Economist and political analyst Parakala Prabhakar addressed a gathering at the ‘Manthan’ conference organised by ‘Eddelu Karnataka’ at Gandhi Bhavan in Bengaluru on 17.11.2025 protesting against the Election Commission’s countrywide SIR directive. Here is Full speech of Parakala Prabhakar:
We need to understand what is the challenge that we face today, what is the threat, some time ago we used to think that we might face a threat. Today we are facing the threat, it is already here. There are two types of threats, one is the challenge that we have to understand from within the civil society, that threat that challenge is our indifference. We don’t seem to be bothered, before this meeting I was having a cup of tea and this friend of mine please stand up, yeah he asked me an interesting question. You’re saying that all these irregularities are happening, how dare they do that how can they do that, they are able to do all these irregularities brazenly openly because they have understood that we won’t bother.
That is the first threat, why do they think that we don’t bother they think that we don’t bother, because when I’ll tell you some recent instance. Not I’m not going into history when in an open court somebody throws a chapel at the chief justice of India, so tell me how many of us have gone onto the road? How how many 100, 200 out of 140 crores how many? So when the chief justice was thrown a chapel at him, we are busy. What is this signal that we are sending?
When Manipur is burning for the last more than 2 years is Manipur part of India it is still? Sure is it We don’t bother. When okay that is very far but in our home when our youngsters are unemployed we are not bothered, because unemployment is at a historic high today. In that youth unemployment is at a historic high one of the highest in the world in that educated youth unemployment is at a historic high and educated youth unemployment is at a high one of the highest in the world. Then household debt is at a historic high, household saving is at a historic low, we are not bothered.
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You know Manrega you have heard of Manrea manrea is the rural employment guarantee act with minimum wage and it is a demanddriven program. In the demanddriven program they make some allocation for an year and whenever that fund is over, they add some more fund. It has never happened but this time last year it happened, that the entire sum allocated for one full year was exhausted in 6 months, which means there is a huge amount of rural distress, we are not bothered. What signal does I don’t go I want to I don’t want to go into many more details but these are enough how what kind of a message, does somebody who is ruling this country get from this kind of a indifference. We can do anything isn’t it i’m answering your question we can do anything these people are not bothered, they don’t react they don’t question us. This is one.
Shivasundar has u told us very clearly he’s given the history of our republic. I’ll just take up two things out of that we have to ask a basic question. What is that which qualifies you and me to be a part of this political community. What is it? is it my property, no is it my education, no is it my cast, no is it my gender, no is it my religion, no what is it my language, no is it my region, no. What is it whose country is this does it belong to people who speak a language, does it belong to men, does it belong only to women, does it belong only to people who live in a particular state or in a particular direction east west north south, no. Does it belong to people who pray to a particular god or a set of gods, no. It it has nothing to do with your religion cast gender region language, it has only one criterion. Whether you are in India or not isn’t it. On that basis, everybody was given a right to vote and this is not this is not everywhere in the world as Shivisundar had said. Each country has its own way some countries said look you have to be belonging to this religion this nationality this race there are instances in for example in South Africa, they used to put a comb on your head and see whether your hair is an African hair or not there are some countries on that basis they were given citizenship and vote. But not in India did anybody come and put a comb in your hair here in India no never. So it all depends on your residence you’re here and you are a citizen you you are the owner of this country as much as I’m an owner of this country as much as Mohammed Kuni as much as DeshPande as much as Noor as much as Tara as much of as much as Manvi as much as anybody. We are all the owners, but not everybody agreed to this there are people who said no This country has to belong only to Hindus, therefore there was a project of Normally what happens? Is that in a political society, we all work to create a majority a political majority political majority is, it depends on your opinion. Whether our country should be going this way or that way should we adopt this policy or that policy, should we do this or that on the basis of that opinion is a majority built isn’t it in a democracy it is mobilization. How many people do I mobilize I mobilize 100 shivundar could mobilize only 60 so my opinion prevails mine is the political majority his is a political minority. But if you start making your religion as the majority not your politics then you are in a different game. So this is the game that is now being played that instead of a political majority, there is an attempt to create a communal a religious majority. You are a Hindu and you are a majority. So far we did not think that way we know that we are Hindu we know that we are Muslim we know that we are Sikh we know that we are kayastha or we know that we are a Brahmin we kshttria we are a sudra we know that but that is not politicized. Today those identities are being politicized. So instead of me opting for one policy or the other I am made to think because of my religion because of my cast I have to support this policy. You see the shift, that is the game that is being played.
