Eligibility Over Representation? The Return of Gradualism
**Pragati Garg
Introduction
With the conclusion of 2026 West Bengal Assembly Elections in India, popular conversation has shifted from electoral outcomes to the foundations of enfranchisement witnessed in the State. Typically, elections are a democratic ritual to choose representatives. This time, however, the conversation moved towards a foundational question: who remained included in the electoral rolls in the State . The concern has arisen in the context of the Special Intensive Revision (“SIR”) undertaken by the Election Commission of India (“ECI”). The SIR seeks to update electoral rolls by adding eligible voters and removing erroneous entries based on factors such as migration, change of residence, and death among others.
While the ECI argues that the SIR is a routine exercise, several concerns regarding its intensified documentary demands have come to light. SIR constitutes a nationwide exercise implemented across distinct phases across various jurisdictions. Booth Level Officers and Booth Level Agents are running against the clock to meet the ECI’s deadlines. In this rush, officers have reportedly issued informal orders on WhatsApp suggesting compromised procedures. This is particularly concerning since voter eligibility depends upon the correctness of the enumerated information and even minor discrepancies can lead to rejection of the applications. The risk is compounded by complex documentary requirements making compliance difficult for vulnerable groups. Further, the broader climate surrounding the exercise has exacerbated anxieties, with public descriptions of the exercise as ‘detect, delete and deport’. Additionally, the recently enfranchised citizens, specifically who got citizenship via the 2015 Land Boundary Agreement now face intense adjudication. As, these individuals lack the legacy data to trace ancestry to older lists, resulting in their systematic exclusion due to their inability to meet the rigorous administrative requirements.
The ECI’s stated intent of the SIR is to ensure that no eligible voter is left out of the voter list. However, its present implementation risks disenfranchisement through the very framework meant to facilitate democratic participation. Notably, it is not the goal of electoral accuracy but the opacity of its execution that threatens the constitutional commitment to Universal Adult Franchise (“UAF”).
In light of this, it is imperative to revisit the foundational principle of enfranchisement, particularly, UAF which grants voting rights to all citizens above 18 years of age. While drafting the Indian Constitution, the leaders of the Constituent Assembly faced a crossroads in determining the scope of voting rights. Despite social and administrative challenges, they chose to adopt immediate UAF over gradual enfranchisement which conditions the voter’s eligibility on qualifications such as literacy and poverty among various others, underscoring the primacy accorded to the individual’s right to vote. This right was not conceived as a procedural entitlement, but as the constitutional realisation of the freedom, long demanded by the nationalist struggle. Today, with the SIR underway, there is a concern that we are departing from the UAF’s intent through processes that risk disenfranchisement. Therefore, this contemporary development must be juxtaposed with the constitutional framers’ vision which advocated for UAF despite obstacles. It thus becomes necessary to revisit the foundations of UAF and to question whether a right conceived as universal can be left to rigid administrative and documentary compliance.
The Case for Gradual Franchise
In 1949, Dr B.R. Ambedkar proposed insertion of Article 289-B in the Draft Constitution, later adopted as Article 326, granting voting rights to all citizens above 21 years of age (subsequently reduced to 18 years by the 61st Amendment Act,1988). However, this proposal emerged against the backdrop of serious disagreement within the Constituent Assembly regarding whether democratic participation required prior social and administrative readiness.
The opposition to immediate UAF rested on several assumptions. Hriday Nath Kunzru argued that since only around 18% of the population wa s enfranchised at that time, enfranchising 40-50% of the population initially would be more effective in educating the electorate. This cautious approach was taken because the majority were illiterate, impoverished, lacked fixed abodes, were displaced by partition and were unaccustomed to voting. As contemporary scholar Madhav Khosla emphasised, there also existed a perception that colonial rule had inflicted ‘slave-mentality,’ limiting the capacity of citizens to assert themselves.
N.V. Gadgil also feared that entrenched traditions of ‘hero-worship’ could undermine electoral choice of the hungry-masses. Furthermore, Lokanath Misra believed that immediate UAF would mean a sense of political right without a corresponding sense of duty thereby weakening the foundation of democratic governance.
Additionally, the Indian Franchise Committee, 1932 (“IFC”), constituted under Lord Lothian to evaluate the feasibility of expanding the franchise in colonial India, outlined two reasons against UAF. As the key imperial body tasked with structuring India’s pre-independence electoral framework, the IFC’s conclusions deeply influenced the colonial state’s restrictive approach to voting rights. Firstly, India lacked an administrative framework to conduct elections. Secondly, it pointed towards the weak organisation of political parties. While acknowledging that even uneducated voters could judge between competing political programmes, the committee argued that political parties were not equipped for governance. As at that time, their sole purpose was to dismantle British rule, and they lacked that organisational capacity required for translating public demands into effective administration.
