Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) defeat in the Delhi assembly election is being seen by many as a blow to alternative politics. Analysts have said that AAP’s defeat shows that its moral sheen is gone. But was AAP really a promising alternative? Did AAP really believe in any morality? But first, let us understand why AAP was defeated.
Governance in Delhi suffered for the last decade because the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government had ensured that all decisions of the state government were stalled using the office of the lieutenant governor (LG). The LG was running a parallel government in the state, making the elected AAP government nearly dysfunctional. The voter thought that the only way out was to give the BJP what it wanted. Only the BJP could save them from the BJP or, as my friend put it, “only Gabbar can save you from Gabbar.”
Ten years of stalemate in the governance of the state led a section of the AAP voters to conclude that it was only prudent to seek refuge in Gabbar. If the BJP has to remain in the Union government for the next 5 years, which the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had ensured, then there was no point electing the AAP to office again.
Government officials were made answerable to the LG and not the chief minister or other Delhi cabinet ministers. They will tell you that the votes have been coerced out of the voters as they see this as the only way out of the impasse. With this, we must also say that a section of the AAP voters did not have to take any emotional leap toward the BJP as both parties were working in the same emotional and ideological sphere. AAP’s promise was only to provide them with the facilities of roads, water, electricity, education and health. If that delivery becomes smoother with the BJP in office, then what is the harm in giving them this opportunity?
Also read: AAP’s Defeat Has Lesson For Opposition on Ideological Clarity, Unity
AAP’s ‘strategic communalism’
The BJP has created a Hindutva voter base over the last several decades. AAP also did the same with Hanuman Chalisa, weekly recitation of Sunder Kand, visits to Ayodhya, a Sanatan Seva Board, special arrangements for priests, etc. It was only their election symbols that differentiated them. We are often told by AAP’s sympathisers that to put them in the same league as the BJP is unfair as AAP never actively spread hatred or provoked violence against Muslims.
To qualify as a Hindutva nationalist, you need to be anti-Muslim. BJP doesn’t need to do anything to prove this as that is its basis of existence. The images of a Narendra Modi or an Adityanath, without them saying anything, communicate anti-Muslim sentiments. The rest of the BJP leaders compete with each other in championing the cause of Hindutva which, one must repeat, is to turn Hindus against Muslims and Christians.
AAP decided right from its inception that it would not let BJP win in this field. Therefore, during the pandemic, it spread hatred against Muslims on the pretext of Tablighi Jamaat. When Muslims started a movement against the communal amendment in the Citizenship Act, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal made statements against it. Before that, AAP had enthusiastically supported the decision to end the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the abrogation of Article 370.
Far from criticizing the construction of Ram Mandir on the usurped land of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, it announced free travel for those wanting a darshan of it. Kejriwal himself, along with his family, heavily promoted his Ram Mandir Yatra. To ensure that AAP comes across as a ‘kattar‘ (stringent) nationalist, its leaders made violent statements against Bangladeshi and Rohingya people.
In the race to appear authentically anti-Muslim, it stooped so low that it started saying that Bangladeshis and Rohingyas are usurping the resources of Delhi. Chief minister Atishi issued an order just before the elections to strictly refuse admission to Bangladeshi and Rohingya children in schools. Is a person who snatches food from the mouths of children a human being?
However, AAP supporters praised this ‘clever’ strategy. They claimed that by doing this, AAP has played a trump card against the BJP by snatching the anti-outsider plank. They said that AAP is not communal but this is a great strategy to pull Hindu voters away from BJP.
The question was not about going to temples or reciting the Hanuman Chalisa. That may be desperate but not communal. Perhaps we can ignore the proposal made by Kejriwal for pictures of Ganesh and Lakshmi on currency notes as a joke. But praising the abolition of Article 370, supporting the abolition of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, its degradation and disintegration into Union Territories, active distancing from the Shaheen Bagh movement and decisions against Bangladeshis and Rohingyas are definitely communal steps.
If AAP wanted to get ahead of BJP by engaging in strategic communalism, as its supporters say, then it was its mistake. But the truth is that it was not a temporary compulsion, nor was it strategic. This communalism or Hindu nationalism was part of AAP’s character from the very beginning. It was deliberately ignored by our good friends in 2011-12.
Such friends regret that AAP has strayed from its path. According to them, the dream of alternative politics has been shattered by the collapse of AAP. But they do not tell us what exactly was that alternative politics that AAP had promised.
