World’s Most Populous Country Cuts 130 Million People From Voter Rolls. Muslims Are Enraged.

Protests erupted across India over the past week after the country scrubbed more than 130 million names from its voter rolls, a purge that has especially enraged the country’s large Muslim population.

One senior official familiar with the Hindu ruling party told the New York Times, on condition of anonymity, that the move was meant to block political participation by Muslims, which make up nearly 15% of India’s population of 1.48 billion people. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) argues that the rolls needed to be updated to ensure accuracy and weed out “infiltrators.” To get back on the rolls, people must produce documents proving their citizenship — a requirement critics say is difficult to meet in a country where record-keeping is not common for much of the population.

President Donald Trump praised India’s efforts in August while advocating for the U.S. Senate to pass the “Save America Act” in his effort to ensure election security in the United States.

“Earlier this month, India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, asked our Administration — How can you have Elections in the U.S. without a valid Photo ID?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “India’s last Election had 646,000,000 Voters! Less than 1% voted by mail, and every single Voter had to have a VALID Photo Identity Document. We need to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, now!”

India’s “Cockroach” youth movement led last week’s protests after earlier demonstrations helped force the education minister’s resignation in July. The movement is now demanding the resignation of Kumar, accusing him of manipulating the rolls to give Modi and the BJP an electoral advantage. Demonstrations took place across multiple cities with thousands of people gathering in frustration. 

Kumar has not commented on the voter roll purge recently, but he defended the election commission last year, saying, “For the Election Commission, there ​is neither an opposition nor ​a ruling side; everyone ⁠is equal.”

Parties opposing the BJP have called for Kumar to be criminally prosecuted for treason.

It’s not the first time India’s electoral voter roll revisions have been in the spotlight. In December, India made one of its largest voter revisions in decades. Opposition leaders also claimed then that the process was being used to disenfranchise poor and minority voters — particularly Muslims.

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