Today belongs to Arvind Kejriwal, and it would be churlish to hurl the grimmest possibilities at him at a time when he has just taken over as the Delhi Chief Minister with the promise of clean, effective, non-arrogant, and people’s governance, writes RAJESH SINGH
In Thomas Hardy’s 19th century classic, The Return of the Native, the protagonist Diggory Venn travels the country marking flocks of sheep with a red mineral called ‘reddle’. He is thus known as the ‘reddleman’. The profession has left him stained in red from head to toe. Arvind Kejriwal makes for an unlikely comparison with Venn (for one, he has not ridden a carriage with a female passenger hiding in it), yet there are some coincidences. Through his rise from a social worker to an anti-corruption activist to the Chief Minister of Delhi riding on the back of an unprecedented public mandate, Kejriwal painted himself with the colour of virtue by marking politicians with the red ink of corruption. Although not a native of Delhi in the true sense, his return as Chief Minister is seen as that of the second coming of a native. And finally, while The Return of the Native covers the period of exactly a year and one day, Kejriwal took oath exactly one year from the day he quit office in February 2014.
Kejriwal may or may not have read the novel. If he has, he can perhaps empathise with Venn who has to go through many challenges before he finds true love and settles down to the decent vocation of a dairy farmer. The ‘reddleman’ becomes history thereafter. The Delhi Chief Minister too went through several downs and had to apologise for wrongs (resigning from chief ministership and driving his party to contest 400 lok Sabha seats in a fit of arrogance).
Perhaps he has found his vocation at last — politics which has to be conducted with responsibility and not by running around marking people with the ink of corruption. One marked difference: Venn found his lady love at the end while Kejriwal had one all along in the form of his wife, whom he publicly credited for his success after the Aam Aadmi Party’s resounding victory, and even embraced her to cheers from hundreds of his supporters.
Yet Kejriwal’s (and the AAP’s) success is hardly a precursor to another classic in the making, although the astounding statistics (the highest number of seats a party has ever won in Delhi; the largest vote share any single party has received so far; the first time a party has triumphed so conclusively that a national party such as the Congress has been reduced to zero in the Assembly and another national party, the BJP, has managed to just about squeeze in with three seats) does offer the tantalising possibility of a breakthrough political novel. Venn is a fictional character who is ably guided to his deeply satisfying destiny by his master and creator — the author. Kejriwal is real and has no one holding his hand. He is not ensconced in the safety of pages (print and now electronic), but exposed to his critics as much as to his admirers. He knows that, in the space of a few blunders, the line between these two groups can get blurred to the former category’s advantage.
When he repeatedly warns, “Ahankaar mat karna” (don’t get arrogant), it is as much to sound a warning to his party’s leaders and cadre intoxicated with the 67 out of 70 marks as it is a reminder to himself that he must not succumb to the danger. It is a wonderful sentiment coming at a time when political success has become synonymous with talking down to the very people who vote you to power, and when public servants have begun to conduct themselves as masters of the public.
To question Kejriwal’s sincerity at this moment would be like swimming against the tide. But the point has to be made. Isn’t it true that many of his colleagues (Shazia Ilmi, Vinod Kumar ‘Binny’) had quit his side because they felt he had become arrogantIJ Isn’t it also true that some of his colleagues (Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan), who are still with the Aam Aadmi Party, are deeply unhappy with what they consider as his dictatorial style of functioningIJ And, finally, isn’t it a fact that some of his close associates for now (Yogendra Yadav) had only a few months ago almost walked away because they were profoundly upset with the management of the party’s affairs with him at the helmIJ
That none of this has impacted his electoral achievement does not render them all irrelevant. What lies latent comes to the surface given the right (or in this case, the wrong) conditions. Even the mighty Jayaprakash Narayan could do nothing as the Janata Party fell apart. The ‘Empress of India’, an authoritative Indira Gandhi, could only helplessly watch as her Congress was torn to shreds by the people in 1977. And Kejriwal is nowhere close to the stature of these figures. He needs to take special interest in the rise and fall of the Asom Gana Parishad and its leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta in Assam. Mahanta was just 33 years old when he became the Chief Minister riding on a massive popular vote for his fledgling outfit driven by students and the youth — the same constituent group which has hoisted the AAP and Kejriwal to the present pre-eminent position. Then Mahanta lost the plot, the party split many ways, and the rest is history.
But today belongs to Kejriwal. It would be churlish to hurl the grimmest possibilities at him at a time when he has just taken over with the promise of clean governance, effective governance, people’s governance, non-arrogant governance. In short, ideal governance —almost the Ram Rajya type, though one wonders what one of his MlAs, who still questions the genuineness of the Batla House encounter and the martyrdom of a Delhi Police officer in the attack, has to say about using the term, Ram Rajya. He need not torment himself; Kejriwal is no Ram, though his colleague Kumar Vishwas reportedly believes he is Kejriwal’s laxman in this kalyug. (Where does that leave Manish SisodiaIJ) Vishwas is a popular poet given to bursts of patriotic fervour and at times to flights of fancy. He would make a perfect laxman to any Ram, and yet he must harbour the desire to be ‘Ram’ some day. Nothing wrong in that, except that remaining as laxman for too long could rob one’s drive to scale up.
