EC Hid Truth of 2003 Voter List Revision from Supreme Court; A Common Bihari’s Words Capture India’s Struggle to Save Democracy
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
August 22, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
The Supreme Court on Friday said voters excluded from Bihar’s draft electoral rolls can apply online for inclusion by submitting their Aadhaar cards or any of the 11 documents recognised by the Election Commission of India, Live Law reports. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi further directed the 12 recognised political parties in Bihar to instruct their booth-level agents to assist voters in their booths with the submission of forms. The bench also expressed surprise that Bihar had over 1.6 lakh booth-level agents from political parties, but only two objections have been filed as per the Election Commission. Some political parties, however, told the court that their booth-level agents were not being allowed to file objections. Following which, the court also directed booth-level officers to issue acknowledgement receipts for objections submitted by booth-level agents wherever physical forms are filed.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission informed the court that it has filed a compliance affidavit stating that the lists of voters excluded from the draft rolls, along with reasons for their exclusion, have been published on its website and at polling booths, as directed by the court. It added that the lists have also been shared with the booth-level agents of political parties.
However, The Indian Express reports on what the EC didn’t tell the apex court, which is of utmost importance. While defending the exercise, the Commission cited the 2002–03 revision as precedent. But instructions from that very exercise – as recalled by former poll officials – show stark differences:
States had eight months, not three, to finish the exercise.
No proof of citizenship was required from voters already on the rolls.
The EPIC (voter ID card) – which the EC is not accepting as proof of eligibility in the ongoing SIR – was central to verification in 2002–03.
Two decades later, these very aspects sit at odds with the EC’s current defence in the Supreme Court.
Once hailed as the custodian of India’s democracy, the EC is now derided as a bloated, ineffectual bureaucracy, mired in what the Economist calls “Kafkaesque nightmares.” Vishnu Padmanabhan warns that the institution which once ensured credibility through unmatched commitment – even setting up booths for a single voter – now risks squandering that legacy. If doubts about its independence deepen, the rot will not stop at the Commission; it will engulf Indian democracy itself. As the British magazine notes,
“But that reputation now risks being tarnished. Even before Mr Gandhi’s allegations and the row in Bihar, political scientists and democracy-watchers were growing increasingly worried about the ECI’s independence and the fairness of India’s elections. Should those concerns keep festering, the consequences will be existential. If the ECI loses credibility, so will India’s democracy.”
Days after the Guwahati Crime Branch summoned The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and senior journalist Karan Thapar under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and other charges, the Supreme Court granted them interim protection from arrest and posted the matter for hearing on September 15, reports LiveLaw. This comes days after the court had shielded Varadarajan from coercive action in a separate FIR filed in Assam’s Morigaon under the same section.
Continuing its vindictive action against journalists, the Assam police has registered an FIR against Delhi-based journalist and YouTuber Abhisar Sharma after a person – reportedly linked to the RSS’s student wing – complained to the police that Sharma had mocked the Assam government and chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, accusing him of relying on communal hate and violence to further his politics. In a social media post, Sharma called the FIR “baseless” and said it would be challenged legally.
How did parliament spend the monsoon session that concluded yesterday? Some highlights include: spending a sizable chunk of its time (50% for the Lok Sabha and 38% for the Rajya Sabha) discussing Operation Sindoor; it functioned for the least amount of time since convening in June last year, with many functioning days marked by disruptions; many Bills were passed without discussion and less than 10% of starred questions were answered orally in either House (something that allows MPs to ask follow-up questions). Plus, the Lok Sabha marked its 74th month of functioning without a deputy speaker, the folks at PRS Legislative Research report.
Pakistan and China have “pledged to expand economic cooperation and investment under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship program of China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” says AP, reporting on the visit to Islamabad of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. Wang notably met Field Amrshal Asim Munir.
Pakistan is preparing for a possible visit of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in October, which would be his first visit to the country, Pakistani media channels say, quoting diplomatic sources with major expectations and progress in Pakistan-US ties. Rubio’s visit would be the first by an American secretary of state during the last seven years. The last US secretary of state to come to Pakistan was Mike Pompeo under the previous Trump administration, in September 2018. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports on Pakistan’s effective diplomatic outreach, showcasing its skillful efforts to strengthen ties with Washington amid complex regional dynamics.
