IAMC condemns Indian government’s move placing millions at risk of disenfranchisement in backdoor route to implement NRC
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 22, 2025) — The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) today strongly condemned the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) inhumane and deeply troubling directive, which raises serious legal and constitutional concerns. The ECI has mandated nearly 80 million voters in Bihar state to re-register by July 26 or risk being stripped of their right to vote and reported as “suspected foreign nationals.”
The move is part of the ECI’s “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) of electoral rolls in election-bound Bihar. The ECI has listed 11 acceptable documents for submission, ranging from birth certificates to passports, but has notably excluded Aadhaar, India’s national ID.
The exercise places millions of people at risk of disenfranchisement, exclusion and potential loss of citizenship and deportation, in what critics have slammed as a “backdoor route” to implement the similarly draconian National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The NRC, which requires individuals to provide decades-old documentation to prove citizenship, disproportionately impacts India’s poor and marginalized. It is often paired with the explicitly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which excludes Muslims and is widely seen as an effort to render them stateless.
“This sudden and draconian move by the ECI is a clear and dangerous attempt to disenfranchise millions in India’s poorest state, and to particularly target Muslims in a sinister callback to the goals of the CAA-NRC. This is state-sponsored discrimination disguised as electoral reform, and it must be unequivocally condemned,” said IAMC President Mohammad Jawad.
IAMC calls on the Indian government and the Supreme Court to immediately halt this draconian move by the ECI, which is a brazen attempt to strip citizens of their voting rights. IAMC also calls on the United States government and international community to publicly condemn this, hold the Indian government accountable for its escalating human rights violations, and demand protections for India’s Christian and Muslim minorities and other marginalized communities.
