In recent years, the idea of citizenship in India has quietly but profoundly shifted from an assumed constitutional guarantee to a status that must be repeatedly proven through documents, databases and deadlines.
The twin experiences of the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal reveal how this transformation is unfolding on the ground, reshaping not only administrative practices but also the emotional relationship between the citizen and the state.
What began as technical exercises meant to tidy up records have evolved into deeply political processes, raising unsettling questions about power, participation and trust in the world’s largest democracy.
The Assam NRC was conceived as a historical corrective, rooted in the Assam Accord of 1985 and designed to identify genuine citizens on the basis of residence prior to March 24, 1971.
Over a decade, it consumed enormous public resources, mobilised tens of thousands of officials, and scrutinised crores of documents.
Yet when the final list was published in August 2019, excluding around 1.9 million people, it delivered neither closure nor clarity.
Instead, it created a vast population trapped in uncertainty, unable to appeal effectively because rejection slips were delayedand responsibility shifted endlessly between state and centre.
For many, exclusion from the NRC was not just a bureaucratic setback but a form of civil death, as frozen biometrics blocked access to Aadhaar-linked welfare, banking and employment in a system where identity has become the gateway to survival.
What made the Assam experience particularly disturbing was not merely the scale of exclusion but the absence of resolution.
Even after spending more than ₹1,600 crore, the state found itself with a list that no political actor was willing to own. Those who demanded stricter scrutiny claimed it was flawed and porous; those concerned about human rights warned of mass injustice.
The result was paralysis, where millions remained neither declared foreigners nor securely recognised as citizens, living under a cloud of suspicion that seeped into everyday life.
As this unresolved legacy lingered in Assam, a different but related process unfolded in West Bengal through the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Unlike the NRC, the SIR is constitutionally sanctioned indirectly to refresh voter lists, but its scope and intensity in 2025–26 marked a dramatic departure from routine revisions.
Instead of incremental updates, the exercise effectively rebuilt the rolls from a historical baseline, requiring voters to be “mapped” to earlier records and subjecting them to algorithm-driven scrutiny. Within weeks, over 58 lakh names were deleted, triggering shock and fear across the state.
The official justification was familiar: migration, duplication and the need to protect electoral integrity. Yet the human experience told a more complex story.
Ordinary voters found themselves summoned to distant hearing centres, asked to explain discrepancies flagged by software rather than by any human accuser.
Age gaps between parents and children, common surnames shared by extended families, or the inability to link seamlessly to older rolls were treated as anomalies demanding proof.
For migrant workers, refugees, the urban poor and elderly citizens, the burden of documentation proved overwhelming.
The psychological impact was immediate and severe. Memories of Assam’s NRC haunted Bengal’s villages and towns, fuelling panic that loss of voting rights might be only the first step toward deeper exclusion.
Reports of stress-related deaths, suicides among overworked booth-level officers, and elderly citizens slipping into despair underscored how quickly a technical process can become a humanitarian crisis when compressed into rigid timelines and enforced through fear of deletion.
Politically, the SIR ignited a fierce battle of narratives. The ruling party in the state framed it as an assault on democracy, alleging a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters ahead of elections.
The opposition portrayed it as long-overdue cleansing of bloated rolls allegedly swollen by illegal migrants.
Caught between these claims was the Election Commission, defending its constitutional authority while facing judicial scrutiny over whether electoral officers can effectively conduct inquiries that resemble determinations of citizenship.
At the heart of both the NRC and the SIR lies a deeper question about the direction of governance in India. The increasing reliance on digital systems and historical databases reflects a technocratic faith in data as neutral truth.
Yet the experiences of Assam and West Bengal demonstrate that data is only as reliable as the social realities it attempts to capture. In a country marked by displacement, informal livelihoods, oral histories and bureaucratic inconsistency, the demand for perfect documentary continuity inevitably privileges some while punishing others.
When algorithms flag “logical discrepancies” without understanding local contexts, and when administrative speed overrides procedural care, the presumption of inclusion that once underpinned Indian citizenship begins to erode.
The citizen is no longer someone whose rights are inherent but someone perpetually on trial, required to prove legitimacy to systems that offer little margin for error.
The unresolved NRC in Assam serves as a cautionary tale for the SIR in West Bengal and for any future attempts at large-scale verification.
It shows that exclusion, once produced, is far harder to undo than anticipated, and that ambiguity can persist for years, corroding faith in institutions. Democracy depends not only on clean rolls or accurate registers but on the confidence of people that the state recognises them as participants rather than suspects.
As courts deliberate and political tempers flare, the real test will be whether India can reconcile the legitimate need for administrative accuracy with the constitutional promise of dignity and inclusion.
Citizenship and voting rights are not mere entries in a database; they are the means through which individuals claim visibility and voice. If the process of verification itself becomes a source of fear, then the cost is paid not just by those excluded, but by the democratic spirit of the nation as a whole.
Between the register and the roll lies a fragile space where belonging must be affirmed with care. How India navigates this space will determine whether documentation remains a tool of governance or becomes an instrument that quietly redefines who truly belongs.
