Kejriwal and Mahatma Gandhi similarIJ So silly
Given that author and Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Rajmohan Gandhi has joined the Aam Aadmi Party and is the party's candidate for the lok Sabha election from East Delhi constituency, it is natural for him to plunge into eulogies for his leader Arvind Kejriwal. But he has gone overboard in drawing comparisons between Mahatma Gandhi and Mr Kejriwal. It has done no good to his reputation — and the analogy is certainly a demeaning gesture to the Father of the Nation. The “energy” and “hope” that Mr Gandhi sees as the common factor between the movements that Mr Kejriwal and the Mahatma led had been channelled for entirely different purposes. Mahatma Gandhi aroused the consciousness of the masses against being enslaved to the British, while Mr Kejriwal ran a campaign on the fake promise of good governance and combating corruption. As Chief Minister of Delhi, he had every opportunity to make good his assurances to the people, but he did not. Moreover, the ‘energy’ behind the Mahatma's movement derived from a position of moral strength that he had, whereas Mr Kejriwal simply hijacked the momentum that Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement had generated. Mahatma Gandhi did not need props to unite the country for the cause of freedom; Mr Kejriwal had to wean away members of Anna's India Against Corruption movement. Most important of all, the Mahatma's intentions were honourable and his methods were transparent and driven by sincerity — even if his supporters did not agree with some of those methods. On the contrary, the Aam Aadmi Party's chief has spoken with a forked tongue and demonstrated a wide gap between his statement and action. He went back on several of his assurances soon after he assumed power, and during the time he remained in office for the brief period of 49 days. In the days to follow, his critics were vindicated and many supporters dismayed by his brazen tactic to push himself ahead through cheap and populist antics.
The most laughable and outrageous comparison that Mr Rajmohan Gandhi makes is between Mr Kejriwal's recent ‘fact-finding' visit to Gujarat (and his 16 questions to Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi) and the Mahatma's salt satyagraha. Eminent historian and author that he is, Mr Gandhi ought to have seen the farce in the analogy. Mahatma Gandhi undertook the Dandi March as a symbol of protest of the people's refusal to pay salt tax to the British. It was his way of showing that the resources of the country belonged to its people and not to foreign rulers. On the other hand, Mr Kejriwal's much-hyped and content-wise hollow trip to Gujarat was nothing more than a political stunt, a desperate attempt at wining over voters to the AAP's side ahead of an election in a State which has seen all-round progress in the more than a decade of the BJP's rule under Mr Modi.