The oldest (and most disregarded) secret in the world of gambling is that you cannot win against the house. The decks are stacked, the cards are rigged and the slot machines are fixed. Oh yes! the casino will let you win once in a while, just so that you swallow a little more of the bait and keep returning to be ripped off. The house, folks, always wins. Which describes perfectly the state of our elections these days, after 2019.
What is happening with the SIR in Bihar, even as I write this, is the final turn of the roulette wheel: the Opposition (the real Opposition, I mean, not the Mayawatis, Owaisis, Kishores or Naveen Patnaiks of the world) will henceforth never be allowed to win an election, general or state. A few seats here and there, yes, maybe even a few inconsequential states, to keep the dumb charade going, but never a House- Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha: the House belongs to the croupier. No amount of petitions, meetings with the Election Commission, writs in the Supreme Court, grandstanding photo-ops outside Parliament, or threats ("We are coming after you") is going to change this inevitability. Maharashtra and Haryana were the prototypes and appropriate lessons were learnt from them- adding spurious votes is not enough, stuffing EVMs after 5.00PM is not enough, deleting a few thousand votes is not enough, the judicial pusillanimity regarding VVPATs is not enough; more work was needed to make matters fool proof.
And so the final product-the electoral Bramhastra, as it were- is on display now in Bihar. Make the nationalistic Citizenship issue the mechanism and excuse for getting rid of those pesky communities and classes who don't vote for the BJP and its allies, be selective in the desired documentation; Aadhar will do in the right wing areas, thank you, but in Seemanchal we need to see your birth certificate, and that of your parents. The motto being: show me the face and I will show you the document. Five million have already been disenfranchised, according the the ECI's own figures.
The Supreme Court will hear the matter on the 28th of this month, but don't hold your breath- the jurisprudence of the "fait accompli" will come into play and the loaded dice will keep rolling. The Election Commission knows this- it has already asked all states to prepare for an all-India roll-out of this grand larceny of democracy. At the most the Court may mandate the acceptance of a few more ID markers, but it's always the dealer who calls out the cards and numbers, and they are usually tucked up his sleeve. In the Supreme Court the SIR will go the way of the EVMs, VVPATs, paper ballots, procedure for appointments of Election Commissioners.
The Opposition will never win again. It has only one path before it in order to save democracy-drink of the poisoned chalice and boycott all elections until this casino is shut down. It must take the bull by the horns, and not by the tail as it has been doing so far. As Debasish Roy Choudhury says in an interview with Karan Thapar on Friday (which should be compulsory watching for all who value our democracy), by continuing to participate in elections which are rigged and which they know they cannot win, it is only legitimising the elections and the winning regime. A boycott will take away this moral legitimacy, in the eyes of most countrymen and the international community. That will the first step to restoring the old sanctity to the whole process.
The Opposition has failed, thanks to its own ineptitude, avarice, lust for power and out-size egos, and the abject surrender of all our constitutional institutions, including the courts. The Opposition, therefore, is no longer a player in this game-it can at best now be a coach. The actual players have to be the citizens of India, whose right to select a government of their choice is being stolen. They must be persuaded to boycott the elections too, to show the world how the elections in India now resemble those of Rwanda, where the President Paul Kagame, won with 99% of the votes. The world, of course, doesn't give a damn about Rwanda, but can it ignore India, the world's largest democracy which has historically been the beacon of democracyfor the post colonial world?
Country-wide boycotts may lead to civil unrest, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as Jayaprakash Narayan's Sampurna Kranti movement against Mrs Gandhi had shown-it finally led to her being ousted from power. A boycott could be a curtain raiser to something similar. This applies equally to civil society organisations like ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms), CCG (Constitutional Conduct Group) and others- they too have to espouse and campaign for the cause of the boycott. They have written enough letters to the Government and Prime Minister and Election Commission, and issued their fair number of press releases, to no effect: they too have to change course. As Debasish says: when your house is burgled, you don't write a letter to the burglar, you go to the police! And the police here are the people of India- We The People. It is time to turn to them.
Those of us who regularly see through the subterfuge are a microscopic minority that is not increasing but further diminishing. Those of us who see or suggest an alternative countermeasure miss one essential ground reality. The masses are totally mesmarised by this party. They want this party in power & they want it to do everything possible to marginalise dissenters & all non Hindus & render such electorally impotent. This majority of blind bhakts are ecstatic at living a dream spun out by the safron spin doctors & that includes the educated diaspora who are the greatest cheerleaders of MAKE HINDUS GREAT AGAIN or MHGA. The bobbited opposition with their corrupt instincts play into the safron hands & are not a healthy alternative for the safron juggernaut. So yes we are probably seeing a long safron rule. Effectively a one party rule going forward, which the blind majority is happy with. So doomsday predictions that democracy is being killed in India has no relevance for this macho identity hungry majority
ReplyDeleteI entirely agree with the above. It is the political Hindutva that mesmerized the lot, including the so called educated, and not the real Hindutva that is practiced by the seers or the Sankarachayas!
DeleteWe have developed in technology but have leftover the common characteristics like humanity, honesty, democracy which were the founding principles of our state! Only a shock treatment like boycotting elections can reveal more of our sham democracy!!
Rebuttal: “The Casino is Rigged” – A Dramatic Analogy That Doesn’t Hold
ReplyDeleteThe claim that Indian elections are now a fully rigged casino, where the Opposition can never win again, is not just exaggerated—it is contradicted by facts, electoral trends, and constitutional safeguards.
1. Reality Check: Opposition Still Wins—Regularly
The article declares that the Opposition will "never again" be allowed to win any major election. This is empirically false.
• Congress swept Karnataka (2023).
• TMC decimated BJP in West Bengal (2021) despite unprecedented central pressure.
• DMK won Tamil Nadu (2021); AAP retained Punjab (2022).
• BJP has consistently failed to make headway in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, and Kashmir—states with strong regional identities and entrenched opposition support.
It is, in fact, unthinkable under current conditions that the BJP could sweep states like Kerala, West Bengal, or Kashmir. The “casino” seems to malfunction quite often if you go by actual election results.
2. SIR, Citizenship, and the Myth of Targeted Disenfranchisement
The article’s claim that five million people have already been disenfranchised in Bihar via the Standardised Identification Register (SIR) is unsubstantiated. No official Election Commission of India (ECI) publication corroborates such a mass purge.
Moreover:
• Voter lists do not record party preference or voting history. Indian ballots are secret. It is legally and technically impossible to selectively remove “non-BJP voters.”
• The majority of Indians, especially older or rural citizens, do not possess birth certificates.
• The ECI has not mandated birth certificates as the only proof of citizenship. Aadhaar, school certificates, PAN cards, and other documents are valid alternatives.
• If birth certificates were strictly enforced in select regions like Seemanchal, entire electoral rolls would be decimated, including many BJP supporters.
If any local enforcement deviates from official guidelines, it is open to judicial and administrative challenge. But blanket allegations of communal or partisan targeting, without documentary evidence, erode the credibility of real concerns.
3. Boycotts Are Not the Answer
The article’s suggestion that the Opposition boycott all elections to delegitimise them is not only dangerous—it’s counterproductive:
• Boycotts in other countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Venezuela) have only strengthened ruling regimes.
• The JP Movement, cited as inspiration, fought within the democratic framework, mobilised people, contested elections, and eventually defeated Indira Gandhi—not by abstaining, but by participating.
Telling people to “go to the people” while simultaneously denying them the right to vote is an internal contradiction. You cannot claim to empower citizens while asking them to abandon the very tool of their empowerment—the vote.
4. Institutions May Be Strained, Not Dead
Yes, India’s institutions—Election Commission, judiciary, media—are under stress. But to declare them dead is premature and irresponsible. Legal battles over EVMs, VVPATs, and electoral reforms are ongoing. Judicial setbacks are frustrating but not final. Civil society is active, vigilant, and engaged.
Boycotting elections will be playing into the hands of this regime. This is expressly what it is orchestrating — to disenfranchise the electorate they know is against it, and subsequently seek the remaining votes. It is these residual voters in the crucible of the electorate that must get disillusioned by the skulduggery of the ruling dispensation. Avay Shukla is correct in his analysis that eventually the People will unitedly have to de-couple this majoritarian engine from pulling the country. But the revolution theory propounded may not resonate with them as a toolkit to resist this undemocratic administration with. To boycott their right of suffrage - their one unconquerable might - is nothing short of strengthening the oppressor.
ReplyDeleteOnce they are convinced that the rising GDP does nothing to improve their lives, that they are being taxed to the point of breathing, that ghettoising the demography along religious and casteist furrows brings vaporising returns, that unemployment cannot be quenched by doles, and that one man becoming a ‘democratic Vishwaguru’ is just a vapid oxymoron, then the People will exert their power which will emanate from the ballot.
Electing this government out is the way forward, not a self-defeating embargo.
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DeleteThis SIR is the first such intensive revision in Bihar since 2003, intended to weed out deceased, migrated, duplicate, or otherwise ineligible entries. Phase 1 (June 24–July 25) covered nearly 7.23 crore electors—about 99.8% coverage. Around 60 to 65 lakh names were flagged as ineligible due to death, migration, duplicates, or untraceable status. There is nothing wrong with this exercise. There is no basis to state that the deleted names from the voters list are supporters of opposition parties. We should rather urge the opposition parties to go to the people to convince them that they are better alternatives and to vote this government out.
DeleteMr. Sahu chooses to pull the wool over his own eyes if he thinks the SIR is intended to purge the voter list of departed or duplicate names. The ineligibility of Aadhar, PAN and birth certificate as identifiers of domicile smacks of duplicity on the part of the EC. Passport is permissible: how many poor and very poor have one? HSC marksheet is acceptable: what is the level of literacy in states like Bihar, Bengal, Assam and Orissa? And why should a citizen be educated in order to be considered an indigenous resident of a state? Why are parents' birth proofs required to reinforce the domiciliary status of an voter?
