The Space Kejriwal Needs To Re-Occupy

(Kumar Ketkar is a senior journalist, political commentator, globe trotter and author. He has covered all Indian elections since 1971 and significant international events. He is a frequent participant on TV debates.)

Is AAP relevant today? Everyone from the BJP to Congress, from self-proclaimed profound pundits to journalists and columnists are busy either advising Arvind Kejriwal or predicting AAP's future.

Slowly coming out of the shadow of the maverick Anna Hazare and his fantastic opera-like live performance at Delhi's Ram Leela ground three years ago, Kejriwal forged his own identity by launching AAP.

Initially, the media and the pundits dismissed his decision to form a political party, against the advice Guru Anna. But he marched on declaring that his was a fight for Ethics.

Unwittingly or (perhaps knowing fully well) the results they would spur, Anna and Arvind created additional space for Narendra Modi and the BJP. The Sangh Parivar too has a self-image of high morality. Arvind and Anna were pushing an agenda that the Sangh Parivar has always claimed as its own. 

Kejriwal moved on despite the cynicism of the media and the pundits and destroyed the "Ravana", the Congress, in Delhi. 

Sensing that the Congress was not in the reckoning after that, for the national election, Kejriwal declared war on Narendra Modi himself. So the task for Kejriwal was to prove that he was morally superior to Modi and decided to challenge Modi in Varanasi itself.   

Anna, Baba Ramdev, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Modi himself had all promised that they would bring back all the money laundered in the Swiss banks and of book all the corrupt people who had created the monster of black money.  This destruction of the monster was to happen within the first 100 days of the new government. We're still waiting.  

Arvind and even the people have begun to see this phony moralism of Modi. That is why AAP has begun to feel that well, they still have a political space, at least in Delhi. Indeed, this issue of ethics in politics has often changed the political scene in independent India. 

Feroze Gandhi, the  husband of Indira Gandhi confronted Panditji on the famous Mundrah scam, the first in the series of scams in independent India. That was back in the mid- 50s. Then came Ram Manohar Lohia who along with Madhu Limaye and his warhorse George Fernandes, kept campaigning that Indira Gandhi was the fountain of corruption in India. Indeed, the idea of making India Congress-Mukta and Nehru-Gandhi-Mukta was first mooted by Lohia in 1967. 

Socialists in India always thought that they were the politico-moral police. The so called Congress-Mukta fronts of Left and Right disintegrated and collapsed under the weight of  their own ambition and the heavier burden of corruption. Jayprakash Narain came on the scene in 1973. Yet again a battle between the Good (JP) and Evil (Indira) started. Indira lost and it was proclaimed that evil has been exorcized and India has achieved its second freedom. The country was told the Janata Party will provide a corruption-free government and also "Family-Free" rule. But the so-called second freedom was over in just two and half years. 

VP Singh then positioned himself as the Champion of Ethics. He too promised to bring to book all Swiss account holders. But his cleansing politics lasted just 11  months. 

If Kejriwal can deliver, he will be defying a long tradition of campaigners who were given a chance but failed to make things significantly better.
Kejriwal is very much relevant today.
The balloon floated by Modi during the elections has burst.
All his tall promises have come to naught.
People have now seen through his subterfuge.
To hide his inability to take action on the corruption front, crimes against women, retrieval of black money, he is hopping about the globe so that the people will not ask about his tall promises.
A Rs 10000 crore ad blitzkrieg blinded the people just like the people of Bengal were blinded by Mamta Banerjee's Maa, Mati and Manush slogan.
Just as the people of Bengal are regretting voted in Mamata Banerjee, the people of India too are now regretting voting for Modi.