Disenfranchisement

The deprivation of an individual's or group's right to vote or other civil rights and privileges of citizenship, either through explicit legal exclusion or structural barriers such as identity documentation requirements, polling booth inaccessibility, or electoral roll deletions. In Indian history, disenfranchisement operated through colonial-era property and literacy qualifications that excluded the vast majority of Indians from franchise until universal adult suffrage was constitutionally guaranteed under Article 326 (1950). Contemporary concerns include the deletion of migrant workers from electoral rolls, effectively disenfranchising crores of internal migrants.