Irrespective of several controversies, the Aam Aadmi Party is on a strong defensive trajectory, harbouring unmitigated pan-India ambitions with zero knowledge of India's diversity and complexity. This is typical Delhi politics
A full-blown midnight drama unleashed at the residence of Delhi Chief Minister came as a slap in the face of the three-year anniversary celebrations of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The self-congratulatory tone, abetted by some sections of the media, of AAP’s controversial three-year track record, even as the Delhi population faced a deteriorating environmental, educational and health quality, shows that we have made the lowest common denominator our standard of judgement.
Simply because the AAP happened to achieve the infrastructural addition of some 8,000 classrooms and Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia has been regularly giving sermons on education (a disguised form of aggressive assertion through media advertising) does not mean that the state of education has improved. Or, we don’t need a lancet report lauding the AAP’s ‘mohalla clinics’ to tell us that they represent an increasing number game without any regard to actual health quality. If the latter were the real concern, AAP would not be facing graft charges for their ‘mohalla clinics’, for overcharging the Government lakhs of rupees per month and deploying unqualified staff to attend to patients at these clinics.
All these instances, coupled with the worsening air quality in the Capital and other endless controversies, have come to a head with the latest incident involving the physical assault on Delhi Chief Secretary, Anshu Prakash. It is unlikely that AAP will be able to escape scot-free from this incident. Except for denials, casteist and communal references about its MlAs being framed and further verbal abuse, AAP has no other evidence on its side.
With a medical report confirming that Prakash was indeed assaulted and the doubtless suspicion about AAP’s arbitrary midnight timing of the meeting, raises two critical evidence to back the Chief Secretary. Even before the police investigation concludes, the reality looked like a foregone conclusion from day one. Nothing better was expected from this Government. The latest mishap fits in well with this Government’s pattern of numerous other controversies. This incident should have far-reaching implications and finally lead to the undoing of AAP, irrespective of whatever ‘popular mandate’ it received in 2015.
Outwardly, the entire bureaucracy from across the country is up in arms against AAP. Even Delhi bureaucrats refuse to work with it, unless the communication is written or recorded, likely dealing a blow to the Government. This incident is an attack on the professional class which even Delhi’s people value and in which the AAP has, for a change, not been able to pin the blame on the Union Government.
Thus, AAP has badly exposed its long-ingrained ways of hooliganism, and there is little maneuvering it can do in this case. Inwardly, the latest incident and the furore it generated shows that AAP’s time is finally up, even in an opaque city like Delhi.
The irony of Delhi is that its political standard of judgement has fallen very low. The reason why the Chief Minister has not resigned till now is because of the luck of circumstances of governing the national Capital. Since the majority of important administrative powers are with the Centre and any mishap in law and order will not be put on the Delhi Government’s head, the latter has only been held accountable for delivering on basic services and utilities. The large middle-class and well-off status of most of the voting population has not pinched the people too hard, making issues like corruption and air quality pivotal to people’s expectations and misleading them into believing that the Government is performing on delivery of other utilities.
Of course, those utilities have to be delivered in the Capital but there is low expectations among the voters.
Entrenched public system of low expectations and wide tolerance for high-level corruption have made the AAP survive in Delhi till now. But in any other State, where elections are fought on important political and ideological issues; where a plethora of community, caste and tribe differences create a complex and unique polity; and where the State Government is accountable on all counts, rather than limiting itself to working on a few areas like public utilities where the Centre, bureaucracy and municipal corporations are obligated to take care of the rest, a formation like AAP can never survive. The results have been visible in all States where it contested by-polls and lost.
It’s low and vague political sense became evident when it sympathised with the Khalistan cause in Punjab and proclaimed the Batla house encounter to be fake.
laughably, only Delhi can provide a new-born party the luxury to hop into other States, leaving behind ‘governance’ matters because, frankly, there is nothing to govern as the real administration is carried by the lieutenant Governor-led bureaucracy, which is answerable to the Centre.
Ironically, contrary to what most people think, thanks to the unique status of Delhi, AAP had the luxury of getting away with a lot of serious office-of-profit controversies, hooliganism, graft charges and much more in the last three years. And that too without doing any work and painting itself as a victim whenever it could. Yet, that the AAP is still on a strong defensive trajectory and harbouring unmitigated pan-India ambitions, with zero knowledge of India’s diversity and complexity, shows that far from hounding the party, the Centre and the depoliticised aam aadmi of Delhi have actually treated it with kid gloves.
With such a mind-boggling track record and not a single credible achievement to boast of, no other party could have got away with.
At a time when elections all over the country are signalling, people wanting to break the old order and embrace new, radical changes, Delhi and AAP continue to be an odd exception.
(The writer is with the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and writes for The Resurgent India Trust)
