SIR is political genocide, claims economist Parakala Prabhakar

Economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar has described the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being taken up by the Election Commission of India as “political genocide” and urged citizens to boycott it.

At an awareness session in Dharwad on Sunday, he spoke on the various dimensions of SIR and its implications.

The session was organised by Eddelu Karnataka and other organisations at the Karnataka Vidya Vardhaka Sangha.

“We need to understand that SIR is an exercise being introduced by a section of the people who want to establish a homogeneous society. We need to look at such efforts around the world in the past. What happened in countries in Asia and Europe or America? There were killing sprees. But then, times have changed and there is no killing now. Now, killing someone is akin to deleting their names from the voter list. It is a new form of genocide, without bloodshed. SIR is nothing but ‘political genocide’. Citizens cannot sit quiet. They need to boycott it. But then we cannot outsource the fight against SIR to political parties. We need to take up the fight ourselves,” he said.

“We should not forget that SIR is here due to our indifference. Had we protested against the incident where a shoe was thrown at the Chief Justice of India or when innocents were killed in riots in several places, when Manipur was burning and other such incidents, then those in power would have hesitated to introduce SIR,” he said.

“The real threat of SIR therefore, is not that it will help a particular party to win the elections. SIR is nothing short of changing the Constitution. The Constitution guarantees universal adult franchise, based on the ‘one vote one person’ principle. But then, SIR is negating that right. No other democratic country has guaranteed universal adult franchise in the first instance. Rulers slowly extended the voting rights to women and minorities,” he said.

“But the Indian Constitution gave it to everybody from day one. That is because we built our country based on values due to the historical fight for our Independence,” he said and added that SIR is a tool to politically eliminate the minorities, women, illiterates and the poor.

“Now, we have reached a stage where we don’t elect the governments but the governments elect the people. Those in power are weeding out those who are unlikely to vote for them,” he said.

“Those who don’t want this country to become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ should take to the streets and say no to SIR,” he said.

Resource person Madhav Deshpande, activists Tara Rao, Shiv Sundar, Noor Shridhar, Gopal Dabade, Ramzan Darga, M. Isabela and others were present.