'You Are Killing Lakhs And Lakhs Of Citizenships'

'98 lakhs in Bengal, 97 lakhs in Tamil Nadu, 2.83 crores in Uttar Pradesh.'

Political commentator Parakala Prabhakar is a vocal critic of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) undertaken by the Election Commission of India.

"SIR is nothing but bringing the NRC-CAA through backdoor," Mr Prabhakar tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier in the concluding segment of a must read interview.

• Part I: 'Every Political Party Will Be BJP-ised'

The criticism against the Left in Kerala is that it is turning Right by taking a soft Hindutva stand....

I will tell you a much more powerful analogy.

Israel is a Jewish State, and all the political parties there address their political concerns and manifestoes only to the Jewish people.

They don't talk about the Palestinians, they don't talk about the Arabs or anybody else.

What is the difference between one party and the other in Israel? Everybody is a Jewish State party.

Actually, SIR is a process which is BJP-ising all political parties, and eventually Israel-ising India. That is the implication.

Elections will come and go. Now the BJP might have an advantage. But tomorrow, every political party will trim their manifestos, programmes for those people who are still with a franchise.

Some say that any party that supports the minorities will face the wrath of the Hindus. It will also consolidate Hindu votes against a party which supports the minorities.
Do you think that is what is happening against the Congress now?

Yes, of course. When the public discourse or the political discourse increasingly comes down to we versus them, and us versus they, what is the subscript?

The subscript is this -- that this country belongs to only some people.

The Others are Others. If they want to live here, they can live but they are not going to be participants in the political society. That is what we are going to see slowly and slowly.

The point is, these things are done in the guise of cleaning up.

When the CAA-NRC was brought in, there was a huge backlash in the country because it very clearly spelt out as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Register of Citizens.

Both had the C word in it. But SIR has no C word in it.

So they marketed it in such a way that SIR is only cleaning up of the voters list. By cleaning up the voters list, they said we are removing only the dead people, we are removing only people who have shifted, we are removing only foreigners, we are removing only absent people.

But SIR is nothing but bringing the NRC-CAA through backdoor.

The SIR's Constitutional validity is contested and challenged in the Supreme Court of India, but the contest and challenge is still pending with the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court of India has not decided on the Constitutional validity of SIR. Pending that, how can you go ahead with SIR?

How could you do it in 10 states and 3 Union Territories by now?

Now, you have already started with the rest of the country.

Justice is delayed because the Supreme Court has not taken a decision. And justice is delayed to such an extent that when it comes to deciding, the whole issue becomes irrelevant.

Because, after the entire country undergoes SIR, and elections are held under SIR, how is what the Supreme Court says relevant?

You delay justice so much that when is this time to deliver, it becomes irrelevant. Then, whether you say yes or no becomes irrelevant.

That is how this attempted complete transformation of the Indian political society is happening.

It is nothing short of rewriting the 1950 Constitution. The 1950 Constitution says as far as elections are concerned, it is universal adult franchise.

Now, you take out 93 lakh people, I'm sure there might be a couple of lakhs dead people, I can understand that. But, how can you delete somebody who is alive, who has voted in 2024, who has every paper that you are asking for?

Without even deletion, without even pronouncing them as ineligible, how can you prevent them from voting?

You feel the BJP is destroying institutions?

How can you do such a big exercise in a few months' time? When you say intensive, how can you do it in such a short time?

The other thing is there is a huge lie which the Election Commission has been spreading, that this is not new, and they had done it in 2002.

I want to challenge this. I was a voter in 2002. Many people in this country are still alive who voted in 2002.

I am throwing a challenge. Is there anybody in the country today who would say that in 2002 or 2003, he or she had carried a bag full of documents and went to a government office or an Election Commission office to prove that they were eligible for voting?

Has it happened ever?

It has never happened.

So how can you say it has already happened in 2002?

What will be remembered about this 2026 five state elections? The BJP getting foothold in Bengal, or Vijay making a grand entry in Tamil Nadu, or the UDF crossing the magic figure of 100 in Kerala, or SIR?

Number one. The 2026 five-state elections will be remembered for the large-scale disenfranchisement of people especially in Bengal where 28 lakh people without being pronounced as ineligible, denied voting rights.

Number two. It is going to be remembered for the targeted deletion of people in constituencies to see that adversaries of the BJP-NDA are defeated.

Wherever it is possible to bring the BJP- NDA into power, yes.

Where it is not possible, where it might look not really credible, then put somebody up so that your first target of taking your strongest opponent is fulfilled.

Third, it will also be remembered as an exercise to selectively delete voters, and manipulate the election process so that with just about 4% difference makes 100 seats difference.

What worries you the most about the 2026 elections?

Number one. The most worrisome thing is that public opinion, people's minds, people's will is totally irrelevant to the outcome of an election.

Then why have this farce of conducting an election at all? Because it is anyway not reflecting the people's mandate.

Number two. Some people say that the DMK and Stalin had anti-incumbency, Mamata Banerjee had anti-incumbency. That was why they lost.

Why is it that this anti-incumbency works only in the non-BJP states?

Does it mean that there is no anti-incumbency in Gujarat, no anti-incumbency in Uttar Pradesh, no anti-incumbency in Assam? Are they all paragons of virtue?

It only tells you that how hollow and farcical our electoral integrity has become.

Our electoral integrity has been completely compromised where there is absolutely no connection between the will of the people and the outcome of the election.

Number three. It is a successful implementation of SIR in such a way that it is a bloodless political genocide.

Number four. So far we have understood democracy as voters deciding on who should be in the government. With this election, it is amply demonstrated that it is those who are sitting in the government decide who should be the voter.

So, instead of the voter deciding the government, the government decides who should be the voter.

Earlier, it happened in Rwanda, it happened in Nazi Germany, it happened in America, it happened in Hungary, it happened in many countries. But those people, those others were either pushed out of the country's borders or they were killed.

Here in India, you can neither push them out nor can you kill.

When you cannot kill a citizen, what do you do?

You kill the citizenship. If you deny somebody the franchise, it amounts to killing the citizenship which means that it is a bloodless political genocide.

You are killing lakhs and lakhs of citizenships. 98 lakhs in Bengal, 97 lakhs in Tamil Nadu, 2.83 crores in Uttar Pradesh.

Because there are elections in Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, we are talking about the deletions. We are not talking about the other states.

In Bihar also, during the election campaign, we talked about the 63 lakh deletions.

After the elections are over, is anybody today talking about those 63 lakh people who were denied franchise?

Will anybody talk about Tamil Nadu where 97 lakh people were deleted?

Will anybody talk about Pondicherry where about 10% or 12% people were deleted.

Should we not think of a movement, an all India association of all these people who are deleted? I think people should come out to the streets and talk about them.

People should continuously talk about those who are deleted. You should not stop, like you stopped talking about the Bihar deletions.

You should talk about these elections in terms of a bloodless political genocide.

You should talk about killing citizenship.

You should talk about SIR as nothing but a backdoor entry of the NRC-CAA.

You should talk about the BJP-ising of every political party.

You should talk about the Israel-ising of India.

These are the takeaways from these elections.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
Photographs curated by Anant Salvi/Rediff