Sri Lankan police on Friday arrested the country’s former president and senior opposition politician Ranil Wickremesinghe over allegations of misusing public funds during his tenure as president, AFP reported citing an unidentified police official. Wickremesinghe who served as the island nation’s president from 2022 to 2024, was arrested – the first Sri Lankan former head of state to be arrested – on allegations of using public funds to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony in London after an official visit to the US. One of his aides told the AFP on condition of anonymity that Wickremesinghe has been taken to a court after being arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigations Department.
Asked if he foresaw the additional 25% tariff on India targeting its purchases of Russian oil going into effect next week, senior White House trade adviser Peter Navarro replied in the affirmative. “I see that taking place. India doesn’t appear to want to recognise its role in the bloodshed. It simply doesn’t,” he said. Navarro also reiterated the argument he made in a Financial Times oped earlier this week, calling New Delhi's Russian oil purchases “profiteering” by Indian Big Oil and “a laundromat for the Kremlin”. Despite ‘loving’ India and considering Modi “a great leader”, Navarro believes it is “insane” that New Delhi:
“… use[s] the money they get from us, when they sell us stuff, to buy Russian oil, which is processed by refiners, and they make a bunch of money there. But then the Russians use the money to build more arms and kill Ukrainians, and so American taxpayers have to provide more aid, military style, to the Ukrainians.”
Speaking of which, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has become “collateral damage” in the crossfire of a bitter trade skirmish between the US and India, writes Bloomberg. As President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on New Delhi over its purchases of Russian crude, senior advisers accused some of the country’s most powerful tycoons of profiting from wartime distortions. No individual was named, but Ambani inevitably found himself in the spotlight – his Reliance empire is India’s single biggest buyer of Russian oil. The criticism cut deeper than a routine policy clash. Ambani, alongside fellow magnate Gautam Adani, is seen as central to Modi’s nation-building agenda. Both men have flourished in industries – refining, petrochemicals, retail, and infrastructure – that have received the government’s protective embrace. One of Trump’s former trade officials even revealed in a post-2020 memoir that he kept a list of India’s richest “cronies” on his desk, using their fortunes and ventures as a shorthand guide to Modi’s priorities.
Days after a crash involving an Indian driver in Florida killed three people, the United States Department of State has said that it’s reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid US visas for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules. Florida and US officials said that Harjinder Singh, who has been charged on three counts of vehicular homicide, did not speak English and did not have “legal authorisation” to be in the US, Reuters had reported. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the country was immediately pausing the issuance of all worker visas for commercial truck drivers, who claimed on X that foreign truck drivers were “endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers.” The American Trucking Association (ATA) has denied the claim that millions of foreign truck drivers were flooding into the US. “The narrative of foreign labour dumping in the US trucking industry is false and does not hold up to minimum scrutiny,” the ATA wrote in a blog post.
The Indian Express reports on how students from India – the largest cohort of international students in the US – have borne the brunt of visa uncertainties despite the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) reinstatement.
Meanwhile …
Following 20 (or 21 by some accounts)-year-old Suleman Khan Pathan's lynching by Hindu men – who were apparently incensed by his meeting a local Hindu girl and among whom were men he considered his close friends, as per his family – there is uncertainty about what could happen next in his village in Maharashtra's Jalgaon district, including whether or how outsiders could exploit his killing. Kunal Purohit reports speaking to Pathan's family and to locals that he was killed even as his village has been peaceful and despite him having previously been a leader in organising Ganesh Chaturthi festivities. However, his lynching occurs at a time when Maharashtra is marching forward on a communal path, Purohit notes.
If the Modi government is so keen on deporting ‘Bangladeshis’ from India, there is one obvious place they ought to start from: the New Delhi bungalow in which deposed premier Sheikh Hasina – who is being tried for crimes against humanity – has lived in for over a year and from where she has made statements to the chagrin of the interim government in Dhaka, Asaduddin Owaisi pointed out yesterday. Meanwhile, “we have poor Bengali-speaking Indians from Malda and Murshidabad who were sent from Pune to Kolkata in an aircraft and then dumped in no man’s land,” the Hyderabad MP said.
