By
Col (Dr.) Ashwani Kumar, MiD, VSM (Retd).@Ashk Machhanvi.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is, in principle, a welcome and necessary exercise. An electoral roll must be accurate, transparent and free from ineligible names. No democracy can afford to compromise the integrity of its voter's list.

But a question is increasingly being raised by veterans, retired government servants and ordinary citizens facing the process on the ground. Has the system been designed merely to identify the ineligible, or has it inadvertently made the genuine citizen prove that he belongs to his own country? This is not a question against SIR. It is a question about its implementation, its Standard Operating Procedures, and the manner in which these are being applied at the ground level.

When Serving the Nation Becomes a Disadvantage.

As a young Army officer, I had the opportunity to be associated with election duties in Sri Lanka. Later, in 1996, I assisted the civil administration in Jammu & Kashmir in the conduct of elections under extremely challenging circumstances.

Those experiences taught me something fundamental about elections, are the voter is not merely a name on a piece of paper. Behind every name is a citizen, a family, a history and, sometimes, a lifetime of service to the nation.

Thousands of soldiers, officers, diplomats and government servants spend their working lives away from their permanent homes. Soldiers may be posted in remote operational areas, on borders, in counter-insurgency environments or outside the country. Diplomats may spend years abroad. Senior civil servants may be transferred repeatedly across the country. Their names, addresses and voting circumstances may therefore not always correspond neatly with an old electoral roll. But should that absence from a particular electoral roll automatically become a reason for suspicion? A soldier who was guarding the nation's borders when an electoral revision was being carried out may today be asked to establish why his name was not present in an old list.
The irony is difficult to ignore. The man who spent his youth defending the identity of the nation is now required to prove his own identity to the system.

The Soldier Should Not Have to Prove What the State Already Knows.

This is perhaps the most important principle that SIR authorities need to consider. A serving or retired soldier is not an ordinary undocumented individual whose identity is unknown to the State. The government has records of his recruitment, service, postings, promotions, retirement, pension and other official details. In many cases, the State knows far more about the soldier than the soldier could ever be expected to document himself. Therefore, a soldier should not be made to repeatedly prove his identity to the State. The system should be designed to recognise, verify and protect him. If a genuine veteran faces a documentary difficulty, the first question should not be:
“Why can't you prove yourself?”
It should be:-
“What official record can we use to establish your identity?”

That is the difference between a citizen-centric administration and a purely procedural administration.
The same principle should apply to diplomats and government servants who spent years outside their home constituencies on official duty.

The Ground Reality Needs Examination.

Reports from different places suggest that many veterans and senior citizens are facing difficulties during the verification process. The most disturbing part is not necessarily the requirement of verification. Verification is legitimate. The concern is whether citizens are being clearly told what documents are acceptable, why a particular document has been rejected, and what alternative route is available to them.

There are reports of documents being submitted and rejected without adequate explanation. In some places, verification arrangements appear poorly organised, resulting in confusion and long queues. Senior citizens and veterans, who may have spent decades moving from one posting to another, can find the process particularly difficult.

If the objective is to establish the truth, the administration should facilitate the discovery of truth—not create procedural obstacles that make genuine citizens feel as though they are on trial.

The Uncomfortable Question: Who Gets Into the List?.

There is another aspect that deserves serious public discussion. If a veteran, retired diplomat or government servant is struggling to establish his electoral identity, how do names of persons with doubtful eligibility find their way into electoral rolls in the first place? And if local political workers or intermediaries have historically played a role in helping people get their names enrolled, then the system must ask an obvious question?

Why is the genuine citizen being asked to prove himself more rigorously than the person who was helped into the electoral roll by political influence? This is not an allegation against every politician or political worker. Many perform valuable public service. But wherever allegations of questionable enrolment exist, they must be investigated objectively.

The principle must be the same for everyone.

A soldier cannot be treated as doubtful merely because he was away serving India, while a politically connected person is presumed genuine merely because his name has somehow appeared on a list.

Can an Old Electoral Roll Be the Final Test?

This issue becomes particularly important for those who were serving outside their home districts or outside India during earlier electoral revisions. Consider an officer serving abroad on diplomatic assignment. Consider a soldier posted in a remote operational area. Consider a government servant transferred repeatedly from one state to another. Their absence from an electoral roll at a particular point in time can have perfectly legitimate explanations.

