AAP's implosion has hurt India's democratic experiments
This
is
a
big
harm
that
people
like
Arvind
Kejriwals
and
Yogendra
Yadavs
have
done
to
India's
politics.
The
party
they
had
formed
had
given
rise
to
a
huge
expectation
about
the
apolitical
taking
over
the
reins
from
the
political
in
India
and
soon
there
would
be
change
at
the
grassroots,
improving
the
lives
of
the
ordinary
people.
It
was
expected
that
a
fresh
republic
would
be
born
and
a
process
of
decentralisation
will
begin
where
people
would
breath
easy.
Making
history
isn't
easy
But Kejriwal and his party could not rise above what the theoreticians had thought about them. A lot of theories were floated about the AAP's potential and how Kejriwal has emerged into am alternative to leaders like Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. The media remained obsessed with the Kejriwal phenomenon till a point of fatigue. The victory in the 2013 Delhi assembly election was a huge victory for India's 'neo-democrats'. It was a historic moment.
But
just
two
months
into
the
next
year,
the
AAP
phenomenon
began
to
fade.
Kejriwal,
riding
high
on
the
euphoria
and
over-confidence,
suddenly
quit
as
the
chief
minister
of
Delhi
on
grounds
of
morality.
This
essentially
marked
the
death
of
the
AAP's
political
ambition.
The
subsequent
thrashing
in
the
Lok
Sabha
election,
the
series
of
resignations
from
the
party
and
finally,
the
rift
in
the
top
leadership
made
it
conclusive
that
the
AAP
has
failed
to
live
up
to
the
expectations.
What
was
Yogendra
Yadav
doing?
He
is
a
political
scholar,
didn't
he
sense
the
outcome?
But why did the party face such a consequence? It is not right to put the entire onus on Kejriwal for a party is not one individual. People like Yogendra Yadav are assets for any political outfit for their level of knowledge and expertise but they have failed pathetically to rise to the occasion. He has blamed the party's policy deficit after it suffered the losses. What was he himself doing when things weren't going right?
[Letter war in AAP: Yogendra Yadav writes to Political Affairs Committee]
The Lok Sabha election showed the party where it belongs
One gets the feeling that the AAP became over-ambitious by fielding its main faces in this year's election and committed a grave blunder in the process. Didn't the party understand that the election of 2014 belonged to Narendra Modi and they were in no position to influence the outcome with their scarce resources?
By contesting and losing against Modi, Kejriwal made himself a laughing stock
The decision of Kejriwal to contest against Modi from Varanasi made him a laughing stock while he could have played out his politics in a much better way. We don't know who had hatched the suicidal plan, but the final outcome shows that the AAP's political maturity was far from satisfactory, the presence of Yadav notwithstanding.
Did AAP practise what it preached?
The AAP's blunder lied in the fact that it did not practise what it preached. It projected itself as a symbol of selflessness and idealism but in reality, its leaders showed to the world that they only relished power. The party took things so much for granted that it even humiliated the voters of Delhi by quitting the power in the state and eyed power at the Centre.
Projecting Kejriwal as a potential PM was a shocker
It
was
surprising
to
see
Kejriwal,
who
has
little
political
history,
being
projected
as
the
potential
prime
minister
of
India
besides
Modi
and
Rahul
Gandhi.
It
raises
serious
questions
about
the
analytical
capacity
of
those
political
pundits
who
saw
a
PM
candidate
in
Kejriwal.
A
harsh
reality
check
came
on
May
16
when
the
AAP
found
that
it
could
manage
just
four
seats
in
the
Lok
Sabha
with
a
zero
tally
in
Delhi
where
Kejriwal
was
a
hero
even
five
months
ago.
AAP's
fate
may
seriously
affect
India's
experiments
with
the
'apolitical' in
future
The AAP's implosion is not just bad for Kejriwal but also for the space of civil society movement in India. An individual doesn't matter in the long run but the betrayal that the AAP and its leadership made will leave a serious trust deficit in our political democracy. A democracy is vibrant for it is always busy with experimentations, political or otherwise, and there is always a serious effort to negate the status quo. Anna Hazare had given birth to a new hope in a system which felt suffocated with a tainted regime but the AAP hijacked it only to ruin the opportunity that was on the offer.
India rejects the 'apolitical'
India, which was looking for an apolitical solution to a political problem which intensified over five years, finally settled with a political solution (read Modi). The apolitical was rejected but is it a rejection for ever? An affirmative response doesn't hold good for our vibrant democracy.