Was it not clear at the time of AAP’s rise that it was a party that believed in a soft synonym of Hindutva? We must try to understand the meaning of the adjectives like ‘kattar’ before ‘imandar’ or ‘deshbhakt’.
AAP’s provenance
AAP is the product of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. Do we not remember the Hindu nationalist symbols and slogans of this movement? Did we not know that the founder of this movement, Kejriwal, has always been communal and casteist?
Those who have seen IAC’s journey can remember that it started with the help of crowds gathered by Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The symbols of Shivaji, Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandrashekhar Azad, along with the giant tricolour and Vande Mataram, were being cleverly used to incite a nationalist sentiment which could only be a Hindu nationalist sentiment.
Also read: An Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal
In April 2011, after getting rid of Ramdev, Kejriwal brought Anna Hazare from Maharashtra to fast at Ramlila Maidan. Anna was an unknown entity in North India. It became easy for Kejriwal to present him as the second Gandhi with the help of the media and our intelligentsia.
Journalist Mukul Sharma had written about Anna Hazare’s work in his village Ralegaon Siddhi and about the man himself. The essay made it clear that Anna was a reactionary, dictatorial person, and also a man with no intellect. During Anna’s fast at Ramlila Maidan, Dr. Abhijit Vaidya of Maharashtra’s ‘Arogya Sena’ wrote about why one should not join this movement and said that it was essentially anti-democratic. Objecting to calling Anna the second Gandhi, he said that in reality, Anna did not have the intellectual capacity to understand any serious issue. Kejriwal was using Anna. Enjoying the limelight that Kejriwal had put him in, Anna was ready to work like Kejriwal’s puppet. Vaidya had also questioned the purity of his fast. Years ago, during one of his fasts in his village, he had found that Anna’s associates were feeding him glucose and electrolytes. With that, the fast could be prolonged for a long time.
The way the fast at Ramlila Maidan was given the form of a festival was obnoxious. Vaidya had rightly said that those who called themselves the ‘Anna Team’ should have sat on fast themselves, and not put the old man’s life in danger. Many people had warned the public about the immorality and shrewd nationalism of this entire movement.
During the movement to make the ‘Jan Lokpal’ law, Kejriwal and his friends had said that they had conducted a referendum on their draft and all that was left for the the parliament to do was to put its seal over it. They were not ready to give the parliament an opportunity to discuss it.
A separate investigation is needed on why the United Progressive Alliance government panicked and caved in. But it is also important to know the truth of the anti-corruption movement, and this cannot happen unless the people involved in this movement speak the truth.
Was AAP ever an alternative?
Even if we leave this search for truth aside, AAP’s claim to be an alternative after its formation must be tested. It was said that the era of politics based on ideology, like secularism, is over. Now is the era of post-ideological politics. It will be the politics of clean and efficient governance. At that time, it was said that AAP’s ideology will actually be one of solving problems. In an interview given to Mint, Yogendra Yadav said: “So in a way, you can say that solving the problem, looking at specific situations, looking at the evidence and trying to tell what is the best way forward. This is our ideology.”
He did say that belief in diversity was an important element of his party’s ideology. But it did not include secularism in its principles. The argument of respect for diversity is not enough unless we know where the party stands on the issue of minority rights. This expectation or demand was ridiculed. Rather, an attempt was made to explain that once the politics of problem-solving becomes effective, the question of secularism will automatically become irrelevant.
What was the problem that politics had to solve was never made clear. Was it just to ensure the minimum level of water, electricity, education, and health facilities to the electorate?
Creating new infrastructure for schools was a good step, but what about about curriculum or pedagogy? Not much was asked about camera surveillance in schools, punishment of teachers for any kind of criticism, ‘kattar deshbhakti’ and happiness curriculum etc.
These reactionary steps were never discussed. Instead, efforts were made to silence AAP’s critics by citing mohalla clinics, school buildings and electricity concessions.
It was never clear what kind of alternative AAP was, despite being called a symbol of alternative politics. What we observed was that the mantra of the party was to reach power by hook or by crook. And we had also seen this in the IAC movement that gave birth to it. The amorality and cunning communalism of IAC continued in the last 11 years of AAP rule in Delhi. Its sympathisers kept saying that it was deviating from its ideals. But we are yet to know what that ideal was that AAP had seemingly ditched.
Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.
