AAP's Delhi theatrics: More arrogant netas than aam aadmi?

By noon yesterday, news television screens were filled with visuals of a Delhi we have been familiarized with over the past year. Though these were scenes of extreme disharmony - a mob of excited people pressed against yellow rails that form a police barricade, deafening slogan chanting, stray curses caught on the camera and police men in helmets and combat jackets trying to keep the barricades in place with identical deadpan expressions on their faces - not too many months back, there was a strangely uplifting quality about it. It was the closest visual representation of the helpless anger that many of us were seized with - against governments, against police, against every institution of civilization that we pay taxes to enjoy the benefits of. The scene unfolding on news TV screens, yesterday, was uncannily familiar, be it the slogans - “Delhi Police hai hai’ and the response it managed to elicit, and extreme shock at the audacity of political establishments. The only point where the narrative of the civil society response to the political class deflected from its all-too-familiar track, was when a lot of us realised with alarm that this time we were pitted against a political movement that many of us had endorsed as an alternative to the older political mechanisms we treat with suspicion and dismissal. [caption id=“attachment_1352679” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arvind Kejriwal while calling his protest off. PTI.[/caption] This realisation, that might have rung yesterday across drawing rooms, newsrooms and cafeterias with youngsters glued to Twitter on their smartphones, might have been the biggest price the Aam Aadmi Party paid yesterday with their shocking show of hubris. It is important to note here that the overwhelming support that AAP garnered in Delhi and across metros was because its leaders scrupulously stayed away from a display of Indian-political-ego but also scathingly criticised the same. But this is exactly what Kejriwal and some of his leaders displayed in their protest on Tuesday. Though the party kept the specifics painstakingly common man protester-like - sleeping on the roads, braving the cold etc - the party’s language had developed a disturbing amount of anger, that now seems more like audacity than legitimate disgruntlement. “CM kaun hai Dilli kaa?” a groggy, irritable Arvind Kejriwal asked reporters in the wee hours of Tuesday. And immediately his claims about the much criticised police establishment seemed vacuous and the party’s protest seemed like a fight for personal pride that was being fought on the roads of Delhi. There were several ways Kejriwal could have saved the situation - for himself and his party. Since there was no clear evidence of drug usage by the Ugandans arrested, Kejriwal could well have apologised on behalf of state law minister Somnath Bharti and his party, and clarified that Bharti’s actions stemmed from concern for the repeated complaints he had received from the locals of Khirki Extension. After all, for a party that makes such tall claims of humility, an apology shouldn’t have been difficult. But Kejriwal made the mistake of placing the party before the government, and decided to back up his party colleague, instead of hauling up an errant minister. Then again, he made the mistake of clubbing still-justifiable allegations against the Delhi Police (where they failed to nab rapists and didn’t lodge a complaint of domestic violence) with one where the police was entirely on the right side of law. Again, Kejriwal failed to make the transition from the now-comfortable revolutionary avatar to that of someone who holds an important public office. In an interview to Rajdeep Sardesai, Kejriwal had said a couple of days earlier, “There’s so much sloth in the police. So much corruption. The moment you crack the whip one some of them that the others start falling in line.” Had he been talking about the Danish woman’s rape or the case Rakhi Birla had taken up - that would have still made sense. In fact, last year only, all of us were ready to hang the Delhi Police for its many failures. But what he was trying to do, was use the slips by the police to cover up a slip by his minister. The following protest just magnified the inappropriate nature of this forced association. Finally, it took the Congress to save the day in Delhi. The home ministry refused to give into Kejriwal’s demands. Instead of suspending the concerned SHOs, two of them were sent on a ‘holiday’. Kejriwal had to beat a retreat. And soon after, they hastily declared that a big victory in favour of democracy had been achieved. The party should understand that support for it did not grow in an unthinking rush of emotion - every action of their revolutionary modus operandi had been scrutinized, weighed against the excesses of the competing political entities and then endorsed. In an excellent article, written in the form of an appeal in The Economic Times, Saubhik Chakrabarty speaks to the business honchos who have joined AAP. “Old style politics means most party notables owes their living to the party leadership and therefore they go along most times. But you don’t need Kejriwal the way traditional political worthies need their leaders. You can, therefore, raise your voice and say this is not what you signed up for”, he says. The Congress also emerged a better political outfit from all this by refusing to withdraw support in the face of extreme provocation. Manish Sisodia had openly alleged that money collected from drug and sex rackets reached Sushil Shinde. Congress could have taken offence and withdrawn support and it wouldn’t have looked illogical. Only, it stayed put, making sure Delhi is not thrown in the middle of another election. And it also lent legitimacy to its allegations that AAP cannot shoulder the responsibility of governance and is hence trying to wiggle out of an uncomfortable situation. If Kejriwal and company has grown a disproportionate sense of entitlement, it is shared by all those who supported the party initially. AAP’s supporters are likely to have a greater sense of entitlement to answers and convincing explanations than backers of any other party. There is one kind of aam aadmi who don’t mind saying sorry if they are wrong. There’s another kind, abundant in India, who will stomp over your foot in crowded buses, wheeze past you dangerously in cars on busy roads and spit on freshly watered roads nonchalantly.  Which aam aadmi has Kejriwal been talking about all this while?