Eveleen
A bit disturbed by Anand’s use of the word ‘dramatic’ to describe how disenfranchised people have responded to the investigative report on the CEC (Chief Election Commissioner). I would like to bring your attention to the mediation of any social or political process by algorithms. It depoliticises a disenfranchising process and makes it look like a technical issue, even though the ECI has, by default, become the basis for defining citizenship. Perhaps that is why the response of disenfranchised and displaced people (if you go by Reporters’ Collective) appears dramatic. The CEC is hiding behind an algorithm, and they are promising some amount of transparency. But can more surveillance be the solution to surveillance when the demand is for accountability and justice? These questions may “appear” dramatic in the face of an algorithm assembled by people. But when the violence is systemic, repetitive and based on systematic exclusion, voicing these questions should be obvious?
