Democracy in India stands as one of the most remarkable experiments in human history. A vast nation of immense diversity chose the path of popular rule after centuries of colonial domination. Millions exercise their franchise with regularity and passion. Yet today that system faces a profound crisis of confidence. Institutions that once commanded broad respect now struggle under the weight of suspicion. Citizens increasingly ask a simple, human question: does my vote still count, and will I still be allowed to vote?
This crisis is not abstract. It touches daily life across the country and is felt with particular sharpness in places like Goa.
1. The Erosion of Institutional Trust
Parliament, the judiciary, the election machinery and the civil service were designed to check one another and check the executive. When these bodies appear to function at the pleasure of the ruling dispensation rather than as independent guardians of the Constitution, public faith weakens.
Debates in the legislature grow rarer and more scripted. Judicial appointments and decisions invite charges of selective urgency. Regulatory agencies that once operated with quiet authority now face accusations of partisan zeal. Such perceptions, whether fully justified or not, corrode the belief that power remains accountable.
2. The Poisoning of Discourse
Differences of opinion are healthy in a free society. What has become unhealthy is the conversion of every disagreement into a test of loyalty to the nation itself. Dissent is too often branded as disloyalty. Media platforms amplify outrage rather than argument. Social media algorithms reward the loudest and most extreme voices.
In such an atmosphere, the patient work of compromise becomes nearly impossible. Citizens retreat into echo chambers and regard those who disagree as existential threats rather than fellow members of the republic.
3. The Fragility of the Electoral Foundation
Free and fair elections remain the foundation of democratic legitimacy. When questions arise about the accuracy of voter lists, the transparency of campaign finance, or the neutrality of enforcement agencies during election periods, the foundation trembles. Even the perception of uneven application of rules is enough to damage confidence.
In Goa, this fragility is intimate. People who have lived in the same ward for forty years suddenly find their names missing. 97 persons with right documents are reported to kept out of the voting role. What their future ? These are human anxieties.
4. A New Term: Necrofranchisement
To understand this moment, we need a term from Achille Mbembe. Mbembe coined necropolitics to describe power that decides who is allowed to live and who is made to die.
What we are witnessing in the electoral field is a parallel logic. I propose to call it Necrofranchisement.
Necrofranchisement: the sovereign power of the election machinery uses power to declare a living citizen politically dead, by making his or her vote disposable.
In classic necropolitics, the state decides whose life matter. In necrofranchisement, the election apparatus ( may be Chief election commissioner) decides which voters matter. Who can vote and who cannot, who remains on the roll and who is deleted under Special Intensive Revision, who is marked as doubtful, duplicate or shifted, is decided by an administrative body whose power increasingly appears discretionary and arbitrary.
The voter is not killed. He is made politically dead, a Homo Sacer ( Gergio Agamben). He continues to live, pay taxes, and obey laws, but his capacity to authorize power is suspended. He becomes what we may call a disposable voter, useful when his presence helps a narrative, erasable when his absence helps an outcome.
This is why the current anxiety around the Election Commission of India feels different from ordinary anti-incumbency complaints. The issue is not which party wins. The issue is whether the very list of who is allowed to choose is being shaped by a power that can include and exclude at will. When that perception spreads, and today it has spread widely after the Bihar SIR exercise and the debates over Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi and Karnataka rolls, democracy stops being a contest between parties and becomes a contest over the very definition being a citizen.
A republic cannot survive if its citizens begin to believe that their franchise is granted by grace rather than guaranteed by right.
The Two Futures
These national problems acquire a distinct local colour in Goa. The smallest state has long been celebrated for its natural beauty and syncretic culture. Yet many Goans feel that decisions affecting their land, water and cultural continuity are taken far away by forces that neither understand nor respect their home. Unregulated mining had destroyed the hills. Large tourism projects continue to strain fragile ecosystems. Land is acquired with inadequate consultation for development. And now, with necrofranchisement, even the ability to say no at the ballot box feels less secure.
The future will be decided by which path we take.
One path is further centralization and majoritarian assertion. Institutions lose autonomy, polarization hardens, and regional identities are subordinated to a single narrative of national strength. It may deliver short term stability, but it risks the slow death of genuine consent , freedom and self-rule.
The other path is renewal through restraint and inclusion.
How Faith Can Be Won Back
How can any government, and any election machinery, win back the faith of the people?
First, visible humility before the Constitution. Constitutional limits must be treated as sacred boundaries, not obstacles. The same rules must apply to friends and enemies alike. Hence a reliable and trustworthy investigation about the alleged misconduct of the chief of ECI is a must .
Second, radical transparency in the voter list. The SIR process has to be brought to a halt. If at all it has to be done . It has to conducted under self imposed condtiond that refers it open, verifiable, and contestable at the village level, not a black box exercise. Deletion must require the same burden of proof as inclusion. A living citizen must never become politically dead by an invisible keystroke. We have bury necrofranchisement.
Third, genuine federal respect. India is a union of states, each with its own history and aspirations. In Goa this means recognizing that the coastline, the forests and the village commons are not merely resources for national growth targets. They are the living inheritance of communities. 97 and more ( those were views as dead or missing to be reinvestigated) Goans who have been disenfranchised have to be given back their right to vote.
Finally, a civic culture that refuses necrofranchisement. Schools and universities must teach not only the formal structure of the Constitution but the habits that keep democracy alive: the capacity to listen, the willingness to change one’s mind, learning to dissent and the refusal to treat political opponents as enemies.
The crisis facing Indian democracy is real and serious. It is not a temporary inconvenience that will disappear with the next election. Nor is it a fatal disease that must end in authoritarianism.
The choice remains open. In Goa as elsewhere, people still possess the power to insist that government exists to serve them rather than to manage them, and that a voter is never disposable.
Whether that power is exercised with wisdom and persistence will decide the character of the republic for decades to come.
