On the day when voting for the state assembly of West Bengal commenced, with names of slightly more than two and half million people deleted from the voter list due to Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by Election Commission of India, under the close supervision of Supreme Court, The Guardian published an article, titled “Millions in India stripped of vote before critical state election, as government seeks to ‘purify’ electoral roll”. Authored by Hannah Ellis Petersen and Akash Hassan, it referred, among other things, to the assessment of experts, saying names of Muslims and other minorities have been disproportionately deleted from the electoral roll. The article quoted Indian economist Parakala Prabhakar, who described the SIR as a process “… about killing the citizenship of minorities. It is a bloodless political genocide.”Such adverse comments about the Election Commission of India, and electoral conduct in 2026, under Modi regime, stand in sharp contrast to the highly admirable observations in international media, 74 years ago, when the first general elections were successfully conducted across India. At that time, India’s prime minister was Jawaharlal Nehru and rest of the world was sceptical of our country’s ability to conduct elections by employing the universal adult franchise in face of massive illiteracy rate prevailing then and people were riddled with poverty and backwardness owing to centuries of colonial rule. And yet the impossible task of conducting elections based on adult franchise was made possible, and rest of the world marvelled at India for living up to its tryst with democracy.Also read: The Institutional Collapse of Indian DemocracyWhile in 2026, the aforementioned article expressed deep anguish as millions in India stripped of their right to vote, American media personality Selig S. Harrison wrote on January 6, 1952, in The Washington Post that “harried officials trying to put 170 million ‘first voters’ through the pages of democracy finds that self-government takes a lot of teaching in this land of high illiteracy and low diet”. After a month, another article, titled “India’s Act of Faith”, in the same newspaper remarked, “the outer world will look at the results of India’s general election with a mixture of wonder and concern. The wonder will come from the fact that such an election could have been held at all.”Issue of women votersWhile the massive magnitude preparing an electoral roll containing crores of Indian voters before the commencement of India’s first general elections was hugely extolled in global media, the women getting covered within the scope of adult suffrage fascinated rest of the world beyond measure. It was so because never before in the history of humanity had any country granted voting rights to all men and women at the very beginning of independence. Even the developed countries of Europe accorded voting rights to women in the mid 1970s. So women of India getting the right to vote caught the global attention and The Irish Times published an article, titled “Indian elections could be ‘housewives’ choice”, on December 3, 1951, and observed that 8.5 crore were women in the voters’ list of 17.5 crore would pave the way for women to constitute a formidable source of electorate for political parties.“Political parties with a big stake in the forthcoming elections are going all out to please them, both in their election manifestos and in their choice of candidates and slogans,” the article noted.According to data released by the Kolkata-based non-profit Sabar Institute, which works on public-interest data analysis, 61.8% of voters who were removed from the West Bengal electoral list (or were under adjudication) after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) are women. In terms of absolute numbers, approximately a total of 61,93,386 eligible women voters are to be deprived of the opportunities to cast the votes in the two-phase state assembly elections on April 23 and 29.Also read: Special Integrated Removal: Data Shows Large-Scale Deletion of Women and Minorities in West Bengal SIRIt was also observed in the same report that women constitute more than half of the deleted voters in over 88% (219 of the 294) constituencies. “The deletions, the data show, are heavily concentrated among women in constituencies with large populations of marginalised communities, including Muslims, Scheduled Tribes, and Matuas,” it observed.SIR violates the meaning of SwarajThe entire SIR process of preparing electoral rolls based on documents and legacy linkage, led to deletion of women in an overwhelming manner just as it happened in Bihar.Such deletions of millions of voters in Bengal constitute an extremely detrimental reflection on Indian democracy, which has been described by Rahul Gandhi as a public good for the entire world. The deletions because of the SIR imposed by the Chief Election Commissioner is a serious indictment on the idea of Swaraj explained by Mahatma Gandhi. On June 18, 1931, he wrote in Young India that among the manifold aspects of Swaraj, adult suffrage constituted a key aspect which he interpreted as a form of direct action of people against powers that be. The SIR leading to deletion of voters and theft of vote fatally impairs people’ ability to directly act against those wielding power.Prime Minister Modi justified SIR on the ground saying it would enable the country to detect infiltrators and delete them from electoral rolls. He used ‘infiltrators” as a dog whistle to target Muslims. So, large scale of deletion of people professing Islamic faith from the voter list indicate a devious vision to disenfranchise millions of people.Nehru’s resolution on electoral rollSIR puts the burden of proof on the voters to prove their status as citizens in violation of the law and the constitution. On January 8, 1949, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru moved a resolution in the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) for issuing instructions to the concerned authorities for preparation of electoral rolls so that all eligible citizens would be enrolled as voters and elections conducted under the new constitution.It is instructive to note that on the issue of citizenship status for refugees, he remarked “…we accept as citizen anybody who calls himself a citizen of India.” That broad, liberal and inclusive approach of Nehru was reflected in the preparation of electoral roll for the independent India.Abandonment of that approach by Election Commission of India led by Gyanesh Kumar, during the tenure of Modi, has diminished the stature of India at the global level. The international opprobrium for our country as represented by the above mentioned article of The Guardian speaks volumes for the slide of Indian democracy and all those leaders and institutions which severely damaged the cause of Indian democracy.S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.