An open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Arvind,

Hope you are doing well. Hope you have had a good start (or restart) in Delhi and hope your government will live upto the expectations of the people of Delhi who have given you and your party, such a massive mandate. Obviously, they expect you to do exceedingly well. As a well-wisher and supporter of AAP, I wish you and your government the very best.

This letter of mine has nothing to do with your government in Delhi. I write this as someone who is not from Delhi, but an admirer and supporter of AAP. When AAP was founded, like any other newly formed party, it had nothing to showcase. It only had some things to offer and a lot of us who believed cleaning up of politics is important, who thought we need leaders who are incorruptible, who thought that there is a need for greater transparency in the functioning of governments, who lamented at the lack of transparency in funding of political parties were impressed by AAP's ideology. I personally believe that until recently, AAP stood up to most of our expectations when it comes to sticking to its ideology. However, unfortunately, during the fight to win Delhi elections, I started noticing a gradual dilution of the principles on which AAP was formed.

There were several allegations. To name a few, there were allegations regarding stocking of liquor by one of your candidates, some reports raised doubts on the background of some of your candidates, there has been an allegation that one of your candidates who is now a minister has a fake law degree and there was also a question of funding from 'shell companies'. Unfortunately, except in the case of allegations regarding funding, where your leaders did give a reasonable explanation, AAP's leaders seemed to be showing strange reluctance to come up with convincing answers to these allegations. Since the focus was more on elections back then and the other parties seemed to be facing bigger problems, these issues and the gradual deviation from the AAP's founding ideology  didn't seem to draw too much attention.

While I was hoping that at least after the elections, you all would ponder over the dilution of principles, you didn't seem to bother. It looked like just because you won handsomely, you believed that there's no need to look back at your mistakes. However, it was slightly relieving to notice that a couple of senior leaders in the party seemed to realize that there is a need to fix certain things. In the letters that came out, there was clearly an admission of loopholes and rightly so, there were concerns raised on the functioning of the party. Unfortunately, this is being projected only as "rift" within the party. Yes, there could be personal ego, political ambitions and insecurity involved which only you all can find solutions for between yourselves. As an AAP supporter, I'm not particularly bothered about the infighting, but I'm definitely bothered about the questions that have been raised by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan.

Let us assume that these two leaders do have some personal enmity against you as your supporters seem to be suggesting. Let us also assume, though it's hard to believe, that these two worked against your party in the Delhi elections. How does it have anything to do with the concerns they have raised? In the most recent letter whose authenticity isn't being questioned by anyone (here is the letter), the demands of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan have been quite reasonable. What's alarming is that none of the leaders who are supporting you have been agreeing that these are valid demands. The demands, if met, will try to bring more opinions on board while important decisions are taken in the party and will thus help encouraging internal democracy, will help the party to be more vigilant so that unethical behaviour is prevented and the code of conduct of office bearers is monitored, will help bring in greater transparency in the functioning of the party and will try to bring back the party to its core ideology which the party seems to be deviating from recently.

Shouldn't all these concerns have been your concerns too? You might agree or not agree on the solutions that have been proposed in the letter, but as the national convener of the party, do you agree that the issues raised deserve attention? If you think you should be more worried about governing Delhi now, isn't it your responsibility to instruct or assist others to address these issues? It is shocking that you are trying to stay away from this and the leaders who are unconditionally supporting you and want the dissent voices out of the party have reduced this to a personal fight and are conveniently ignoring the issues that have been raised.

Like I said earlier, as a party, AAP had nothing to showcase as its achievements. Yet, the people trusted you. They believed that your intentions were good. They believed that you would stick to your ideology. They gave you 28 seats in the very first election you contested. Even after you were badly defeated in the general elections and it was so easy to get demotivated, the volunteers stood by you. Now by behaving as if the governance in Delhi is all that matters, you are letting down all those volunteers and supporters who stood with AAP because of the principles it claimed to stick to. Please understand that it is your duty to address the issues that have been raised. You have always claimed that AAP is not like any other party. Unfortunately, now it looks like all that matters to you is the victory in elections.

The issues that have been raised by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are the issues that have also been bothering thousands of volunteers who worked for your party. These are not baseless accusitions by a rival group. These are issues that have been raised by AAP's own leaders who have had high credibility so far. Can we please expect you to shed your arrogance and address these issues? If the allegations aren't true, can you please come up with convincing explanations? Would you please stop letting the volunteers down? Will you please speak?

With Regards,

An AAP supporter

Shed your arrogance right now!

     This happened a few months ago, when “Modi wave” was at its peak. The BJP had just won handsomely and the country was eagerly looking forward for some good governance by the newly formed government alias “PM Modi” at the Center. Meanwhile, I read a news report saying the CAG had slammed Modi and government of Gujarat for “mismanagement of state’s financial resources” and unduly favouring Ambani and Adani (Read the report here). Then I asked a very good friend of mine, if this was Kejriwal’s “I told you so" moment. He in turn asked me “Who is Kejriwal!?”. This was my first personal encounter of arrogance exhibited by a well-educated Modi supporter after the elections. He went on to question the infighting and alleged lack of democracy in AAP and he seemed to indicate that he was convinced of AAP’s decimation. The alleged one-man-show in AAP, if true, was indeed a matter of concern, as much as disenchantment among its workers and leaders. However, I thought it was unfair to write them off and even worse to mock them for their poor performance in general elections without even looking back at how the first timers had performed earlier and forgetting that there was a huge wave which swept away almost every single party that contested elections.

