Aam Aadmi: Power and Perception

This open letter addresses his recent statement, which reveals a perplexing contradiction in his stance on free electricity, his broader political ideologies, and his love for luxurious bungalows.

Dear Shri Arvind Kejriwal Ji,

You are one political leader who has always baffled me. I recognise that you are the one who made politics out of a-politics. What prompted me to write this letter is your recent statement which, I know, is more rhetorical than practical.

You have made a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You rightly take credit for giving free electricity to the people of Delhi. The subsidy is available only for the consumption of electricity below a certain quantity.

My wife and I can manage not to pay electricity charges during the winter months. Summer is quite different. I have to pay through the nose for electricity. Of course, the villains of the piece are two air-conditioners in our flat. I can’t sleep without the A/C. You want Modi to introduce free electricity in all the BJP-ruled states. That is a political challenge worth making.

What followed from your mouth is absolutely idiotic. You said that if Modi is able to successfully meet the challenge, you will campaign for him in the next elections in Delhi. It seems your politics begins and ends with free electricity. In fact, it is difficult to believe that you made a statement like this. Did you consult your party colleagues before making this statement? How can you campaign for Modi without leaving the Aam Aadmi Party or disbanding it or merging it in the BJP? I do not find any other alternative.

I wonder how a leader of your stature and a party that rules two states can speak so flippantly. But then, you have always been non-serious. The other day, while addressing a large gathering, you mentioned some welfare measures you took, like starting mohalla clinics and providing free bus rides to women, comparing them to sweetmeats.

What’s more, you gave the sweets in packets to all those present. You described the sweet items as holy Prasad and you advised them not to eat them there but to take them home.

In the gurdwaras, lakhs of people receive Prasad. A few take it home but a vast majority eats it there itself. When my wife and I visited Tirupati, we were given two giant laddus. We ate one of them and I took the other to Chandigarh where all my colleagues, numbering about 1,000, tasted it. Do you know why? The laddu came from Tirupati, a sacred place.

Relatively speaking, you are a young man. Why do you club politics with religion? I remember the massive replica of the Ayodhya temple you built at a stadium in Delhi so that you, your family, ministers, and MLAs could pray there. After that, it was demolished. Even Muhammad bin Tughluq would not have done what you did.

I am a critic of the Lieutenant-Governor, particularly when he needles you. But I don’t support you on the house issue you face. You and your wife had been members of the Indian Revenue Service. Though, status-wise, it comes below the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Administrative Service, there are people who choose the IRS as their first option.

In comparison, I was just a journalist and my wife an insurance executive. We own a flat in Dwarka which is sufficient for our needs. You should also have built a house or flat in Delhi. If you say that you are house-less in Delhi, it only exposes your incompetence.

Owning a flat or building one is not a crime. I do not know whether you know about C. Krishnan Nair, who took part in the Salt Satyagraha. After the Dandi March, he asked Mahatma Gandhi what he should do. It was Gandhi who advised him to go to Delhi.

Nair did not have a house in Delhi. When Jawaharlal Nehru wanted Nair to become the first Chief Minister of Delhi, he declined the offer.

Instead, he suggested the name of his sidekick Brahma Prakash. Of course, they had reached an agreement among themselves—Nair would stay in the outhouse of the CM’s official residence.

When Prakash lost his job, Nair had nowhere to go. When he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Outer Delhi twice, he had a house allotted to him by the Centre. It was Nair who tabled the motion for forming what is called the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). He did not have a house of his own.

Once he was admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. He was in the general ward. A journalist reported about his condition. One of his lieutenants and minister HKL Bhagat visited him at the hospital and shifted him to a VIP room. When he was discharged, he had no place to go. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi got a quarter allotted to him at Ramakrishna Puram. He did not live long afterward.

I do not consider yours as a sacrifice when you quit the post of chief minister. The court had clearly stated that you could neither see any files nor discharge your functions as the chief minister.

Ideally, you should have surrendered your house to the department concerned. Instead, you are believed to have given the keys of the house to your successor, Atishi Singh. The house was not your personal property, and you should have returned the house with all the official fixtures to the department and obtained a certificate.

That is what I did when I vacated a bungalow allotted to me by the Tribune Trust while I was posted in Chandigarh. However, the father of a colleague of my wife did not take the precaution of surrendering his bungalow when he was transferred to Delhi from Chandigarh. In his absence, some corrupt officials removed all the carpets, fans, plumbing items, curtains, etc., from the bungalow.

