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The Special Intensive Revision of India’s voter rolls is roiling the country’s politics. Last week, Delhi saw waves of street protests against the exercise even as the Modi government pulled out all the stops to try and stop them. Thousands of protesters were detained, along with dozens of journalists. The police and paramilitary troops all but locked down large parts of the capital.
This ferment is not surprising. The SIR has, till now, deleted an incredible 13 crore voters from the draft list. Critics allege that the exercise has targeted India’s Muslims, who as it so happens, rarely vote for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In West Bengal, the SIR is seen as having helped the Hindutva party win the state for the first time.
Why was such a chaotic, destructive exercise carried out in the first place? The reason, if we believe the BJP, is that millions of undocumented migrants from Bangladesh had settled in India. As...