    The arrogance of a lot of BJP supporters only kept growing from there, with AAP not being the only victim. It was fine though, but only until the folks in government too followed the same path. Every time the opposition created ruckus in parliament over certain issues, the minister for parliamentary affairs kept saying something like – “The people have given us this huge mandate, we need not listen to you”, so did a few BJP MPs, some of them repeatedly mentioning the number of seats the congress had got in the election followed by a round of applause from their friends. The PM, though initially did showed some signs of an intention to take everyone along, hardly attended the parliament session even when he was in the country. He was rarely present during debates and it wasn’t very easy for the opposition to make him speak about the controversies that were making news everywhere.  In fact, the controversies were very serious. A central minister had made a horrible remark in an election rally, a MP was allegedly willing to preside over a mass conversion programme in UP, another MP announced that Godse was a patriot and although these controversies were impacting the functioning of Parliament, the government didn’t seem to be bothered. The minister wasn’t asked to go and was instead sent again to campaign for the party, the behaviour of those MPs was neither strongly condemned nor were the MPs publicly warned. The Godse-admirer went on to decide the number of children that each woman of this country should give birth to. While some reports said the BJP did serve him a notice, he not only dismissed them as untrue but also asked the reporters – “Ye hamaare ghar ka maamla hai. Aap media waalon ko kya lena dena?” There have also been talks of building temples for Godse. The Prime Minister who never misses an opportunity to invoke Gandhi’s name to sell his ideas, didn’t find it necessary to openly condemn this. All we heard is that the “internal sources” say that he is upset. Does he or his party expect the people of this country to understand that their PM is upset, even if he doesn’t utter a word? The HRD ministry headed by a TV actress has been in news only for wrong reasons so far. Well educated and qualified folks have been resigning from their posts, allegedly due to her display of high-handedness and interference. The PM doesn’t seem to understand the importance of a good HRD ministry in a country like India where people under 30 are in majority. The government, with an exception of the Finance Minister probably, doesn’t seem to entertain questions from media and public. The Prime Minister’s idea of connecting with people is to address them through radio and podium. I would put all these under one umbrella – the arrogance.

    As far as Delhi elections were concerned, despite a strong “Modi wave”, the BJP kept running away and when the elections were finally announced, right from day one of their campaigning, they never failed to exhibit their arrogance. From abusive radio ads and posters to the PM himself calling Kejriwal a “naxalite” and asking him to go to jungle, their whole idea of campaigning was to make personal attacks. Their chief ministerial candidate followed her party’s style by asking Kejriwal to join BJP if he wanted an invitation for the Republic Day Celebrations. Yogendra Yadav, when asked about AAP’s successful campaign replied that BJP helped them a lot. He was probably right. The BJP underestimated people’s intolerance towards the arrogance of those in power, the negative campaign and personal attacks on a leader and a party to whom they gave 28 seats in the very first election the party contested. Although it looks like AAP would have won Delhi elections anyway, I think if the BJP government at the Centre and the party’s Delhi unit hadn’t been so arrogant, the loss wouldn’t have been so bad. The party’s high command was so blind-folded by its dictatorial tendency that it thought it was absolutely fine to bring in an outsider and an opportunist at the last moment and project her as a chief ministerial candidate. It failed to understand that the loyal party workers and leaders could be silenced but not supressed. If they decide, they can cause some real damage to their own party. I’m not claiming that is what happened in Delhi. I’m only saying, that could have happened.

    AAP’s astounding victory has made me nervous. To my relief, Kejriwal’s very first address to his volunteers seemed to recognize the ill-effects of arrogance of power. However, I’m still nervous. The country is going to watch Delhi closely.  Hope “Janta Ka CM” will be careful not to commit the same mistakes that his party convincingly defeated did. My personal wish is that Yogendra Yadav should guide the party and Kejriwal and other MLAs should listen to people like him. The BJP too should learn its lessons quickly. Fortunately for them, the jolt has come quite early in their period.  Hope they wake up soon!

The Flaming Feet

   While I was reading Rajmohan Gandhi's "The Good Boatman", I came across a chapter fully dedicated to discuss M K Gandhi's view on the caste system and untouchability, his struggle to "purify" Hindu society, his fast in the Yeravada Jail against granting separate electorates for untouchables - a demand that Dr B.R Ambedkar raised and firmly stood for, the subsequent Poona Pact and so on. As a novice to Gandhi's teachings and based on what we learnt as kids, as far as caste system and untouchability were concerned, the only name that quickly came to mind was Ambedkar's. Whatever I had read about Ambedkar not only made him a hero but it also had a great impact on how I viewed the Hindu society. As a kid, it was appalling to learn about how the "untouchables" had to suffer in the hands of upper-caste Hindus. The "glorious past" of Hinduism claimed by many always appeared to be an attempt to cover-up all those disgusting practices some of which continue to exist (think river Ganga). That one chapter in Rajmohan Gandhi's book made me realize how important an issue was untouchability and oppression to M K Gandhi too. The next step was to find out a book written by a modern writer who digs deeper into the views and struggles of both these great men. As a part of this search, I half-halfheartedly asked Ramachandra Guha, an eminent historian, on twitter, to suggest a book, barely hoping that I would get a reply. To my astonishment, Guha did reply immediately, asking me to read D.R Nagaraj's "The Flaming Feet".

