SAMIR NAZARETH
A friend, after submitting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) forms for herself and her parents, con cluded there is more to India’s diversity than the eye can see. She claimed the SIR process brings up aspects of plurality that bureaucracy and govern ment don’t usually deal with. Culture – it’s more about what you don’t see In layperson terms, Indi an culture is like the Indian thaali – it is the sum of many parts. Each dish in the thaali is prominent in itself. The taste of these dishes and the con stituents of the thaali change from region to region. There fore, the Nehruvian concept of ‘unity in diversity’. Hinduism has been vari ously described as a religion, way of life, and culture. These descriptions suggest its het erogeneity.
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There are a mul titude of Hindu gods, many with avatars. Different gods and avatars are worshipped differently. In some Hindu tra ditions animals are sacrificed, in others it is anathema. Hin du dietary practice influenced by region, sect and occasion ranges from non-vegetarian food on certain days to certain foods being permissible dur ing fasts. Christianity and Islam, of ten presented as monoliths, are just as diverse. There are at least 3 branches of Islam – Shia, Sunni and Ibadi. The Sunni tradition has four ma jor jurisprudence schools: Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali. Similarly, Christianity encom passes many denominations based on theology, biblical interpretations and forms of worship. Right-wing narratives at tempt to reduce such rich diversity and fluidity into a monolith. Putting forward one re ligion or sub-culture as the country’s culture is similar to focussing on one form in the divine Vishwaroopa or claim ing the Holy Spirit from the Trinity defines Christianity. While not claiming one cul ture takes precedence over another, there was a simplifi cation of socio-cultural diver sity to enable socio-econom ic development. Thus, some pieces of India’s jigsaw puzzle are identified and fitted into monochrome silos via surveys and official questionnaires.
However, these cannot ac commodate or reflect India’s interwoven plurality. When this complex reality meets the Bharatiya Janata Party’s politico-administra tive state it only ends with accentuating India’s heteroge neity. The current SIR process illustrates this unusually well. SIR and India’s unseen diversity Many worry the SIR may further a politico-philosoph ical goal of culling India’s di versity. However, the SIR puts the spotlight on facets of India’s diversity that governments have difficulty processing. Names are one such example. In India, names are usually identifiers of parentage, caste, religion and region or village. However, the extent of this identification differs accord ing to region and religion. For example, the name of a Hindu person in the South includes the father’s name, even if as an initial. In parts of Western India, the father’s name forms part of the child’s name. This naming convention is not followed nationally.
Some names do not reflect parentage. The first name and middle name are devoid of any link to the father. The only common feature is the surname. Some Christians follow re gional naming practices, oth ers don’t. Thus, when some Christians fill official docu ments with the assistance of a government representative, the official may, out of habit, add the father’s name to the person’s name. Or the com puterised form automatically does this job. Consequently, different documents contain different versions of the fa ther’s name, and name of the document holder. Such discrepancies can be come a major problem in the current SIR process when names, and relationships, have to be corroborated with other government cards. There is another issue. Christian names written in English don’t have a Deva nagari transliteration. Much depends on the person’s pronunciation and the aural faculty of the data-entry op erator, who has to meet daily quotas. A ‘J’ can be translit erated as ज , जज , ज as can a ‘Z’ in some instances. Thus, the Christian name in Hindi in various documents may have different iterations. Region and/or religion in fluences the English spelling of names like Samir and Sat ish.
These can be spelt Sameer and Sateesh. The name on the government card may reflect what the data entry operator is accustomed to, not the actu al name of the person. Further, to avoid caste silos, many Indians choose to use only their given name without any surname or father’s name. Does this create an issue in of ficial documents? The Election Commission of India (ECI) anticipates some of these issues writing ‘Spell ing names may vary between last SIR details and current details in 2025’. However, the onus of resolving the varia tions is on the citizen who faces an overworked admin istration. Visit a Booth Level Officer (BLO) or the local office han dling the SIR; one sees piles of forms. Each form has different handwriting. Inevitably, many of these forms are incomplete, have data that do not match with other official data or have insufficient documents for no fault of the submitter. This makes cross-checking forms difficult. On top of it there are the administrative variations in names bequeathed by pre vious administrations to the current one. Officials are un der pressure to complete the process within ECI mandated deadlines which may also re sult in errors. Is it any won der that the process worries citizens, and that there are reports of BLOs committing suicide and dying from heart attacks. These are ingredients for potential constitutional and human rights problems be cause at the very least citizens have to deal with bureaucratic inconsistencies that eventu ally make participating in the electoral process difficult. There are attempts to ho mogenise India. Though one can attempt to submerge and drown Indian diversi ty, like Ram Shilas it always floats and surfaces to create a bridge. The unintended con sequence of the SIR process is the reiteration of India’s heterogeneity and the impor tance of accepting it. But is the collateral damage worth it? (Samir Nazareth is an author who writes on so cio-economic and environ mental issues)
