The Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, probably expected that his August 18 press conference would settle the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” charge. He was wrong. This is a story that has refused to die, notwithstanding Trump’s tariffs, or even the tragic floods in parts of India.  

In fact, it should not die as it is, by a long measure, one of the most important stories that any self-respecting media organisation needs to investigate. For it is more than evident now that the state of our electoral rolls, as exposed by the SIR in Bihar and subsequent media exposes, raises many important questions about our electoral system and our democracy.  

So far, only one mainstream newspaper, The Indian Express, has put its heft behind investigating the many lacunae in the SIR process in Bihar. More granular details have emerged from the stories done by independent platforms and journalists. 

Here are links to several important investigations carried by independent platforms, with several of them collaborating and pooling their resources. 

Journalist Ajit Anjum has assiduously followed up on people declared as dead in the list of 65 lakh people who have been struck off the electoral rolls. So has Saurabh Shukla of The Red Mike. 

The women and men declared dead are very much alive, as you will see in these reports. The common thread that runs through them is that these are poor people who are not even aware that the one right they have, to vote, has been denied to them because some official has decided they are dead. 

Others who have pursued this story include independent news platforms like Reporters’ Collective.   

While Reporters’ Collective found that an incredible 80,000 voters had been clustered together at addresses where 20 or more of them were supposed to be living in just three constituencies that they investigated, the latest report in Newslaundry goes further to show that even in places where people live separately according to their caste or religion, over 100 voters belonging to different castes and religions are shown as living in the same house.

For readers who would have missed much of the action because of the neglect of this story by mainstream media, it is worth taking the time to read these detailed reports and watch the videos. They tell us not only about the way this particular exercise is being conducted in Bihar but the reality of India, where despite boasts of “digital India” and elimination of poverty, millions of poor people do not have the proof that is demanded of them to establish that they exist.  

Interestingly, the latest story in the series in The Indian Express on SIR in Bihar tells us that out of 36 assembly constituencies in three districts, in 25 of them, the number of voters whose names have been deleted exceeds the margin by which the candidate elected won. Of these 25 seats, the governing alliance of the BJP and JD(U) won 18 seats. The story also shows through its data that women have been particularly disadvantaged. 

These stories graphically illustrate a very real problem we are facing, one that cannot be obfuscated the way the CEC attempted to do in his press conference. And as I have argued earlier, it is a legitimate story that the media, in a democracy, must pursue. 

Another development that has drawn attention to the importance of independent media is the series of cases filed against three prominent independent journalists, Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire, Karan Thapar, whose weekly interview programme is widely watched, and Abhisar Sarma, a former mainstream TV anchor who now runs his own YouTube news channel. 

All three have had cases filed against them in Assam, a state governed by the BJP. And at least two of the people filing these cases are affiliated to the BJP or ABVP (read here).

This development tells us two things. One, that even if the government might dismiss these independent news platforms as being limited in their reach, it apparently is concerned about their reporting. Otherwise why bother to charge them. 

The second point this development illustrates is the strategy this government is following with impunity: label journalists who question as “anti-national”, or “urban Naxals” or “terrorists sympathiser” and then file cases against them, or even jail them as in Kashmir. 

Incidentally, Israel follows a part of the same strategy. It also labels Palestinian journalists as Hamas operatives. It’s another thing that it even proceeds to eliminate them in targeted attacks. Most recently, five Palestinian journalists were killed even as they were reporting. 

There will be long-term consequences for freedom of speech, and the media, in India if this strategy being used by the government is not challenged and checked. The most persuasive argument on this has been made by retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Madan Lokur in an op-ed in The Hindu.

Justice Lokur points out that this government has weaponised a provision in the law that was supposed to have replaced the previous colonial sedition law. He suggests that Section 152 in the BNS is nothing more than sedition in “sheep’s clothing”, and that while the earlier law had a chilling effect on freedom of speech, the new provision has a “freezing effect”. 

Going further, he spells out what the deliberate misuse of this provision means for the future of freedom of speech in India: 

“Try and imagine any journalist or anybody in a panel discussion on television or otherwise having the courage to be critical of anything to do with any policy of the Government of India. Somebody can misinterpret it and bring national security into play, and the police can take cognisance and summon the alleged offender. Freedom of speech can be bulldozed or demolished because one individual out of a billion anywhere in the country believes (without evidence) that national security is in danger or that the armed forces are demoralised or that dissent is ‘strategic subversion’ undermining the sovereignty and the integrity of India.” (Emphasis added)

This then is the future we are looking at in India as far as freedom of the press is concerned. 

 Complaining about the media is easy. Why not do something to make it better? Support independent media and subscribe to Newslaundry today.