Broom is the new symbol of change
10 Dec 2013 4:35 AM IST
There’s change in the air, or so Delhi would like us to believe. The Capital story is one of complete transformation – not only has the city shed its apolitical, apathetic skin, but this time round it has embraced the new. The real message of hope is not the victories that have fallen in the lap of the BJP – whether riding the anti-incumbency tide in Rajasthan and Delhi, or the pro-incumbency mandate in Madhya Pradesh, or the close brush in Chhattisgarh. The true outcome of the 2013 assembly elections is the emergence of the third alternative in the heart of the nation, in the national capital itself. Who would have known even six months back from now that the man wielding a broom would become the emissary of political metamorphosis? That he would consolidate a political formation in practically no time and become, from the proverbial underdog to the face of successful alternative, especially to the entrenched political parties and traditional modes of governance. Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party have shown the way. They have demonstrated another world is possible and if the big parties stand in the way of democratic change, they are bound to be decimated. Clearly, AAP has queered the pitch of how political battles are going to be fought henceforth; how a culture of entitlement, whether ensuing from dynastic or class/religion/caste-based privileges, has to meet its end before the vox populi. Ultimately, what the AAP triumph signifies is the victory of an honest intervention; of accurately gauging the national mood which was desperate for change; which mustered up the gumption to acknowledge and respect the courage of a brand new formation to challenge the bigwigs simply on the basis of principles; which rejected the usual politics of hollow stratagems aimed at only gaining in the polls without a greater vision and larger constructive role.
So what is the writing on the wall? Firstly, it is the real and present anti-incumbency verdict against the Congress in the states and the UPA dispensation in the centre, against their politics of everyday corruption, legislative failures to rein in inflation, general economic slump and paying lip-service to a hollow shell of rhetoric-heavy version ‘pseudosecularism.’ In fact, the good work done by the UPA government has now been done to dust, thanks to the utterly incompetent leadership of Rahul Gandhi, who must share the burden of such resounding defeat, particularly in the case of first-time contestant Arvind Kejriwal crushing the veteran Sheila Dikshit by such a large margin. Secondly, the sweeping statement by the broom-wielders makes another thing very clear – India would lap up a third alternative to Congress’ dynasty-driven politics and BJP’s Hindutva-led counternarrative, if, and only if, it is a real alternative and not merely a matter of ramshackle electoral math. There must be an ideological core – that of clean and honest politics, of scrupulous and principled form of governance, of innovation and participation in the public sphere, of a bottom-up, and not a top-down, form of polity, of furthering the debate and widening the vision, not resorting to the run-of-the-mill tactics of playing the class, religion or caste card. What AAP did, and the third front at the national level has so far failed to do, is to project the idea of self-rule by the common man, the ordinary, informed citizen. Arvind Kejriwal is a game changer. Narendra Modi, too, couldn’t have done what the AAP leader managed in less than a year.
So what is the writing on the wall? Firstly, it is the real and present anti-incumbency verdict against the Congress in the states and the UPA dispensation in the centre, against their politics of everyday corruption, legislative failures to rein in inflation, general economic slump and paying lip-service to a hollow shell of rhetoric-heavy version ‘pseudosecularism.’ In fact, the good work done by the UPA government has now been done to dust, thanks to the utterly incompetent leadership of Rahul Gandhi, who must share the burden of such resounding defeat, particularly in the case of first-time contestant Arvind Kejriwal crushing the veteran Sheila Dikshit by such a large margin. Secondly, the sweeping statement by the broom-wielders makes another thing very clear – India would lap up a third alternative to Congress’ dynasty-driven politics and BJP’s Hindutva-led counternarrative, if, and only if, it is a real alternative and not merely a matter of ramshackle electoral math. There must be an ideological core – that of clean and honest politics, of scrupulous and principled form of governance, of innovation and participation in the public sphere, of a bottom-up, and not a top-down, form of polity, of furthering the debate and widening the vision, not resorting to the run-of-the-mill tactics of playing the class, religion or caste card. What AAP did, and the third front at the national level has so far failed to do, is to project the idea of self-rule by the common man, the ordinary, informed citizen. Arvind Kejriwal is a game changer. Narendra Modi, too, couldn’t have done what the AAP leader managed in less than a year.
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