Reports appeared that he had stolen them. He was none other than Ramaswamy, a judge of the Supreme Court whom the government sought to impeach. I am sure you will remember Kapil Sibal defending him in Parliament. It had a salutary effect. The MPs got divided, and he was spared impeachment. He was allowed to retire from the Supreme Court. His mistake: he did not properly surrender the house and obtain a certificate.

I happened to be present when former Deputy Speaker of the Rajya Sabha, Prof. PJ Kurien, vacated his house. I was there because he had come to Kerala Club where we had organised a farewell for him. I deemed it my duty to accompany him. After all, he taught Physics at my alma mater, St. Thomas College, Kozhencherry. I saw him holding a long list of the items he was surrendering. A CPWD official was present to check the list against the items and give him a certificate with signature and seal.

I am not suggesting that Atishi Singh would take away any of the costly items, but someone or the other can do so, and you will be held responsible for them.

You and your deputy, Manish Sisodia, have decided to shift into the houses allotted to two AAP Rajya Sabha members. I know for sure that Sisodia has a flat in Samachar Apartments in Mayur Vihar, which I have visited once. Similarly, you have an independent house on the outskirts of Delhi.

What prevented you two from returning to your own houses? You should have remembered that you became Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively while living in those modest homes.

Instead, what are you two doing? You are preventing two of your own MPs from enjoying the comforts of the houses allotted by the Centre. These houses are given to them to perform their official duties.

In other words, these houses are their right. By forcing yourselves upon them, you are not setting an example. True, they have not objected to the proposal because you two are their leaders and it was you who nominated them to the Rajya Sabha. Did you ever think about how you have disturbed their privacy by becoming their permanent guests?

True, Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God) is what we Indians believe in. We also believe that guests become pests when they stay permanently and are, therefore, a nuisance. You will soon become one, if you haven’t already.

I do not know whether you realise it or not, but you are the most apolitical person in the country. You have been humiliated and even arrested, yet you are still deferential to Modi and Co. One of your permanent demands is full statehood for Delhi. I support you on this with the rider that law and order in New Delhi should remain with the Home Ministry.

Yet, shockingly, you were the first to welcome the vivisection of Jammu and Kashmir and converting the state into two Union Territories. No other political party had supported Amit Shah’s foolish decision. It contradicted your own theory that states should have greater autonomy.

Also, the BJP had never promised in any of its election manifestoes that J&K would be downgraded into two UTs. The recent elections proved that the people of the state never approved of Shah’s decision.

When the whole country was protesting against the new citizenship law based on religion, you preferred to support Modi. I remember you saying that if the police were with you, you would have evicted the women protesters from Shaheen Bagh. At that time I was happy that you did not control Delhi Police!

And when riots were engineered in Northeast Delhi, I expected you to go there and help bring the situation under control. Instead, you went to Raj Ghat to observe a fast. Mahatma Gandhi used fasting as a form of protest, not to evade duty. You have been claiming that you were jailed on false charges. You may be right, but you had access to power and privileges to knock on every judicial door.

There is a former JNU student leader who is in the same jail on trumped-up charges. He has not been granted bail so far. Do you know why? Because he does not have access to the resources you had, and he has a name that makes him a persona non grata. Compared to him, you had many bouts of bail. There are also hundreds of prisoners who languish in Tihar Jail because they lack your clout and money power.

Do you know how many seats you wanted, to be part of the INDIA alliance in Haryana? You were able to field your own candidates in about 85 of the total 90 seats. Yet, how many seats did you win? Not even one. How many of your candidates were able to get back their security deposits? Correct me if I’m wrong, only one candidate got a little over 40,000 votes. Your party secured only 1.7 percent of the votes.

Of course, because of AAP, INLD lost two seats and Congress one. In Himachal Pradesh, too, you fielded candidates in almost all the constituencies. If you had won five to ten percent of the votes, the BJP would have won the state. Fortunately, AAP got only one or two percent of the votes in all the constituencies.

You don’t have an ideology other than the BJP’s. That is why even BJP workers wouldn’t mind voting for you in the assembly elections while voting against you in the parliamentary election.

In his time, George Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar while remaining in jail. Your party scored a zero in the Lok Sabha elections early this year. You don’t have any transferable votes. I am sorry to say that your politics is limited to promising free electricity and water.

When freedom and Liberty are at stake, freebies are expendable!

Yours, etc.
ajphilip@gmail.com 

Courtesy: Indian Currents

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