A hope lost to politics as usual
The late Nirad C Chaudhuri’s definition of India as the continent of Circe, where humans are transmogrified into a lesser species, is particularly true of politics in India, and the latest evidence of this is the transformation of Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal.
Never before in the history of Indian politics had a party, and that too a two-year-old fledgling ranged against an all-conquering behemoth like the BJP, ever won 99.5 per cent of the seats in an election. Kejriwal and his party achieved this in the 2015 elections in Delhi, winning 67 of the 70 seats. He did this on the back of a desperate yearning for change, not just in government but in the very nature and quality of politics in the country.
In 2014, the people brought in the BJP to replace the Congress in power because they wanted to change the government. But in Delhi in 2015, they brought in Kejriwal because they wanted to change the very essence, values and idiom of politics in the country, not just the government. The transformation sought was far more basic and elemental and Kejriwal was the Merlin who could do this.
Cleaning out these Augean stables was no easy task, what with 70 years of accumulated political ordure. The long-suffering citizens were not unaware of this and were prepared to make allowances for the inexperience and administrative immaturity of a greenhorn party, and they have been keeping the faith these last two years and more.
They have consistently overlooked, if not forgiven, Kejriwal for his many mistakes: the dog fights with the Prime Minister and the lieutenant governor, the expulsion of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, the distancing from other AAP stalwarts like Anjali Damania and Mayank Gandhi, the dubious ticket distribution in Punjab, the hobnobbing with Khalistanis, the failure to improve Delhi’s transport problems, the appointment of as many as 21 MLAs as parliamentary secretaries in order to circumvent the constitutional provisions.
The people perceived these mistakes as errors of judgement and continued to repose their faith in AAP and Kejriwal for one reason, and one reason only: his appeal to a higher political standard. The Indian polity has always lacked a moral and ethical underpinning, an honest and principled core, the nucleus of compassion, humaneness and tolerance around which all civilised nations and societies are built.
In Kejriwal and in AAP many Indians saw the vague outline of a path leading back to our moral roots, and so they persevered; for all his faults, they reasoned, here was a politician who would never compromise on the values that are complete strangers to politics in India—probity, rectitude and integrity. Like Moses he would take us to the promised land, we were prepared to wait—after all, didn’t the Hebrews wander in the deserts for forty years and didn’t the Pandavas spend years in exile before they gained their goals?
We have been betrayed. By Kejriwal himself. He has nominated to the Rajya Sabha two individuals—Sushil Gupta, a businessman, and N D Gupta, a chartered accountant—who have absolutely nothing to recommend themselves for the historic role of the first-ever AAP MPs in the Upper House. This was a momentous opportunity for AAP to nominate persons of eminence and gravitas, to depart from the general practice of awarding hangers on, sycophants, financiers, cronies, to demonstrate that it really was a party with a difference.
The two Guptas, however, are nobodies; rich, no doubt, but with no track record of any public service or contribution to polity or society. Could Kejriwal not find even two individuals from among the hundreds who gave selflessly of themselves in the India Against Corruption movement or later to his own party? Is his party so devoid of quality and talent that he had to go shopping in the same bazaar other parties customise?
These and other questions are being raised but Kejriwal for a change has gone silent. Like the Prime Minister he has frequently questioned for his silences, Kejriwal too is in mute mode: he has not uttered one word of explanation for his disgraceful decision, or clarified what his party stands to gain by these inexplicable choices.
Perhaps there are no explanations, perhaps the only gainer is Kejriwal himself and not his party, perhaps he has given up the fight and is preparing to fold up his tent and steal away into the night with whatever he can. There is something rotten here and his staunchest supporters (like me) cannot ignore the overpowering stench emanating from these nominations.
The Aam Aadmi Party has just been murdered by its own founder. It has renounced the only values that were its USP, that made it different from other parties—its clean, uncompromising, idealistic, honest image.
It is now just another party. I am reminded of the concluding sentences in George Orwell’s book Animal Farm: there came a stage when it was difficult to tell who were the pigs and who the humans, they had become one and the same. This will be the epitaph of the AAP. And what about us, the ordinary citizens, who were promised so much? We will continue to wait for a Godot who will never come or, if he comes at all, will only flatter to deceive.
Like one Arvind Kejriwal.
Avay Shukla
Served in the IAS for 35 years and retired as Additional Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh
Email:avayshukla@gmail.com