Delhi has a new Chief Minister and one is not very excited about it. The day Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal announced that Atishi Marlena would succeed him, with public relations firms working overtime, newspapers were flooded with reports about her Oxford education, her role in improving education in Delhi and putting her in the same category of leaders as the venereable Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit.
Being from the same gender doesn’t make one equal to others who went on to build a stature for themselves in public life. Why Atishi Marlena cannot be compared to Dikshit or Swaraj, we would come to it later but first examine her performance in the education sector.Her entry in the Kejriwal cabinet was late and she came to occupy the vacancy created following the resignations of Manish Sisodia and Satyender Jain, both of whem went to the jail.
Atishi’s entry into AAP was courtesy psephologist and activist Yogendra Yadav.The current Delhi Chief Minister’s parents and Yadav did only have a common background but also ideological moorings. People from such ideological anchorage have loosely been identified by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologues as urban naxals.
Surprisingly, Atishi decided to continue in the AAP even as it was shorn off all ethical socio-political commitments. Her defence of Kejriwal building a Ayodhya Ram Mandir replica and carrying out a puja much before the temple itself in Ayodhya was inaugurated, assured Kejriwal of Atishi having a pragmatic approach of politics bereft of any moral hangovers. This impression was further strengthened with the young leader named by her parents after Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin decided to defend her leader Kejriwal’s demand for having the image of Hindu god and goddess Ganesh and Laxmi on the currency notes.
Atishi Marlena has so far proved to be a true follower of her leader, Arvind Kejriwal, in going back on all that was promised to to the people and the public. Her biggest undoing has been in destabilising seats of higher education, specially those teaching humanity subjects, despite she and her parents both being from not just academic but humanity background.
She first as the Adviser to then Education Minister Manish Sisodia and later as Minister herself has stangled the 12-colleges of Delhi Universityfinancially which were funded by Delhi government. These colleges were initiatives of Delhi government starting in the 1990s, when the city administration offered to expand higher education in Delhi funding new colleges set-up under Delhi University.
Most of these colleges were set-up during the BJP regime between 1993-1998. Thereafter for the next 15 years, the Congress government under the stewardship of Sheila Dikshit strengthened the foundation of these colleges funding new buildings and giving liberal grants for growth of academic and human resources. A time came when these colleges were on a more sound financial footing than the remaining colleges of Delhi University.
However, since the AAP came to power in 2015, it changed the funding mechanism to exploit students’ funds to pay salaries and other maintenance expenses. The education department started heaping false charges on the colleges administration like financial mismanagement, appointment of teachers beyond sactioned workload, manipulation in non teaching appointments, so on and so forth.
On the contrary, all the statutory audit reports conducted by the state and the central government had over many years found no financial fault in these 12 colleges. The whole game to defame the colleges was to cover up government bankruptcy and lack of funds to pay the colleges.
The freebies were taking their toll government exchequer and these 12 colleges became the first to face the brunt. They continue to reel under financial crisis, which has also affected their academic growth.Similar is the story of the schools under the Delhi government.
Agencies are already investigating a financial scam which is alleged to have proposered in the name of building infrastructure. Irregularities in the construction of classrooms for Delhi government schools, claiming to involve a scam of Rs 1,300 crore is being probed.
Atishi comes to office with the clear impression to keep the seat warm till her political mentors are cleared of a mire of corruption charges against them. Nevertheless she has a chance to redeem her fast deteriorating reputation of being a politician with moral values and practising ethics in public life. But then this redemption will not be easy to come her way.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice