Source: The post Bihar migrants face a silent voter purge has been created, based on the article “India’s democracy is failing the migrant citizen” published in “The Hindu” on 21st August 2025. Bihar migrants face a silent voter purge.
UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 1- Population and associated issues.
Context: Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision has deleted nearly 3.5 million names (4.4% of voters) as “permanently migrated” after hurried house-to-house checks. For circular and split-family migrants, this means losing the vote both at destinations and at home. The article warns of an unfolding, silent disenfranchisement.
For detailed information on Ensuring voting rights for India’s migrant population read this article here
A sweeping deletion and its consequences
- Scale and label: Nearly 3.5 million voters were removed during SIR. Many were marked “permanently migrated” only because they were absent when verification teams arrived.
2. Migration misread: Locked homes and split-family arrangements are common among the poor. The state is reading these realities as abandonment of electoral rights.
3. Double exclusion: Migrants cannot vote where they work and are now struck off at origin. This creates permanent disenfranchisement.
4. Economic lifeline ignored: Out-migration sustains Bihar’s households and economy. Treating mobility as desertion erases the poor from the democratic record.
A sedentary electoral design in a mobile society
- Residence-tethered rules: Registration relies on proof of address and in-person checks. Migrants fail these tests.
2. Precarious housing: Many live in rented rooms, construction sites, footpaths, or slums. Documentation is unavailable or denied.
3. Politics of exclusion: Regionalism and sub-nationalism cast migrants as job-stealers or threats. Domicile norms and private-sector quota demands express these sentiments.
4. Host-state resistance: Fears of altered outcomes discourage destination registration. Migrants remain stuck: unregistered there, deleted here.
Evidence on turnout and migration
- Study findings: A 2015 TISS study funded by the Election Commission confirmed marginalisation in host-state processes. It identified a triple burden: administrative barriers, digital illiteracy, and social exclusion.
2. Turnout correlation: Lower turnout correlates with higher migration in source States. Bihar’s SIR widens this turnout gap instead of closing it.
3. Comparative turnout: Bihar averaged 53.2% across its last four Assembly polls. Gujarat and Karnataka averaged 66.4% and 70.7%, respectively.
4. Mobility data: Visitor location data suggest seven million circular migrants leave Bihar annually. About 4.8 million migrate June–September; 2.7 million return for festivals in October–November. Many returning during an election year will still be unable to vote without cross-state verification.
Portability gaps and dual belonging
- Ration portability limits: Since 2019, only 3.3 lakh Bihar households used One Nation One Ration Card portability by May 2025. Dual residency fears and hurdles restrict transfers.
2. Parallel with voter IDs: Migrants keep origin documents due to insecurity in host States. This is not indifference to civic duty.
3. Demonising mobility: The message is blunt: if not at home when officials knock, the vote disappears. Dual belonging is penalised.
4. Border complexities: Along the 1,751-km India–Nepal open border, “roti-beti” ties shape movement and marriage. New documentation norms and restrictive citizenship readings threaten women’s legal and electoral status, adding gendered and xenophobic edges to exclusion.
Steps to prevent a silent purge
- Portable voter identity: India should adopt mobile, flexible voter IDs. The Election Commission must halt blanket deletions and cross-verify with destination rolls.
2. Grassroots re-enrolment: Empower panchayats and civil society to run migrant outreach and re-registration drives.
3. Data-led governance: Replicate Kerala’s migration surveys in high-origin States such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
4. Avoiding rupture: Without these measures, India risks the largest silent voter purge since Independence, targeting poor migrants seeking bread, dignity, and work.
Question for practice:
Examine how Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision has disenfranchised migrant voters and what remedies are proposed.