Now what does SIR do here it’s interesting because some time ago there was an attempt to list out who are the citizens of this country. NRC, CAA and all those but there were a lot of protests they could not do that they could not carry on with that therefore, they started doing that through the election commission of India now. Shivasundar told us, how the election commission is constituted. It is very interesting to see sometime back I was I was traveling somewhere and somebody was sitting next to me in the flight, and they said percala you are Parkala yes I’m Parakala, I heard you speak somewhere saying that you know election commission is doing this election commission is doing that you’re missing one important point he said then I wanted to learn what is the important point that I was missing. Then he told me something very interesting he said “Look our BJP the country’s ruling party has many different wings to organize the farmers they have kisan mocrha to organize young people they have yuva mocrha to organize women they have mahila mocrha and to organize elections they have election mocrha that is the Election Commission of India. So why are you unnecessarily worried about it they have an election morcha and what is his name i’m not saying he’s saying so this is what is happening so the the there is an attempt now because we have resisted that do not classify us on the bas you know you you cannot give me citizenship, because I’m a Hindu and you cannot deny because it’s Muhammad Kuni is a Muslim don’t deny because we resist that we are here everybody who is resident of this country is a citizen. So we resisted that now there is a new attempt because you see if you reject something the same thing can be brought in a new dress fancy dress good dress very convincing dress, this dress is called Special Intensive Revision SIR. Why SIR is so convincing because SIR tells you very innocently that look there so many people who are already dead, but they are in the list. We have to take them out isn’t it do you agree yes of course we all agree there’s so many duplicate words it has to be taken out isn’t it man yeah it has she also agreed And there are people who are not living here anymore what do you do take them out yes take them out isn’t it convincing but what are they actually doing, it is like this you have seen an elephant of course in Karnataka you have to see an elephant. Elephant has two huge what are they called tusks isn’t it but the elephant doesn’t eat with that does it there are other things which so for eating there is something else for showing there is something else.
Now SIR all these duplicate votes people who are dead people who are not resident here anymore people are foreigners infiltrators guspitia that is the tusk you all agree with that this very interesting big white but actual thing is somewhere else the one that can really chew you and throw you out and make this country a Hindu raashtra. What is that? That is, You have 500 voters living in one house and that house number is zero. Huh and 65 lakh people are deleted from the voters list. Who are they? We do not know and election commission doesn’t tell us. Election Commission doesn’t say anything but sources from the election commission there is something else called sources do you know what is the sources we don’t know who that is Manvi do you know and sources say that so many Bangladeshies Rohingya have come, so we are removing them. So we started some people started questioning Madhav and other people have started questioning who are these people tell us some people have gone to the court. Court went on asking election commission please give the list and election commission said no we can’t give the list we don’t want to give the list and but the court for some reason sometimes court sometimes also does good things sometimes not always and that time they said no you have to you have to you have to and finally they had to publish it and when they published it I’ll tell you one example one small example, total objections in Bihar worth 3.75 lakhs objections means you know Tara is no more here you know she’s living somewhere else so such objections. But that can be right objections or wrong objections also, so out of 3.75 lakh objections of of which objections saying that these people are foreigners are only 1,087 Please mark this, out of total 3.75 lakh general objections foreigner objections are only 1,087 and out of 1,087 objections accepted first of all in order to verify you have to accept the objections isn’t? It so when what is the out of 1,087 390 were accepted 390 Malikarjun are you getting the numbers i I’ll I’ll say slowly so 3.75 lakhs was the total objections of which foreigner objections were were 1,087 of which accepted were 390 in which the number of Muslims were 76. Okay. Then of which the actual number were five confirmed foreigners, five and when the investigated investigation was over two were found to be dead out of five, so finally finally finally how many people were taken out as Guspetia? What three you see three Guspetia were taken out, after all this exercise of SIR. Yeah that is the but finally how many people were deleted they did not run dduplication uh uh software Madhav will tell you, there are so many duplications you know you have you’ve seen so many people tell us people from Brazil also were there, in it and not only once 20 times 30 times 20 times 300 times 400 times 200 times were also there and they want us to believe that all this exercise was undertaken in order to clean up the voters list. There was a cleanup you know what happened in other countries it could be America, North America, South America, Europe, Hungary, … Turkey whatever so many countries, Germany, they used to kill people who are not of their own religion or their own faith or their own language or their own race they used to kill People. Now a days it’s difficult to kill people because there’ll be bloodshed there’ll be a lot of uh attention so how do you kill a citizen? Do you know how to kill a citizen you strip them of the rights, then you are dead. So today we have a genocide happening in this country in the name of SIR, which is a bloodless genocide. You don’t see any blood on the carpet but there are 42 lakh people killed as citizens of this country. They are no more citizens because they don’t have a right to vote. When you don’t have a right to vote you’re done you’re dead as a citizen.
