Mainstream WeeklyThe issue of Special Intensive Review (SIR) of the electoral rolls, imposed by the Election Commission (EC) on the people of India, beginning with Bihar, started in June last year, just few months before the state Assembly elections were scheduled and eventually held.
The EC, led by a very questionable CEC Gyanesh Kumar set about disenfranchising crores of voters in Bihar, mostly from the marginalised sections and minorities, who are easily identifiable as Opposition voters in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) perception, indicating a definite pro-ruling party agenda of the EC, to aid the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to romp home to power, which it did as any preceptive analyst could foresee.
Independent investigating journalist Ajit Anjum went round Bihar to show how this SIR exercise was such a sham, more so because of barely a month offered to the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to delete or add to the voters’ list in his booth those who voted in the Lok Sabha elections held less than a year back. The EC turned a deaf year to the entreaties of the Opposition parties and political activists.
Then they approached the Supreme Court against this SIR. The bench refused to stay this perverse exercise which, after the success of BJP in Bihar has been extended to the remaining Opposition states along with a few BJP ruled states just to pretend its objectivity. The bench comprising present Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymala Bagchi, while trying to allay the fears expressed by the petitioners seeking a stay on this exercise at least to give enough time to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the SIR, asked the petitioners to show one individual whose name was wrongfully deleted by this SIR. Social and political activist Yogendra Yadav personally appeared before the bench along with a couple of women In the next hearing, to show the bench how the SIR was being steamrolled to disenfranchise the marginalised sections. The bench commended his erudition and expression but provided no relief, all the time claiming that the bench will intervene if need be. That need the bench has not yet felt, while more and more voters are being deleted on the specious plea of the EC that it is empowered to do so. The EC is not deterred in its drive while the bench is still hearing the pleas.
The moot point is that the apex court does not consider the act of the Election Commission so grave as to stay the SIR at least till the matter is resolved through a judgement of the apex court.
On the other hand, the same bench showed unusual alacrity on June 29 in staying the University Grants Commission (UGC) new rules of January 13 to prevent discrimination of almost all manners of discrimination prevalent in university and colleges campuses, responding to the violent agitations by the upper caste students and others, mostly BJP vote bank, but who were so annoyed with these new UGC rules against discrimination in the campuses, that they raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi pejoratively mentioning his birth in the backward caste. Ironically the same section had raised Modi on the pedestal as Hindu Hriday Samrat.
This bench characterised the UGC rules as promoting divisive feeling among the students and in general the society, whereas as analysts point out these rules have been framed on an earlier direction of the same court which took cognizance of repeated discrimination in campuses of even premier institutes like the IITs, IIMs and central universities. These rules were first framed by the UGC under its then chairman Sukhadeo Thorat during the UPA regime in 2012 following repeated complaints of discrimination on campuses, mainly targeting the scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and OBCs students or even teachers, some of whom could make it to the premier institutions through reservation. Of course, Rohit Vemula, a PhD scholar at Hyderabad University, traumatised by such discrimination committed suicide in January 2016 with Smriti Irani shepherding the Education Ministry, and so did Dr Payal Salim Tadvi, a House Surgeon at Nair Hospital in Mumbai who was a Muslim from the Bhil community. And this again was in Modi era in 2019. Many more cases of similar nature have come to light since. Muslims are being pushed out of Uttarakhand under the stewardship of Modi’s chosen chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. Every time some terrorist action takes place poor Kashmiri Muslim students are targeted all over mainland university campuses.
But, as Prof. Apoorvanand pointed out in The Wire televised discussion with Sidhartha Vardarajan, the BJP is faced with a dilemma. On the one hand its ideological moorings are with the Savarna lot and thus its brain is Brahmanical, but the election compulsions demand that it has to keep up a pretence of being a saviour of OBCs and Dalits as well (of course against Muslims and Christians "out to convert them"). That is a perpetual dilemma the BJP faces, specially now that it is attempting to conquer the southern states of Kerala and Tamilnadu too.
That’s where this judgement comes in handy to stay the UGC rules for the time being, at least. But that apart, the same day the CJI also made a very significant statement about the trade unions stalling industrial progress in India, simply exposing his personal mindset. What then should we expect now.