AGAINST backdrop of raging SIR controversy, Gandhi Jayanti is opportune moment to recall young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi and his travails in South Africa, where colonial regime was seeking to deny Indians their vote. His first political battle was not satyagraha but right to vote.
C Uday Bhaskar writes: In July 1894, Natal government proposed to disenfranchise Indians as part of colonial policy. In his petition to Lord Ripon, Secretary of State for Colonies, Gandhi wrote that an Indian without vote would lose "self-respect, to remain in the Colony". A year later, warned consequences of disenfranchisement were "too dreadful to contemplate".
Read more - Silencing Dissent: The Erosion of Indian Democracy
That fight, in a colony, became template for India and what he envisioned for free Indian citizen. In decades preceding 1947, many in Congress and Whitehall argued India was too illiterate, caste-ridden, diverse for adult franchise. Gandhi opposed unequivocally. In Young India and Harijan through 1920s, he argued universal adult franchise must be basis from day one, for it compels powerful to listen. At 1931 Round Table Conference, he demanded it without qualification, for men and women, rich and poor, literate and illiterate, irrespective of faith and caste.
In September 1896 in Durban, Mohandas Gandhi found his name on electoral roll even though he had not applied. A candidate, knowing few Indians had vote, had included Gandhi's name without his knowledge to secure his support. Recalling this 35 years later, he said, “Since then, I have known how voters' lists are prepared.”
Read more - Jail Will Cure It
Elections in free India have been plagued by money and muscle power, but never have so many citizens been disenfranchised en masse as by SIR, tainting moral sheen that gives equal weight to each voice in democratic template.
Bhaskar's test for SIR on Gandhi Jayanti: Does revision increase citizen self-respect? Is roll prepared impartially? Is voting treated as right or privilege?
Tags: #GandhiJayanti #SIR #RightToVote #SouthAfrica #CUDayBhaskar #Disenfranchisement #Natal #AdultFranchise #Democracy #VoterList