The government is curtailing output generated by solar power plants during times of low demand in order to reduce congestion on power transmission infrastructure, which in turn is being caused by new plants becoming operational ahead of schedule as well as delays in transmission projects. The move, reports Reuters, is a “setback to India's renewable power developers, who are increasingly languishing without supply contracts as demand for power slows”. This has been felt most acutely in Rajasthan but also in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Around the world, the purpose of urban road signs is to help residents find their way around. But in Srinagar, the aim seems to be to rob Kashmiris of their linguistic identity.
Merely saying ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ without incitement of hatred against India not sedition, says Himachal HC
The Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled that merely praising another country cannot be considered sedition unless it involves denouncing India or inciting separatist sentiments and subversive activities, Bar and Bench reports. The court observed that “hailing a country without denouncing the motherland does not constitute an offence of sedition, as it neither incites armed rebellion nor encourages subversive or separatist activities,” adding “there is, therefore, prima facie, insufficient material to connect the petitioner with the commission of the crime.”
Justice Rakesh Kainthla observed while granting bail to a vendor accused of sharing an AI-generated image of Modi with the words “Pakistan Zindabad,” noting that there was no allegation of hatred or discontent being incited against the government established by law in India. The Himachal Pradesh High Court observed that there was insufficient material to justify the continued detention of the accused, Suleman, in connection with a sedition-linked case. He was arrested in June and has been in jail since then. The court noted the defence’s assertion that the petitioner had been falsely implicated.
SC halts directive to relocate stray dogs, orders release after sterilisation, vaccination
The Supreme Court put on hold its earlier instructions that required Delhi and the municipal bodies of Noida and Gurugram to shift stray dogs to shelters, reports Live Law. A three-judge bench consisting of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N.V. Anjaria directed that dogs captured by authorities should be returned to the same locations after being sterilised, vaccinated and dewormed and clarified that canines showing signs of rabies or exhibiting aggressive tendencies must not be released. The bench also prohibited feeding stray dogs in public areas, stressing that “dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs are to be created. There have been dog attacks due to such feeding instances,” Justice Nath remarked, as cited by Live Law.
Bangladesh and Pakistan move forward, India moves backward
Bangladesh and Pakistan will now allow visa-free travel for diplomatic purposes, following a draft agreement approved by Bangladesh’s advisory council under Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus. The deal, valid for five years, is expected not only to ease diplomatic engagement but also to deepen bilateral and even military cooperation.
Indian officials and diplomatic passport holders have enjoyed visa-free travel across SAARC countries for decades – including Afghanistan. It was a recognition of India’s central role and the goodwill it commanded in the neighborhood. However, that era of influence and respect in South Asia is gone under Modi. As Maheshwar Peri notes,
“Nepal, the only Hindu country, is claiming territory in India’s possession - Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura region and maintains the territory lies within Nepal. Bangladesh, a staunch India friend and a country that we liberated, alleged that "anti-Bangladesh" activities were being carried out on Indian soil.”
The Long Cable
A Common Bihari’s Words Capture India’s Struggle to Save Democracy
SN Sahu
Ponder over the irresistibly powerful ideas of the following passage:
“Ever since the Modi government came to power, we have been fighting to save one thing or the other. The 2015 Bihar assembly election was the first after Modi took office. [RSS chief] Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks on reviewing reservations figured prominently then, and the election became a battle to save reservations.
“By the final phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, the ‘Save the Constitution’ issue [after BJP leaders said they needed a huge majority to amend it] had grown so intense that the NDA was wiped out in southwest Bihar. The INDIA alliance swept almost all the seats fought in that last phase.
“So sometimes it is ‘Save Reservations’, sometimes it is ‘Save the Constitution’, and now it is ‘Save the Right to Vote’. To save the right to be a voter, the right to be a citizen. Since Modi came to power, we have had to struggle to save one thing or another, forget receiving Rs 15 lakh.”
These are not the words of some Opposition leader, but of an anonymous man of humble origin from an ‘Extremely Backward Class’ in Bihar. Journalist Abhishek Kumar cited him in a discussion on the satyahindi.com YouTube channel during the ongoing Voter Adhikar Yatra spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Hundreds of thousands in Bihar have walked in this yatra, but it is this ordinary man who summed up their fears and hopes.
