India’s opposition is now protesting the removal of millions of voters from electoral rolls, yet it is unwilling to challenge the discrimination previously directed against Muslims that helped create the same system.

Al Jazeera describes this situation as a form of “selective solidarity”: when discrimination was limited to Muslims, many political and social groups in India remained silent. But now that the consequences have extended to Hindus and other social groups, those same forces have taken to the streets.

According to the report, opposition parties, students and farmers across India are protesting a sweeping revision of electoral rolls that has resulted in the removal of around 130 million names from voter lists.

The protesters are demanding the restoration of the previous electoral rolls and the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, India’s Chief Election Commissioner.

The initiative, which the Election Commission of India calls the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), requires voters to prove their eligibility to remain on the electoral rolls, often by producing old documents and records.

Six years ago, Muslims took to the streets to warn about the consequences of such a policy. They cautioned that making citizenship conditional on producing old documents could put millions of people, particularly Muslims, at risk of losing their citizenship rights.

However, their warnings were largely ignored. Now that the threat of electoral exclusion has extended beyond the Muslim community, many of those who dismissed those warnings are taking to the streets themselves.

Al Jazeera describes this as “hypocrisy in the opposition’s response,” writing that while opposing the revision of electoral rolls is justified, the opposition’s demands leave untouched the citizenship law that Muslims protested against in 2019. Under that law, Muslims are viewed with suspicion and portrayed as “infiltrators”.

Some of those now marching against the revision had previously opposed the 2019 protests themselves. The central question is whether the current movement will challenge the discrimination Muslims warned about, or simply demand protection for those who have now become victims of the same discriminatory system.

According to the report, if this movement wants to demonstrate that it has learned anything from the events of 2019, it must challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and demand the release of those who remain imprisoned in connection with the Delhi “larger conspiracy” case.

Source: Al Jazeera