Context

• Success, whether individual or institutional, is an elusive concept and measuring it requires more than tallying outputs; it demands an evaluation of outcomes, processes, and legitimacy.
• The distinction between the desire to be successful and the desperation to demonstrate success underscores the tension many organisations face when their performance is under scrutiny.
• Nowhere is this truer than in democratic institutions, where credibility is both a function of competence and perception.
• The recent controversy surrounding the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls exemplifies the complexities of assessing success in governance.

Institutional Legacy of ECI, Expectations and The Complexity of Its Success Metrics

• Institutional Legacy of ECI and Expectations
  • The ECI’s historical reputation compounds the current dilemma.
  • From preparing the first electoral rolls in the nascent years of the republic to conducting elections for over a billion voters, the ECI has earned global admiration as a gold standard.
  • Its capacity to mobilise vast resources, standardise procedures, and develop political consensus has strengthened its credibility.
  • This legacy creates high expectations: any perceived faltering is amplified in public discourse.
  • Thus, the ECI’s decision to launch an extraordinary revision of Bihar’s rolls is judged not only on procedural correctness but also against its storied record of efficiency and impartiality.
• The Complexity of Success Metrics
  • For the ECI, the challenge is not merely operational but normative.
  • Political parties, the judiciary, civil society, and citizens each employ different yardsticks.
  • For some, success may mean the integrity of the electoral rolls; for others, it may be inclusivity and avoidance of disenfranchisement.
  • The ECI, therefore, operates in a trilemma, balancing legality, feasibility, and legitimacy under public gaze.

The Bihar Imbroglio: Intentions and Contradictions

• On June 24, 2025, the ECI announced its decision to undertake a large-scale cleansing of Bihar’s electoral rolls, an initiative framed as necessary to ensure purity of the rolls by excluding ineligible and including all eligible voters.
• At first glance, this appears unassailable: who could object to clean rolls?
• Yet, the timing and execution sparked opposition from political parties and civil society, raising fears of disenfranchisement.
• Critics likened the demand for proof of eligibility to requiring a marriage certificate decade into a settled marriage, technically defensible but socially disruptive.
• The ECI’s subsequent relaxations, accepting parent-based credentials for post-2003 voters and allowing forms without supporting documents, further complicated the narrative.
• While these adjustments were intended to ease compliance, they also raised operational ambiguities:
  • How will officials verify eligibility without documentation? Will such flexibility withstand judicial scrutiny?
• Ultimately, the ECI risks replacing one controversy (stringent requirements) with another (perceived arbitrariness).

Defining Success of ECI’s Action and The Citizenship Conundrum

• Defining Success of ECI’s Action: Inclusion, Exclusion, or Optics?
  • Should the ECI measure its achievement by the sheer volume of duly filled forms, or by the number of ineligible names removed?
  • If success hinges on the latter, was an extraordinary exercise necessary when routine revisions could have addressed issues like duplicate entries or migration?
  • Moreover, the reliance on presumptions, such as assuming the 2003 rolls as a citizenship baseline, raises legal and ethical concerns.
  • Can the ECI guarantee that post-revision, all names on the rolls are indisputably linked to Indian citizenship? If not, is the exercise more symbolic than substantive?
• The Citizenship Conundrum
  • Perhaps the most profound implication lies in conflating electoral registration with proof of citizenship.
  • The Representation of the People Act authorises the ECI to maintain accurate rolls but does not make it the final arbiter of citizenship, a role vested in other legal frameworks.
  • By operationalising presumptions of citizenship, the ECI risks venturing into contested legal territory.
  • No individual chooses their birthplace or documentation; it is the state’s responsibility to ensure reliable systems.
  • Burdening citizens with retrospective documentary obligations, especially in a state like Bihar with high migration and socio-economic vulnerability, could undermine democratic participation.

Conclusion

• The ECI’s Bihar initiative underscores the paradox of institutional success: actions taken to enhance credibility can, if poorly timed or inadequately communicated, erode trust.
• Success, in this context, cannot be reduced to procedural compliance or statistical milestones.
• It must encompass fairness, transparency, and sensitivity to citizens’ lived realities.
• Ultimately, the question for whom the bell tolls, resonates beyond Bihar, it tolls for every democratic institution grappling with the dual imperatives of integrity and inclusion.