by Rajat Chandra Sarmah
 |
India Cut 130 Million From Voter Roll, Fueling Protests Against Modi: Public anger is growing over an exercise that critics say undermines the world’s largest democracy, particularly disenfranchising Muslims under the Hindu nationalist government. —The New York Times, October 6, 2026 |
Someone went looking for his name.
It had been there before—
among thousands of other names,
quietly printed,
waiting for a finger
to find it.
This time,
the finger moved down the page
and stopped.
Nothing.
He looked again,
then once more,
as if another reading
might put the name back.
Outside, something was changing
across the country.
Young people had begun
to gather in the streets.
What had been spoken quietly
inside drawing rooms
was now moving towards the road.
People who had watched in silence
were finding one another,
coming together in numbers
that could no longer be ignored.
Questions that once stayed indoors
were now being carried outside.
Who decides
whose name remains?
Who checks the list
before the list becomes
the truth?
In some places,
victory and defeat
stood closer than expected,
while the list
had grown shorter.
Numbers that once fitted
quietly into a column
now carried the weight
of people.
Petitions reached the court.
Dates were fixed,
then moved.
An election waited
for an answer
that had not yet arrived.
The anger spread.
People who had stood apart
were now filling the streets,
thousands upon thousands,
no longer willing
to remain apart.
Barricades went up.
Roads were closed.
Notices appeared.
The crowd was asked
to turn back.
But the streets kept filling.
Not everyone agreed
on what had happened.
Still, too many people
had begun to ask
whether the institutions
they had trusted
were still listening.
For years,
trust needed no proof.
You entered a polling booth,
pressed a button,
and went home.
Now people were looking
more closely at what happened
before a vote became a number,
and who was responsible
for what came after.
Something once taken for granted
was becoming visible:
the distance between
a citizen's faith
and the institution
that asks for it.
He folded the paper.
His name was still missing.
There was no way to know
who had taken it away.
For the first time,
he understood
that finding it again
might require more
than going to the polling booth.
Rajat Chandra Sarmah is a writer from Assam, India, and the author of eight books. His poetry and prose have appeared in literary journals and publications in India and internationally. He is a previously published contributor to The New Verse News and has received several literary awards and recognitions.