The Case for Immediate Universal Adult Franchise
However, advocates of UAF countered that literacy does not derive solely from formal education but also from practical and social knowledge, which together lead to an informed choice. Since the objective of democracy is to secure welfare through the best possible choices, it is absurd to assume that only educated citizens are capable of making electoral decisions.
Furthermore, B.R. Ambedkar firmly supported UAF, maintaining that voting itself functioned as a form of political education that could not be secured otherwise.
Similarly, Jawaharlal Nehru, through the Objective Resolution, emphasised that political equality gives citizens an equal voice in shaping policy. Once such political rights are secured, citizens can demand social equality, such as freedom from discrimination, facilitating other forms of equality and democratic consciousness. Therefore, acquisition of literacy need not precede the extension of political rights. Furthermore, the voter enumeration process would enable ordinary people to speak to mid-lower level state-officials, precipitating the emergence of new democratic dispositions within bureaucracy and challenging the colonial narrative of Indian incapacity.
Notably, these claims contradict the IFC’s justification to reject UAF. Firstly, administrative inability to conduct mass elections justifies the need to empower institutional capacity. The process of organising elections itself would have contributed to building electoral infrastructure. Secondly, weak organisational structure of political parties also supports the case for elections. Competitive electoral participation transforms parties’ focus on ending colonial rule into organisations capable of articulating public demands and delivering governance outcomes.
The IFC itself argued for a responsible government, defining it as one where public opinion is the driving force behind legislation and administration, expressed through electoral representation. However, while endorsing such a remark, the committee departed from it, declaring UAF a misfit for the Indian landscape.
As observed by Madhav Khosla, democracy is not merely a sum of isolated acts, but rather a form of government sharing common meaning. Dividing citizens based on their voting status undermines the shared identity. In a country marked by widespread illiteracy and limited property ownership, disenfranchisement would be a negation of democracy.
The members of the Constituent Assembly envisioned representation as centred on individuals through the principle of one person one vote. By rejecting colonial practices of separate electorates, they sought to promote individual political agency. UAF thus enabled approximately 90% of the unrepresented population to get representation, ensuring everyone’s voice is heard, thereby achieving broad-based democracy.
SIR and The Return Of Gradualism
The debates in the Constituent Assembly reveal that gradualism rested on a simple premise that political rights require prior qualification. Whether framed through literacy, property ownership, civic duty, or administrative preparedness. The contemporary SIR exercise raises a similar structural concern. While Article 326 of the Constitution guarantees UAF subject to limited disqualifications such as non-citizenship, unsoundness of mind, crime, or corrupt practices, the present implementation of SIR conditions inclusion on heightened documentary compliance. This shows that the while the formal qualification has not changed, the effective threshold of participation has.
Under the SIR, voters must submit prescribed documentation, and ensure consistency with legacy records. Practically, it burdens migrants, economically vulnerable groups, and recently naturalised citizens who may lack historical documentation. Where discrepancies arise, the burden of proof rests upon the citizen. The consequence is not formal disqualification, but administrative exclusion. This practice mirrors gradualism in a subtler form, policing eligibility and risking the commitment of political inclusion.
Conclusion
UAF was meant to affirm equal political worth, not condition it upon stringent administrative compliance. In a bid to enlist all ‘eligible voters’, SIR risks transforming the voter into what George Orwell described as an ‘unperson,’ erased by rigid bureaucratic procedure outwardly neutral and benign. This task of roll verification has shifted attention from representation to eligibility.
Despite higher literacy rates and greater institutional capacity, participation hinges on excessive bureaucratic satisfaction over constitutional guarantee. Instead of using its advanced bureaucratic machinery to facilitate participation, the state now demands inflated documentary precision for democratic inclusion. Ironically, the administration that envisioned driving inclusion, now undermines it. This shift reintroduces gradualism not through literacy or property qualifications, but through documentation thresholds. Above all, Indians became voters before they were citizens and any exercise that renders citizens invisible risks undoing commitment to a representative government. Electoral accuracy is essential, yet it must never override inclusion, for the strength of democracy lies in how it guards participation.
**Pragati Garg is a first-year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at O.P. Jindal Global Law School. Her academic interests include public law, criminal justice, and the relationship between law, society, and democratic institutions.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily align with the views of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.