By shivasundar
The Election Commission of India, acting as a puppet of the Modi government, is carrying out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on the pretext that millions of illegal Muslim migrants are entering India from neighbouring countries. However, what study has the Government of India or the Election Commission relied upon to conclude that illegal migration, is causing such widespread disruption in the country?
Neither the government nor the Commission has answered this question.
Without conducting any proper study on illegal migration, how and why are they undertaking a potentially harmful exercise such as the SIR? Even the Supreme Court, while examining the constitutional validity of the SIR, unfortunately did not ask this fundamental question.
Thus, three-fourths of the SIR process was ‘completed’ without any respect for due process or empirical foundation whatsoever. After as many as 75 million Indians had already been pushed out of the electoral rolls, the Modi government, on May 26—just a day before the Supreme Court was due to deliver its verdict in the SIR matter —constituted a “High-Level Committee on Demographic Change” under the chairmanship of retired Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naik.
A close look at the committee’s composition, its members, and its terms of reference makes it abundantly clear that this is, yet another, carefully plotted political-bureaucratic plot designed to perpetuate the harassment of Indian Muslims. First, as Justice Prakash himself has reportedly admitted, he possesses no expertise whatsoever in this subject. He was also not informed in advance about the assignment.
Second, the other members of the committee include a retired bureaucrat, Durga Shankar Mishra; a retired police officer, Balaji Srivastava; and Shamika Ravi, an economic adviser to the Prime Minister. This is the same scholar who recently dismissed concerns about the rupee falling to 100 against the dollar by saying that it is “just a number.” Shamika also has the unique distinction of being the daughter of none less than former Tamil Nadu governor, R.N.Ravi, notorious for his attacks on federalism in that state. So critical has Ravi been to the services of the New Delhi regime that, in March 2026, he was transferred as the governor of West Bengal where he oversaw not just the notorious SIR but also the recently concluded ‘elections’ to the State Assembly!
Most strikingly, in a committee specifically constituted to study demographic change, there is not a single expert on the subject, demography. Every member appears to have been selected for political allegiance and loyalty rather than for any recognised expertise in population studies.
The terms of reference assigned to the committee raise even more serious concerns. Notably, the committee has not even been asked to investigate whether there is, in fact, any large-scale and systematic illegal migration into India from neighbouring countries.
Terms of Reference Designed to Officialise Propaganda
Instead of first establishing whether such large-scale, organised, and malicious illegal migration is actually taking place, the committee has already proceeded on the assumption that it is. The questions it has been asked to study include:
This story was originally published in sabrangindia.in. Read the full story here.