The Kejriwal Riddle

Asked about Russia, Winston Churchill is reported to have said, in his inimitable style, “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” 

Perhaps something like that can be said of Arvind Kejriwal, the astute, mercurial Aam Aadmi Party autocrat who is difficult to fathom and unravel -- a hard nut to crack. The key to his actions is, perhaps, power and self-interest. He rules his party with an iron fist, intolerant of any dissent -- a hallmark of all political parties in India controlled by a supreme leader. Full disclosure: I had a brief romance with the Aam Aadmi Party in its early days, and this article is based on insights from that experience.

Kejriwal stepped down as Chief Minister of Delhi recently after getting bail from the Supreme Court. He had been arrested, first by the ED and later by the CBI, on charges of corruption and sent to jail nearly four months ago -- a cruel irony for a man who rose to power on his reputation for integrity and on his promise to root out corruption in politics and bureaucracy. He is a big thorn on the side of Narendra Modi and the BJP, who are out of depth in dealing with him and have failed to dent his reputation for good governance even after stripping him of many of his powers as the Chief Minister and hobbling him every step of the way through the Lt Governor, a willing handmaiden of the Centre.

All the agencies of the central government, including the government’s top law officers, the Solicitor General and the Attorney General, have been unleashed on Kejriwal and on many of his key ministerial colleagues, and they have been charged and jailed and enlarged on bail, but Kejriwal’s charisma and hold on his party has not diminished, and he has managed to keep much of his flock intact. 

Kejriwal is a conundrum to his own allies in the India bloc and even to his party colleagues, too. Even I got carried away by his flaming passion and raw activist courage to cleanse politics and joined AAP in January 2014 but resigned from the party just four months later, along with many others, unable to figure him out, disillusioned with his autocratic and erratic ways as he continued his agitations at the drop of a hat forgetting he was now no longer in the opposition. 

Despite all that, one cannot help but admire him for his fiery zeal, his dogged determination and indomitable courage, first as an activist in fighting for over a decade to bring in the RTI as a statute during the UPA rule, along with Aruna Roy and others, and then again in the forefront as the right-hand man of Anna Hazare during the India Against Corruption crusade, which succeeded in compelling the Manmohan Singh government to pass the Lokpal Bill in parliament, which has sadly become a toothless institution after the BJP rode to power, ironically on the back of the massive anti-corruption wave created by Kejriwal and IAC. 

Kejriwal became a national figure during the Anna Hazare campaign, along with a few other renowned activists like the public interest lawyer Prashant Bhushan, psephologist Yogendra Yadav, the high-profile former cop Kiran Bedi, and a few others. But after the defeat of the UPA in the 2014 elections and the ascent of Modi, Kejriwal took everyone by surprise by parting ways with Hazare and IAC and launching AAP.   

It was a daring decision, to plunge from the crusading universe of activism into the treacherous world of politics, taking on a daunting task. As we all know, it is easier to question and protest than to govern. The AAP's DNA was inherited from Anna. While Anna gave hope and aspirations, Kejriwal gave the ideology and the movement a platform to convert it into political action. 

But many wondered, can this diminutive, unassuming former bureaucrat survive among the sharks in this ocean of diabolical and venal politics that is fought with astronomical sums of cash and by whipping up caste and religious sentiments? The BJP, formed in 1980 by rechristening the Jan Sangh after it split from the post-Emergency Janata Party-led coalition, despite being led by the likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani, and with the might of the RSS organisation behind them, had taken more than two decades to build a national party and win enough seats to be able to form a coalition government led by Vajpayee – by following that very conventional path of cash, caste and whipping up religious sentiments.  

But Kejriwal and his AAP’s broom-wielding stormtroopers burst onto the political landscape like a breath of fresh air amidst the stench of Indian politics. They took Delhi by storm in the state elections and catapulted Kejriwal to power. More importantly, Kejriwal gave a new dimension to politics and showed that elections could be fought on sheer love of the people and won without dirty money through genuine crowdfunding, without muscle power and caste or minority backing, either. That is his biggest contribution to Indian politics.

That was then. Now, Kejriwal and his party leaders are charged with corruption, making excise policy to obtain money to fight elections with. It is, of course, possible that they have been framed by the BJP-led central government, which has earned notoriety for using investigation agencies against opposition parties and leaders. We will have to wait for the probe and the courts to know one way or the other.  

But Kejriwal has to win not only in the court of justice, but also in the people’s court. 

If he wants to scale up AAP nationally as a robust political party and has an eye on the PM’s chair, he must learn to be humble, be tolerant of dissent, welcome talented leaders from diverse backgrounds, and usher in genuine democracy within the party. That was how the Indian National Congress was built before Indira Gandhi, and that was how even the BJP grew -- though both parties have since abandoned those ideals.

The months in jail must have afforded Kejriwal time to reflect and ponder over these matters and how to regain credibility and build AAP into a strong and vibrant party. And now that he has shown prudence, unburdened himself of the duties and pressures of the office of Chief Minister, and has installed Atishi Marlena, well regarded as well as loyal to him, he must set himself to that task, especially to the leadership’s most important task – to build hundreds more leaders.  

(The writer is a soldier, farmer, and entrepreneur)