His anguish reflects the clarity of an intensely conscious citizen with no political affiliation. He sees, with devastating simplicity, how the Modi regime has repeatedly assaulted the architecture of governance anchored in the Constitution, in affirmative action, and above all in the principle of “one person, one vote.” His words deserve a salute, for they distill the predicament of Indian democracy under Modi, where citizens must constantly launch movements just to defend their basic rights.
Gandhi and Ambedkar as the Anchor
What this ordinary Bihari said resonates deeply with the visions of Gandhi and Ambedkar. Gandhi wrote in Young India in January 1925:
“Real Swaraj will come, not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be attained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.”
Ambedkar’s call to “Educate, Organise and Agitate” in the 1940s was a revolutionary summons to collective struggle, remarkably close to Gandhi’s insistence that Swaraj required mass resistance. And in July 1931, Gandhi underlined that adult suffrage itself was a form of direct action: “People without political power could directly act upon the powers that be… One form of direct action is adult suffrage.”
Thus, the anonymous Bihari citizen is aligned with Gandhi’s formulation of the vote as a weapon of resistance and Ambedkar’s call for organised agitation.
The Vote Adhikar Rally in Bihar is part of this long continuum of popular struggles. It seeks to protect the right to vote from what Rahul Gandhi has alleged is systematic theft that benefitted the BJP. In this sense, it stands alongside the great non-violent mass movements of the last decade:
The anti-CAA movement, where lakhs mobilised to defend the secular basis of Indian citizenship enshrined in the Constitution.
The farmers’ movement of 2020–21, which forced Modi to repeal the farm laws passed without consultation.
Each was mocked by the Prime Minister, who derided protesters as “Andolanjivees”, or agitationists. Yet each represented the same instinct—the resolve of ordinary people to resist arbitrary power.
The Vote Adhikar Rally is unprecedented in Indian history. Even under British rule, neither Gandhi nor the Congress launched a satyagraha specifically to demand adult suffrage. There were resolutions, speeches, and demands, but never a mass movement. That such a movement is now necessary in independent India, to secure the integrity of the voter list and ensure the franchise is not stolen, is a measure of the democratic backsliding of the Modi years.
Former President K.R. Narayanan reminded the nation in his Republic Day address of 2001 that universal suffrage meant governance would not rest with an elite but with the people as a whole. It guaranteed that their voice would be heard in the affairs of the state and their representatives elected directly. He stressed that universal franchise facilitated a democratic consensus in the midst of India’s vast diversities.
It is precisely this consensus that is endangered today. Allegations of vote theft, and the Election Commission’s reluctance to investigate them, strike at the core of Narayanan’s vision. That is why the Vote Adhikar Rally has assumed such significance: it is a defence of the principle that the mandate cannot be snatched.
The Bihari citizen’s lament – that people have been forced to fight endlessly to “save something or the other” since Modi took power – captures the reality of Indian democracy in the past 11 years. First it was reservations, then the Constitution, now the right to vote. These are life-and-death struggles for ordinary people, while the government sneers at them from above.
In the voice of this anonymous man, we hear the echo of Gandhi’s Swaraj and Ambedkar’s agitation. He spoke for millions: ordinary citizens who know that democracy can survive only if they defend it themselves.
S N Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan
Reportedly
Stung by the charge of ad hocism in its approach towards sporting encounters with Pakistan – favouring cricket, because of the revenue and involvement of Amit Shah’s son – the Modi government has ‘clarified’ that it remains opposed to bilateral events but has no problem allowing Indian teams to play against Pakistan in any sport provided it is a ‘multilateral tournament’. It notes that blocking Pakistan from international events in India would risk violating the Olympic Charter – and jeopardise India’s quest to emerge as an international sporting venue.
Fortunately, the ‘trilateral’ Baba Guru Nanak Kabaddi cup – in which teams from Pakistan, Iran and India compete every year – also made the greenlist this year. In 2024, India did not let its teams go to Pakistan for the tournament. You can watch the 2025 kabaddi final between Iran and Pakistan here. With commentary in Punjabi.
