Another round of protests erupted across India over October 2–6, calling for the resignation of "Vote Chor" ("Vote Thief") Gyanesh Kumar, the chief election commissioner, following the removal of 130 million people from the electoral roll.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government claims the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is simply revising and updating voter tolls to make them more accurate, the tightened requirements for identity documents have stripped voting rights and are an attempt to ensure the BJP’s hold on power.
Manish Kumar, Uttar Pradesh State Secretary of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), told Green Left that the changes sought to remove voters who would not vote for the BJP.
“They are demanding documents not only of the individual, but also of their parents and their grandparents — if they cannot provide them, they are removed from the voter list.”
The protests follow the historic "cockroach" upsurge over May to July in which millions of mostly Gen Z Indians took to the streets to demand that education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign, following a series of high-level exam leaks and corruption in the education system.
That movement led to Pradhan's resignation and was seen as a powerful rejection of Modi and his vision for India based in Hindu-supremacist ideology and repression of dissent.
Protests met with violence
Many powerful videos and images of protests have been shared across social media sites. AISA president Neha Bora, who alongside Manish and other students participated in the hunger strike in Delhi as part of the first round of the Cockroach movement, has become a symbol and leader of the youth movement.
Videos of Neha’s arrest on October 2 went viral, as did her subsequent escape, as protesters surrounded a police bus and released those detained.
Neha is one of hundreds arrested at protests against the vote steal, which have been targeted by heavy police repression. Among the arrestees include Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi; Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation leader Dipankar Bhattacharya; former AISA president N Sai Balaji; Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke; Student Federation of India national joint secretary Aishe Ghosh; the entire national leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions; and other leaders of the Congress Party and the INDIA opposition bloc.
Many other protesters were injured, brutalised, targeted with lathi [batons] and hit with pepper spray. Women protesters have detailed their experiences of being harassed and assaulted by male police officers.
Huge metal barriers were put in place to block entrance to Jantar Mantar, the traditional protest site in Delhi. Videos show activists working together to climb and remove the metal barriers, while being targeted by police.
Protests continued each day and reignited on October 10 with mass arrests in Delhi.
“From buses, trains, streets and houses, the Delhi Police is detaining citizens without any grounds,” Neha posted on social media.
Neha said the police violence would not stop the protest movement. “We will continue to assert our rights! This fight is not over despite all your kidnappings, detentions and violence!”
Disadvantaged, minorities disenfranchised
“India is a vast nation with a vast population, and a big chunk of this population live under the poverty line,” Manish said. “Many have lost their homes and are living in the streets, living in slums, many have had their homes bulldozed by the government. When they lose their homes, they lose their documents.
“Others have lost their documents in floods and other natural disasters. This is why so many people cannot provide the documents required by the SIR, and lose their right to vote.”
The SIR roll-out began last year in Bihar state, and has since expanded across most states and territories. About 9 million voters were removed from the electoral roll in West Bengal before its recent state election, in which Modi’s BJP took power for the first time.
“They are tearing up our democracy, bulldozing the democratic set-up. Gyanesh Kumar has ignored the concerns of the common people,” Manish told GL.
“They don’t want the common people to have the right to vote and the power to change the government.
“They are destroying our education system, they are not providing employment, women are being assaulted … They are trying to manipulate the elections to hold onto power.”
[Protests are ongoing at the time of writing.]