On SIR, listen to digital governance and Aadhaar pioneer (Editorial)

📌 Summary:

• Context: The ECI’s latest Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has drawn criticism; Ram Sewak Sharma (founder-director of UIDAI, an architect of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure) publicly amplified concerns in this newspaper
• Core argument: The SIR fails to balance the legitimate need to update rolls (remove duplicate/deceased voters, enrol newly eligible) against the equally strong obligation to avoid wrongful exclusion/disenfranchisement
• Causal chain of the problem: (1) Burden of proving eligibility is placed unfairly on the citizen — people asked to furnish proof of birth, residence and citizenship (2) The state itself has rarely maintained such records diligently, so citizens are penalised for state failure (3) By refusing to accept Aadhaar as credible address proof, the state ignores a database it built that already carries biometrics and proof of age — a "document-heavy method to solve a problem the country has already solved"
• DPI philosophy: India’s Digital Public Infrastructure was designed to "ask less, not more" of citizens; SIR moves in the opposite direction
• Constitutional angle: A procedure carrying the possibility of disenfranchisement demands the closest constitutional scrutiny (right to vote / equality)
• Judicial angle: The Supreme Court pushed the ECI to be inclusive at the SIR’s start but "appeared less vigilant" during the West Bengal exercise
• Solution urged: ECI and government should heed Sharma’s warning, make meaningful use of Aadhaar/DPI, and not force people to "prove again and again they belong"

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — Election Commission, electoral roll integrity vs. disenfranchisement, Representation of the People framework, role of DPI/Aadhaar in governance, judicial oversight of ECI.

🔑 Key Term: Special Intensive Revision (SIR) — an in-depth, house-to-house revision of electoral rolls conducted by the ECI to update voter lists.