India, April 29 -- In a village near the banks of the Ichamati River in Taki constituency, an elderly Muslim man tells us that one son and one daughter (but not the other children) from his family were deleted from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Review (SIR). The booth level officer (BLO) told him that their birth certificates were rejected and helped them re-apply online. The process has shattered his trust in the bureaucracy. His wife is too scared to come out and meet us, and warns her husband to stop talking to "educated" people. Despondent, he tells us, "At this point, we can only hope they put my children on the final list."

Just a couple of kilometers away, a middle-aged Hindu man working in Gujarat's Bharuch has...