SIR puts West Bengal’s Dalits on the edge

Election commission's voter roll purge in West Bengal sparks renewed fears of disenfranchisement among Dalit refugees

The political and social clamour in West Bengal is once again rising as the Assembly polls approach. The demand for legal and equal democratic participation is growing, fuelled by the constant political rhetoric over the status of one’s citizenship. This has heightened anxiety among Bengal’s historically marginalised Scheduled Castes. In the latest voter list revision, the Election Commission of India (ECI) deleted over 5.8 million names. The second stage of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has entered its most crucial phase — verifying and contesting these deletions. This has reignited debates over citizenship fears and mass disenfranchisement.

A petition challenging the constitutionality of SIR and de facto determining the citizenship is pending in the Supreme Court of India. The ECI has argued that it is empowered to carry out the SIR under Article 326 of the Constitution and Section 16, 21(3), 23 of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA)1950. Interestingly, Article 326 states, ‘Adult suffrage is a constitutional right in electing the state legislature and the house of the people, the disqualification of anyone from adult suffrage lies in appropriate legislature’. But the ECI, in deleting names through a filled-out form, acts as a conclusive body for one’s suffrage. It conflicts and encroaches on the powers invested in Parliament and state legislatures.

The voter deletions have left Bengal’s Dalits in a quandary. The districts of North 24 Parganas, Nadia, South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduar — sharing critical borders with Bangladesh — are tense over names struck from the draft voter list. These border districts, with their Dalit and minority populations, have been victims of Partition and the subsequent secession of East Pakistan from West Pakistan, which culminated in the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

The separation was marked by a bloodied history of cross-border migrations driven by fear of religious persecution. A massive influx of Dalit refugees from East Pakistan began immediately after Partition and has continued unabated. Most fled communal witch-hunts as Pakistan quickly reorganised itself into an Islamic republic. The Dalits found themselves trapped between Islamic Pakistan and the wrath of caste Hindus in India.

Following the 1950 communal violence in East Pakistan, Dalit exodus intensified from areas such as Khulna, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, and Dhaka, with many settling in West Bengal’s border districts. This displacement left Namashudras, and to a lesser extent Rajbanshis, stateless and stripped of citizenship, while upper-caste Hindu migrants largely escaped such vulnerability due to their stronger socio-economic status.

The exodus of Bengali Dalit refugees from East Pakistan, due to spatial heterogeneity, did not follow the pattern of population exchange along religious lines seen in Punjab. As a result, they suffered major setbacks through disorganised migration. Rajbanshi, Namashudra, and Poundra Dalits became systematic victims in their struggle to obtain citizenship.

The Citizenship Act of 1955 failed to address the continuous migration of Dalit refugees driven by communal violence. Their longstanding demand for unconditional citizenship status for Dalit refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh remains unresolved, even after the subsequent amendments in 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005, and 2015.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 1986 modified birthright citizenship under the 1955 Act, while the 1992 amendment removed the gender discrimination in citizenship by descent. The 2003 amendment, tabled by the Vajpayee-led NDA government, significantly amended the 1955 Act and paved the way for restrictive citizenship policies affecting refugees who migrated after 1971. The idea of ‘illegal citizenship’ emerged with this Act, which also laid the groundwork for the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Dalit Namashudra refugees found themselves homeless and landless.

Later amendments in 2005 and 2015 also failed to take cognisance of Dalit migration from Bangladesh and Pakistan. West Bengal’s political parties remained largely ambivalent toward the Dalit refugees’ quest for legal citizenship and a homeland. The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had made the refugee crisis a major poll plank in the 1970s, abandoned the issue soon after assuming power in 1977.

The political assertion by the Namashudras for citizenship rights culminated in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which sought to provide relief to persecuted religious minorities. The significant shift of the Namashudra vote-bank toward the BJP in 2019 created renewed pressure on the BJP-led Union government. Subsequently, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs extended the cut-off date for entry under the CAA to December 31, 2014, allowing Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, to stay in India.

Yet, the impact of the 2019 Act has remained slow and latent. The ongoing SIR has once again exposed the limitations of the CAA, as its effectiveness is being questioned in districts dominated by the Namashudras and Rajbanshis, where large-scale voter deletions have occurred.

The social and political burden of proving citizenship once again highlights that caste is the major gatekeeper to gaining citizenship. From post-Partition settlements to achieving legal citizenship today, the Brahminical caste hierarchy continues to prevail and dictate the terms. The bogey of ‘Hindu unity’, thrown at West Bengal’s Dalit refugees, is political and social gambling.

B R Ambedkar’s vision of citizenship — ‘One man, one vote; and one vote, one value’ — sought to secure political citizenship for the untouchables through the ballot, and social citizenship through social equality. This vision remains unfulfilled.

Subhajit Naskar is assistant professor, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)