One can say all this amounts to digression and a shoddy attempt perhaps at juxtaposing mythology with modern-day realities. If so, recall the importance of Ramlila Maidan. It’s here that Kejriwal and team have taken oath. Isn’t it here that Dussehra is celebrated with the greatest burst of fireworks to mark Ram’s victory over Ravan — of good over evilIJ And this is the same Ramlila Ground from where Kejriwal and his lieutenants shot into the national (and international) limelight through the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement. If more of mythological context is needed, here is the final one: one AAP leader narrates the story of how Ram’s two sons, living with their mother Sita in exile, stopped the Ashwamedh Yagna horse belonging to the deity. He strikes a comparison with Kejriwal halting the march of Modi’s electoral success horse.
Regardless of the mythological context and the many sloganeering barbs directed at the BJP (achche din have come for Kejriwal; AAP leader has made a ghar wapsi; Kejriwal is the real naseebwala), one must give full marks to the Aam Aadmi Party supremo. His 2013 impressive debut in which he led his party to a win in 28 seats had largely come from the momentum the Anna Hazare anti-corruption agitation had given the party, but this victory is entirely his own. Enough has been written and debated about the positive reasons, and much has been written and debated on how much the Opposition parties contributed to their rival’s triumph. It is history. But history remains dazzling only until the present turns sour or the future appears dim. Kejriwal can go the Rajiv Gandhi way if he makes the wrong choices, if he over-commits and under-delivers. Going by indications, it is a possibility, and the Chief Minister must steer clear of the trap.
His victory may symbolise the hope of a new politics free of VIP culture, of money power and of arrogance. But it is also founded on the tall promises he has made — many of which are intended sops attached with considerable financial costs. He has a soft corner for socialism, surrounded as he is by certain archaic minds. He must heed Margaret Thatcher’s words: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Thatcher may not be his ideal, but that must not stop him from seizing the wisdom in her words. Yes, he needs to be wise, besides being humble, if he wants the call, “Paanch saal Kejriwal”, to end not as a mere statistic honoured in letter though not in spirit.
In a rare burst of identity politics, Kejriwal had once flaunted his trading community credentials. Now, the bania in him should prompt the Chief Minister of Delhi: ‘Show me the money’, for the grand pronouncements that have been made in the AAP’s list of commitments — subsidised electricity, free water, thousands of CCTV cameras in the city, reduction in value added tax, establishment of hundreds of schools and hospitals, and more. He can mock Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani and the rest, and even decide to legally act against some of them. But they have the money, and they have the means to generate more money for themselves and others for whom Kejriwal’s heart bleeds. He can ridicule the Prime Minister for his ‘expensive’ sartorial tastes, but Modi controls the Central purse-strings which, when loosened, can lead to a flow in Delhi’s kitty. But Modi comes from Gujarat, and by virtue of the State’s DNA and his own early-life struggles with finance, he is not known to be profligate. If Kejriwal thinks he can get money from the tight-fisted Prime Minister to fund his fancy assurances, he will be disappointed.
All is not lost, though. The Union Government will be more forthcoming if Kejriwal, over the coming months, dilutes some of his grand promises to realistic levels — and in such a manner that it does not expose him as beating a retreat. It is, of course, also possible that Modi may partially pander to some of those demands and then leave the Chief Minister to hold the mess and own up.
Given that the Centre holds the trump card on the AAP’s promises, Kejriwal has been on his best conduct since winning the election. He called upon the Prime Minister and appealed to him for help and “guidance”. Even after Modi later took a pot-shot at the party for promising power at low rates without Delhi not even being a power producer, senior leaders contained themselves and merely hoped the Prime Minister would help them give the people of Delhi electricity at reasonable rates. Cooperation, not confrontation, is, at least for now, the strategy. It could be a sign of maturity, or political prudence. The fireworks are being perhaps saved for another day. Who knows, we might see a display of that at the Ramlila Maidan well before the Chief Minister completes his five years in power!
Meanwhile, Kejriwal has immersed himself in certain symbolic acts — of which he is a past master. He has distributed all the portfolios among his Ministers, keeping none for himself. He has turned the ultimate supervisor. It’s an experiment, and if it works, he can take credit for the innovation. If it doesn’t, he can assume charge of the departments he wants and yet bask in having tried something new. Thankfully, other forms of symbolicism have been shown the door. Kejriwal is no longer making a hue and cry about a ‘small’ official residence or a ‘small’ official car or about not having ‘police security’. Frankly, people don’t care how big the car is which the Chief Minister travels in, or how sprawling his or her house is, or what level of security he or she has. They need good governance — politically, economically and socially.
In the first flush of victory, Kejriwal admits that the huge mandate is “scary”, since so many hyped up expectations are riding on it. The burden of meeting them can break the most iron-willed backbone. If he fails, he can join the ranks of Mahanta and the others. If he succeeds, five years from now, we can have the slogan: “Aur paanch saal, Kejriwal”.