DeleteNo Mr. Sahu, this is not a voter updation exercise. It is a planned, voter deletion program to remove the poor section of Bihar's voters, a sizeable number being from minority communities who are not the electoral base of this regime. Your defence is as specious as the exercise you defend.
Whatever the arguments for or against SIR or the BJP Juggernaut, one thing is clear and not negotiable, illegal settlers, duplicate voters, fakes and the dead have to be removed. Use whatever method or procedure you like but they must go. The rest regarding who allowed them to come, why at this late stage and duplicity of approach can be debated till the cows come home. But we should never compromise with our citizenship for votes....Period
ReplyDeleteSometime back I had described Mr PK Sahu as an apologist for the government in Delhi, and he has demonstrated it once again with his latest comments. Not only does he play fast and loose with the facts (eg: that Aadhaar is an accepted document for the SIR when the ECI has specifically told even the SC that it is not, that a similar SIR was carried out in Bihar in 2003 when the fact is that no proof of citizenship was ever demanded in 2003): his deductions are arrived out of thin air, and his conclusions are grotesque if not downright ridiculous. He covers his sycophancy under a veneer of gravitas which too is fake. Any person who thinks that the intention of this SIR is simply to weed out the dead and the migrated needs to have his brain examined for evidence of lobotomy. According to the ECI itself, 27000 voters per constituency have already been proposed for deletion. No one should doubt that an equal number will be deleted because they will not be able to produce the documents needed in the one month period provided for the same. This is not "cleaning" the electoral rolls, it is "cleansing" them of any opposition voters. Mr Sahu may be blind to this but one fervently hopes the Supreme Court is not.
ReplyDeleteDear Mr Shukla, I value your engagement, though I must say I am surprised by the tone of your response. I was commenting on the logical and procedural flaws in some of the sweeping conclusions drawn—not engaging in partisan defence, let alone sycophancy. There is no need for personal remarks or metaphors involving lobotomies to make a point. We are all better served by a conversation grounded in substance, not invective.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify: I never claimed Aadhaar is universally accepted in isolation for SIR. I pointed out that in prior voter ID and roll revision exercises, Aadhaar has often been among several accepted documents—and if it is now excluded, that lack of clarity is precisely the kind of issue worth demanding answers for, rather than dismissing the entire process as a conspiracy.
Regarding the 2003 Bihar exercise—I agree that proof of citizenship was not required then, but the core mechanism of roll revision to remove ineligible or duplicate voters did exist, which was my limited point. If the current exercise has added layers that are legally questionable, the appropriate response is to seek judicial review and procedural transparency, not to label all dissent as complicity.
I am open to disagreement—as I believe healthy democracies depend on it. But disagreement should not be grounds for name-calling or attributing motives. That weakens rather than strengthens the case you're trying to make.
There is little point in wasting one's breath over the likes of Mr Sahu, who won't see the point in furtherance of the agenda hhe obviously pursues.
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. @Avay Shukla, As I began to read this, I wondered how you could steal my thoughts. As I reached the end, I saluted you for your clarity of thought. Yes, when the EC rigs the elections so blatantly and shamelessly, what chance do we have? Let the opposition boycott the rigged elections and let the next general election show 30% turnout. That would be the beginning.
ReplyDeleteBut a deeper question remains. How will the people who see the truth shed their fear and stand up to be counted?
ReplyDeleteBoycotting the elections, as suggested by Debasish Roy Chowdury, though merits consideration it may not be sufficient to delegitimise what are increasingly becoming farcical elections.
ReplyDeleteWhat we really need is for our ‘real’ Opposition to go beyond prettily brandishing the Constitution, making eloquent speeches about “democracy-is-in-danger,” and sporting fancy slogans while parading in front of the Parliament; we need them to hit the road.
We need our leaders in crisp sparking white attire to eschew their air-conditioned comfort and walk the dirt roads of our country; to reach out to people on their home patch to make them aware how the rigged system is robbing them of their precious democratic right to vote. That calls for serious commitment to making efforts with blood & sweat. That is what JP did 50 years ago. Are our present leaders from the Opposition ready to make the sacrifice?
Barring those in the “duffer zone,” in many states such as Assam, Bihar, JK, Jharkhand, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal, and even UP, a majority of the electorate do not blindly vote for the present dispensation (as per 2024 election results). This majority needs to be mobilised to create a groundswell of opposition, to snatch away the fig leaf of legitimacy the present disposition so desperately seeks both at home and abroad, to question performance instead of communal identity.
Curiously, we think democracy is all about holding periodic elections with much fanfare, and anointing the modern day ruler however venal he or she may be. We don’t bother to question what is being delivered between elections, how our lives are being made better. We give short shrift to performance while being mesmerised by pageantry.