Hyderabad, July 13 -- Mohammed Nargis has spent most of her adult life fending for herself. Widowed soon after her children were born, she raised them alone, working as a butcher, a trade tied to her Katika caste, before moving to work in a hotel. Now in her seventies, she lives by herself in a rented room in Sri Ram Nagar Colony, Uppal, on a state pension of Rs 2,000 a month, out of which she pays Rs 2,500 in rent.

These days, she has a fresh worry. She lost her Voter ID two years ago, and the state's ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has left her racing to replace it before her name can be struck off the list altogether.

'They keep shooing us away'

On Monday, July 13, Nargis went to the Malkajgiri Municipal ...