So what is happening in SIR is nothing but a bloodless genocide in India. Now we have reached a stage because of SIR in our democratic life. Democracy normally what happens? People elect the government. People choose the government, isn’t it. That is normal democracy. Now we have an interesting democracy, where the government is choosing the voters the government is choosing the people. Oh yeah you can be a voter no you can’t be a voter he has you see our prime minister told in so many meetings that I can find out these guspetias by the face the dress and all that. Can you find out? He’s given us a clue so on the basis yes you can do it no you you you have nothing to do with it no no no not you. So out of the entire population, those people who are more likely to vote for us are going to be in the list, those people who are not likely to vote not likely to vote for us are out of the list. Now what is interesting many people are very depressed and you know they don’t know what is what has happened in Bihar how is it possible in fact he was also saying how is it possible that you know people are endorsing this, what I am saying is that you see when the government has chosen who are the voters, who should be the voters, on the basis of whether they are likely to vote for me or not isn’t it that’s the criterion. Even then the opposition could win some seats isn’t it great, it is great. So today what is happening in the name of SIR is a political cleansing it is not a waterless cleansing, it is a genocide, democracies die today in 2024-25 in this part of our century the 21st century, not like before suddenly army general announces on the radio that you know we are clamping martial law, no democracy, parliament is dissolved, government is dissolved, president prime minister everybody’s is arrested. No that’s gone today slowly and slowly and slowly and slowly by taking away your rights by introducing sir by introducing duplicate votes by hiking the vote. You know suddenly you have 60% at preliminary figures, 67% late night, just before counting you have 70% vote. Where are these things coming from? There’s a fraud. There so these are the things that is happening in this democracy. They are able to do this because we are not resisting it, so we have to say no to SIR and say that we are going to stick to the values of our constitution don’t meddle with them. We have to be a plural country, a diverse country, we are a political majority, we work for a political majority, but not a communal majority or a religious majority. This is the message that we have to send. We have to send this not on Facebook or Twitter or on social media but by launching a feet on the ground agitation, a peaceful feet on the ground agitation to stop this bloodless genocide in this country to stop this bloodless political genocide in this country, we have to say no to SIR and take out all the reservations that we have in our mind about this exercise that is happening. Don’t fall for this you know this is only cleaning up this is only dduplication this is only taking out the names of the dead people this is only taking out the names of those people who have left the constituency left the town left the district no it’s not. It is clearly an attempt to change the nature of our political community, the nature of our constitution, the nature of our polity the nature of our country. This we have to understand. This is the challenge and another challenge as I told you that we have to leave our indifference. Don’t give them the impression that we don’t care whatever you do no we have to say no to SIR. will we shall we or shall we just leave it tomorrow when you go to the polling booth, your vote may not be there, because you are now seen here in this meeting you are not likely to vote for them therefore your vote will not be there would you resist it or not? No no only two people have, two only five, only six, all thank you.
-Parakala Prabhakar, Economist and Political Analyst
