'If you are alive, you must show it': Hyderabad's anti-SIR protest draws every generation

Around 300 people gathered at Tank Bund in Hyderabad on Saturday to protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, forming a human chain that stretched across nearly half a kilometre of the lakefront footpath.

The protest, held near the statue of poet Maqdoom Mohiudeen, drew people across generations — a 70-year-old woman seated on a chair holding a placard, senior citizens who had lived through earlier political movements, working women who said their names had been left out of the draft rolls, and activists seeking changes to the revision process. Many carried the national flag and placards with slogans against the exercise.

Economist Parakala Prabhakar, who joined the gathering, alleged institutional capture and demanded that the SIR be scrapped and the Election Commission of India (ECI) reconstituted. Rejecting the idea that dissent was confined to designated protest venues, he said resistance could emerge from any part of the country.

“Jantar Mantar is not a physical space in New Delhi. Wherever dissent is expressed and wherever we register our objection to SIR, anywhere in the country, in any village, town, lane or street, that is our Jantar Mantar. Every person who is questioning and dissenting is a walking Jantar Mantar. Every mind that questions is a Jantar Mantar,” he said.

Mr. Prabhakar also demanded the repeal of the 2023 law governing the appointment of election commissioners, objecting to the immunity provisions it introduced.

Asma Begum (name changed) carried a placard in Urdu that read: “Usoolon pe aanch aaye toh takrana zaroori hai, agar zinda ho toh zinda nazar aana zaroori hai” — when principles are at stake, one must fight back; if you are alive, you must show that you are alive. She said the protest was a call to people of her generation to step out of their homes and stand up for those whose names had allegedly been deleted from electoral rolls.

“It is about time people my age leave their comfort zones and come out in support of those who have been actively raising their voices against the SIR. We have voted enough times in our lives, but now, because of this exercise, our children’s names have been deleted. To get them back on the rolls, we have to come out and protest. I call upon everyone of my age to join the protest,” she said.

Another participant held a poster showing a brinjal, a play on the phrase “baingan ka SIR”.

Among those present was 63-year-old Suvamoy Sen, who brought the Indian flag his father had carried during the Quit India Movement. A flag associated with an earlier generation’s participation in the freedom struggle was thus at a protest centred on electoral rights and democratic participation.

For a group of women who had travelled from different parts of Hyderabad’s Old City, the concern was more immediate. “Despite submitting proper documents during enumeration, our names were deleted. We are all working women and have had to leave our work and run behind Booth Level Officers to submit documents that would help us get our names added. Many of our parents are now dead, and they never got many documents made. So, how do we get them? We have voted in previous elections. How can they suddenly remove our names?” asked 30-year-old Zeenath Khan.

The crowd began assembling at the lakefront around 4 p.m. As the protest continued, groups raised slogans, including “Gyanesh Kumar should resign” and demands to scrap the SIR. Participants said they would return to press their demands.

The SIR is a constituency-wise revision of electoral rolls. Similar protests have been held in other parts of the country, with demonstrators alleging the wrongful deletion of genuine voters. Authorities have defended the exercise as a clean-up aimed at removing duplicate, shifted and deceased entries, and have maintained that genuine voters will not be excluded.