process could be referred to a Foreigners Tribunal. Is the appeals process a remedy — or merely another way to ensnare citizens in an opaque and hostile system?We need not speculate about the Commission’s motives; they may well be honourable. Nor do we need to predict the political fallout of this move — it is often unpredictable. What matters is the potential effect: This exercise reveals the state’s presumptuous character. It burdens citizens with the constant demand to prove their identity, as if they are forever on probation. The KYC (know your customer) mania has extended to voting: Proof must be furnished again and again, often under arbitrary or shifting standards.This formalism — articulating reasonable objectives while ignoring practical realities — inflicts real harm. It ignores the ground realities of documentation in India, particularly in poorer states. It overlooks how documentation requirements impose disproportionate burdens on the marginalised.The order also disrupts lives with its unreasonable timelines. On various estimates, about a tenth of the population of Bihar migrates out for work; floods severely affect families during this time of year. Even in the best of times, the state does not have the capacity to conduct these kinds of exercises in short order. This order replicates the disruptive logic of demonetisation, where the state asserts its power by inducing mass anxiety. Even if one accepts that an intensive revision is necessary, it cannot inspire public trust if announced suddenly, weeks before an election. If the Commission truly believes these exercises are essential, it should have evolved consistent and reasonable norms regarding format, documentation, and timing in consultation with political parties.most readOur bureaucracy has long had a penchant for placing citizens at the mercy of petty officials. It remains deaf to the claims raised by social movements around enfranchisement. To put it bluntly, this exercise appears to be a pilot for a backdoor NRC, introducing new and discriminatory documentation standards. This is not just about Bihar. Even if one believes an NRC is necessary, it must be carried out fairly, without fear, and only when the state has built the infrastructure and political conditions to support it. This has not happened. Instead, the burden of state failure is being shifted onto citizens. The state demands documentation it neither trusts nor has enabled people to obtain.We should be cautious in impugning constitutional authorities — their credibility is a precious resource. The courts also should not tread on other constitutional authorities lightly. But voting is so fundamental to our identity as citizens, and so constitutive of the republic, that the courts need to do the minimum necessary to ensure that such exercises are not just formally fair, but also fair in substance. But this initiative by the EC is ill-judged and ill-timed. It should be deferred until it can be executed credibly, with transparency, and without placing an undue burden on genuine citizens.The EC’s order is, at the very least, an exercise in bureaucratic insensitivity and state overreach, and will erode trust in institutions. The task of the state is not to manufacture new sources of fear — it is to relieve citizens of their anxieties.The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express