India's citizens are witnessing a remarkable inversion of democracy: a government choosing its voters rather than the other way around. Even as public discontent grows across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has strengthened its grip on power by manipulating the electoral process itself. The result is a stark reminder of what can happen when institutions meant to safeguard democratic integrity instead work to undermine it.
The means by which this inversion was achieved were deceptively mundane. In the run-up to the state elections held in April and May, India's Election Commission -- effectively appointed by the government and already facing accusations of pro-BJP bias -- launched a "special intensive revision" (SIR) of voter rolls. Officially, the exercise was intended to improve their accuracy and integrity. In practice, as the political scientist Gilles Vernier has argued, it amounted to "the greatest disruption of the electoral process India has ever seen".