Therefore, an old electoral roll should be evidence not necessarily an infallible certificate of citizenship. The administration has access to multiple records. Government service records, military records, passports, official postings, pension records and other authenticated documents can provide powerful evidence of identity and citizenship. The system should use the full range of legitimate evidence available to it.

SIR Must Correct the Roll, Not Punish the Voter.

There is nothing wrong with removing a deceased person, a duplicate entry or an ineligible voter. Indeed, such cleansing strengthens democracy. But there is a fundamental difference between removing an ineligible name and excluding a genuine citizen because he could not satisfy an unnecessarily rigid documentary requirement.

The first protects democracy.

The second can weaken public faith in it.

The real success of SIR should therefore not be measured by the number of names deleted. It should be measured by the accuracy of the final electoral roll.
An electoral roll containing millions of names may look impressive, but its real credibility lies in answering three simple questions:

Are the genuine citizens included?
Are the ineligible excluded? And has every citizen received a fair opportunity to establish his or her eligibility?

Special Responsibility Towards Veterans

There should perhaps be a special facilitation mechanism for veterans, serving personnel, senior citizens, diplomats and government employees who spent substantial periods away from their home constituencies on official duty. Their records are often available with the government itself. Why should a retired soldier have to run from office to office carrying papers when the State has records of his recruitment, service, postings, pension and retirement? Why should a retired ambassador have to explain that he was abroad because the Republic of India sent him there?
Why should a former government servant have to prove that his absence from an old electoral roll was because he was serving the country elsewhere? The State should be capable of connecting its own records.

A soldier who spent his youth serving the nation should receive assistance, not suspicion; facilitation, not humiliation; and recognition, not another bureaucratic battle.

I Have Seen Elections From Both Sides.

Having once participated in election-related duties as a young Army officer in Sri Lanka and later assisted the civil administration during the difficult elections in Jammu & Kashmir in 1996, I have seen the importance of an electoral process from close quarters. Elections are not merely an administrative exercise. They are the mechanism through which the citizen exercises sovereignty.
That is why the integrity of the electoral roll matters so deeply.
But integrity must work both ways.

It must prevent an ineligible person from acquiring a vote, while simultaneously ensuring that a genuine citizen does not lose his vote merely because the bureaucracy cannot connect the records already available with the government.

A Soldier's Question to the System.

I ask this question not as a politician, but as a soldier and citizen. How can a man who spent the best years of his life serving the Republic be made to feel that he must prove that he belongs to the Republic?

And if the system can identify and facilitate the enrolment of voters through local political networks, why should a veteran who has served the nation have to struggle to establish his place in the electoral roll?

These questions deserve answers not confrontation.

SIR must certainly continue if it is necessary to protect the sanctity of India's electoral process. But the process must be fair, humane, transparent and intelligent.

A soldier should not have to fight another battle after retirement—this time against paperwork, bureaucracy and an inflexible SOP to prove that he is a citizen. The State should take care of the soldier not make the soldier prove himself to the State. Let SIR Not Become Another Exercise Where the Genuine Pay the Price

There is also a larger apprehension. SIR should not meet the fate of an exercise where, in the pursuit of identifying the wrongdoers, the genuine citizens end up bearing the cost.

The lesson is simple: while removing ineligible names, the system must ensure that no genuine voter—especially a veteran or senior citizen—is inadvertently left out.

The success of SIR should be measured not by how many names are deleted, but by how accurately the genuine electoral roll is preserved.

The Real Test of SIR.

SIR is an opportunity to strengthen India's electoral democracy.

Let it not become a contest between the citizen and the bureaucracy.

Let it instead become a system in which the government uses its own records intelligently, officials are accountable, citizens are properly guided, and genuine voters are protected.

A soldier should not have to fight another battle to prove his identity.
He has already proved his commitment to the nation through his service.

Now it is the system's turn to prove that it can recognise and protect the citizens who served it.

The ultimate test of SIR is not how many names are struck off. It is whether every genuine citizen who deserves to vote is allowed to remain on the roll with dignity.

Disclaimer: This article reflects the author’s personal views and experiences and is intended solely to encourage informed public discussion. It does not represent the views of any government, organisation, or the Armed Forces.