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| The trio |
There is something unstable in Kejriwal’s persona that makes him behave
in the way he mostly does. He has that penchant for ‘self-destruct’ and, in the
process, he betrays the faith reposed in him by hundreds and thousands of
common, educated and well-meaning people as also civil society organizations.
One wonders whether he has that inscrutable split personality like that of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as it seems there has been a sea change in his personality
and conduct since the days of the movement appropriately known as India Against
Corruption (IAC).
A man who joined the modern-day Gandhian Anna Hazare in 2011 to campaign
for enactment of an anti-corruption law instituting an office of Lokpal
(ombudsman) has moved on incredibly fast, so much that he has now taken
recourse to political sleight of hand, sought help from goons or more precisely
“bouncers” and tried to garner support from corrupt politicians just to gain
power – all examples of political corruption. This was not what he created his
Aam Admi Party (AAP) for. In 2011 means ostensibly were important to him to get
to the end that was combating corruption but in 2014 & 2015 they ceased to
be so. A man who campaigned for days in not too distant past against corrupt in
the government has himself become as corrupt with the sole aim of grabbing
power. His is a personality that effectively masked the sinister and the
devious that lurked within him that even Anna could not detect, much less his
supporters.
If one harks back to Anna’s movement in 2011 and recalls the massive
civil society support that it elicited one would be frustrated by its eventual
denouement. The IAC campaigns of April and August 2011
had a singular aim, that of eradication of corruption in the government through
the instrumentality of a law for creation of an independent and powerful
Lokpal. In the backdrop of massive corruption in the 2010 Commonwealth Games
and allotment of 2G spectrum, it caught the imagination of the people,
especially of the youth and the rising numbers of middle classes. As the
movement gathered strength in August 2011 the media, too, got into the act and
gave extensive round-the-clock coverage. And, the tech-savvy members of the IAC
made deft use of the social media making the movement somewhat akin to the then
ongoing campaigns in North Africa and West Asia for regime-change, eventually coming
to be known collectively as “Arab Spring”.
The government
at the Centre got flustered and indulged in nervous acts. Having been
outmanoeuvred, parliamentarians quickly rustled up a “sense of the house”
resolution unanimously passed by its both houses agreeing to action on all
sticking points to pacify Anna. Acquiring a larger than life image, Anna broke
his 11-day fast. Standing as a colossus, he and the IAC activists mobilised
public opinion charging up the whole nation against political and bureaucratic
corruption. A patently middle class
movement, IAC’s offshoots cropped up virtually in every nook and corner of the
country. Young and old joined it putting the government on the back foot. A
bill for creation of Lokpal (ombudsman) that was said to be in cold storage for
forty years amply displaying aversion of politicians to curb corruption in
public life was expected to see the light of the day.
But that was not to be. Even in 2015 the bill continues to be in the
cold storage, for soon after came Kejriwal’s first betrayal of Anna’s movement
that brought the government to its knees. Reasons were many including Anna’s
failing health and an unwise and ineffective sit-in in Mumbai later that year
that was largely ignored by people. What sounded the death knell of IAC was
Kejriwal’s uncalled for untimely 9-day fast in July 2012 that gained nothing
except ill-health for him and a decision to move away from the politically
unaligned agitational approach of Anna. That is when he decided to give up the
movement and politicise it by creating AAP (Common Man’s Party), disappointing
thousands of the IAC supporters, workers and volunteers who had made enormous
sacrifices for the success of the movement. All of them felt terribly let down and
betrayed as it proved to be curtains for an unprecedented civil society
upheaval like of which was never seen in the country before. It was Anna’s
persona and his perceived uncompromisingly honest attitude and those of his
close supporters that brought people in droves to join the movement. Splitting
the IAC was Kejriwal’s first insidious act.
The political outfit that he created met with unexpected success in the
Delhi state Assembly elections of 2013. In the 70-member assembly AAP got as
many as 28 seats with the Hindu right Bharatiya Janata Party getting 31. The
Indian National Congress that had an unbroken rule of 15 years was reduced to 8
seats. Nonetheless, it was a hung assembly – where the party with largest
number of seats refused to form the government, leaving the field open for AAP
to run it with outside unsolicited support offered by Congress. Ironically, AAP
accepted support of the same party against which it had campaigned for
corruption. Fully aware that he had no majority in the house, Kejriwal wanted
to introduce an anti-corruption law which expectedly the Opposition did not
allow. Kejriwal promptly resigned after ruling for only 49 days fetching the
sobriquet “bhagora” (quitter). In view of his earlier threats of resignation,
perhaps, this was only a ploy to get out of a hung situation or, maybe, he was
aiming to become prime minister as the Parliamentary elections were in the offing,
the response of voters having buoyed his hopes.
What has happened in his second avatar
is, of course, far more serious and reprehensible. Having been decimated in
the parliamentary polls Kejriwal was reported to be frustrated and felt that
his Party faced an existential crisis. Unless it did well in the then oncoming
Delhi elections, he thought, AAP would have no future. That is when he gave up
all his put-on idealism or pretences thereof, bringing to fore his
undemocratic, ambitious and authoritarian traits, Late last year many
well-known stalwarts including Sahzia Ilmi, one-time face of AAP, left the
party feeling suffocated.
Later his unethical ways were
made public when an audio clip of a sting operation on him was released
indicating that he was prepared to accept support of proven corrupt
Congressmen. Then, after an extraordinary electoral win with not-so-clean
means, his feud with the ideologues – legal activist Prashant Bhushan and
intellectual-cum-psephologist Yogendra Yadav, both straight players, - made
headlines. The stunning electoral win seemingly had got to his head. Not only
they were abused in the sting, they were undemocratically expelled from the
Party’s Executive Council and have now also been unceremoniously expelled from
the party in a high-handed manner. Anybody opposed to his inner party moves is
considered undesirable and is promptly axed. Obviously, his true self has taken
over and he is now strutting around AAP as a “Hitler” with lies, subterfuge and
the like for props. “Clean” and “new” politics has been given a summary burial.
A setback to his ambitions at the parliamentary polls brought the true
Kejriwal to the fore revealing a political fiend – self-serving and aggrandizing.
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Photo: from the Internet
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