Pen vs sword
Deep dive
A number of surrendered Maoists in Chhattisgarh – and some others who have denied being involved with the CPI (Maoist) for many years – are being involuntarily held in government offices on the pretext of being given vocational training. Some are also held for weeks without being trained at all, instead made to clean rooms or cook food for security personnel. When asked by Malini Subramaniam about whether surrendered cadres could go back home without opting for training, the authorities said they feared that such people would face reprisal from Maoists. But activists point out that what the villagers are made to go through amounts to arbitrary detention.
Prime number: Rs 8.81 cr
The BJP-led Gujarat government has spent Rs 8.81 crore on advertisements that laud Modi and celebrate him, a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by BBC Gujarati has found. While celebrating 10, 15 or 25 years of something could have been considered normal, the concerned advertisements came to light as it oddly celebrated 23 years of Modi holding a public office – as chief minister of Gujarat and then as prime minister. Meanwhile, political and legal experts are calling this expenditure “completely unjustified” and “a waste of public money”.Opeds you don’t want to miss
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi's visit to Delhi occurred against the backdrop of thawing Sino-Indian relations, but cannot be the basis for a ‘reset’ in ties, says former ambassador to Beijing Ashok Kantha. He points out that de-escalation in eastern Ladakh has not progressed much, China is building its mega-dam beyond Arunachal without considering India's interests, is likely to continue weaponising India's dependencies and there is the issue of its collusion with Islamabad. Meanwhile, “comments in the Chinese media suggest deep scepticism about India’s China policy”. “Unless the facts on the ground change,” he warns, “a reset in ties is not a realistic proposition at present.”
Modi’s promise of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas” rings hollow amid lynching of cattle traders and thrashing of inter-faith couples as well as lately of nuns for ‘forced conversions’ and ‘human trafficking’, writes Julio Ribeiro, retired Indian police officer and civil servant.
That Amit Shah introduced the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill on Wednesday – which proposes to allow chief ministers and their cabinet ministers, in addition to the prime minister to be removed from office if detained for a month on serious allegations – even as he had once spent a longer time in jail on charges of murder and kidnapping as an opposition home minister is an irony that is not lost on anyone, writes Sangeeta Barooah. But even if the Bill does not pass muster, Wednesday “will be remembered in India’s political history as a dark day simply because such a blatant strike to wipe out the Opposition was attempted by the ruling party”, she says.
Bharat Bhushan profiles C P Radhakrishnan, hard-core RSS man and easily the most ideological of Narendra Modi’s picks for Vice President of India.
India’s move to tackle the harm caused by betting apps will have unintended consequences, writes Andy Mukherjee arguing that all prohibition ever does is to push people toward moonshine. “The money-laundering menace that the policymakers are trying to address could get worse. These offshore gambling proceeds will become a source of crypto liquidity for residents looking to jump controls on capital outflows”.
Anil Sood proposes a major over-haul of India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) that would be revenue neutral, reduce corruption and be federally equitable: Treat GST as a simple consumption tax, eliminating the ‘income tax credit’ element which has complicated accounting and led to cheating.
When the Chhattisgarh high court recently remarked that police officers who beat a Dalit man dead in custody were trying to ‘teach him a lesson’ for public misbehaviour and not to kill him, it “reinforce[d] a culture where officers feel emboldened to act as both enforcer and judge” and “invite[d] future violators to believe their actions will be read not as unlawful but as excessive zeal”, Shivangi Sinha points out. She also notes the court's lack of enforcing the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the case.
Listen up
In a conversation with Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin, South Asian analyst Michael Kugelman discusses how Trump’s policies are shaping US relations with South Asia and influencing broader regional geopolitics involving China and Russia, noting that India’s strategic autonomy is facing one of its toughest challenges. Listen here.
Watch out
Sravasti Dasgupta is joined by M.K. Venu, founding editor, The Wire and Javed Ansari, senior journalist in this discussion on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s controversial press conference – where he provided a series of non-answers on concerns over irregularities in voter rolls
Over and out
Anirudh Kanisetti looks at the scholarly literature on Uttaramerur – the small temple town in Tamil Nadu renowned for having an elected ‘sabha’ (of Brahmins) run its its affairs more than a thousand years ago – to discuss what a Tamil town tells us about votes, caste, and fraud in medieval India.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.