   Late  D R Nagaraj, who unfortunately passed away at the age of 44, was a well-known Dalit writer, thinker and activist. In this brilliant book, with Gandhi and Ambedkar as the protagonists, he writes about the history of Dalit movement in India, the shape it took eventually, the dos and don'ts of the movement in his view and so on. One point he sticks to throughout the book is that the Dalit movement, while trying to erase the painful past and to break away from the traditional Hindu customs, has been possibly erasing their rich cultural memory. He argues that the Dalits too need a cultural memory of their own. Nagaraj emphasizes on recreating the worlds of Dalits' Gods and Goddesses without giving any room for self-pity. He also reviews the works of writers like  U R Ananthamurthy, Shivarama Karantha, Devanuru Mahadeva, Siddalingaiah who have been stimulative in their own ways to the Dalit movement.

  As someone who started reading this book to study Gandhi and Ambedkar, the chapter I loved the most is the one in which the imagined voices of the protagonists are heard. Nagaraj comes up with two imaginary soliloquies where Gandhi and Ambedkar look at their country from heaven after its 50 years of independence and with their epic clash at the background, acknowledge each other for their respective capabilities and beliefs.

 Being an upper-caste Hindu himself, Gandhi had to deal with the "outsider" tag in his fight against untouchability. Adding to this struggle, was his reluctance to abolish caste system and his theory of varnas. Gandhi believed in the purification of Hindu society. He stressed on the "conversion of  hearts" of upper caste Hindus. While Nagaraj does appreciate this, he argues that in Gandhi's proposed method, the Dalits were mere subjects. Being a Dalit himself, Nagaraj has an understandable urge to be an agent of change rather than living, again, at the mercy of upper-caste Hindus. Nagaraj believes that Ambedkar did address this issue. Ambedkar's approach was to completely break away from the traditional world of oppression and create a separate identity for Dalits by fighting for their rights, to an extent that he even desired separate electorates for Dalits. Clearly, in Ambedkar's world, Dalits were and had to be agents of change. However, interestingly, Nagaraj argues that while Ambedkar's method laid the required foundation for mobilization of Dalits, their participation in Indian democracy and for securing their rights, the Dalits' achievements in this regard are fragile. Nagaraj appears to have realized that the upliftment of Dalits shall attain meaning eventually only through Gandhi's method of "conversion of hearts" of upper-caste Hindus.

  Astonishingly, the reader of this book doesn't have to worry about Nagaraj being a Dalit himself. Like I mentioned earlier, there's no room for self-pity in the book. The fact that Nagaraj was a Dalit activist and a researcher helps the book in more ways than one. For anyone interested in Dalit movement and like me, in understanding Gandhi and Ambedkar in the context of caste system and Dalit upliftment, this book is a treat.

2014

 
Unemployed

   The highlight of the year 2014 was that I quit my job all of a sudden and became unemployed voluntarily in the month of July. The plan was this - I was going to put my "best efforts" to crack CAT and make it to IIMs. No, not for making money as an investment banker. It was primarily because in the place where I worked for close to 3 years, whatever we were working on made no sense to me although according to my manager, I was a valuable employee. My first plan was to look for a new job and I did manage to clear a couple of interviews. However, when I looked around at the kind of work my friends were put into in other IT companies, I had genuine doubts on whether I would enjoy my new job at another firm. Since I knew that I wanted to get into social sector eventually, I thought that a post graduation from a decent B-school will help me understand Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship and Management in general  all of which will broaden the scope to get into my field of interest later, without having to worry too much about the risks involved. I wrote CAT in November and the result wasn't good enough for me to make it to IIMs. Contrary to what I believed initially, the results didn't  disappoint me too much! This was the second most surprising thing. The first one was that it wasn't too boring when I was out of job. I'm figuring out what to do now, while running out of money pretty fast.

Reading

  I haven't read too many books in 2014 but here are the ones I loved -

1. The Good Boatman - Rajmohan Gandhi
2. The Flaming Feet - D.R Nagaraj
3. Ooru Keri (Part 1 and 2) - Siddalingaiah
4. Chomana Dudi - K Shivarama Karantha
5. Hayavadana - Girish Karnad

The books "Flaming Feet" and "Ooru Keri" deserve separate blog posts.

Travelling

  I made a  resolution a couple of years back to go on at least one solo trip a year. Sadly, I broke that resolution in 2014 but hopefully, I will make up for it this year. A couple of nice places I visited in 2014 deserves mention -

1. Ganeshgudi - The "Old Magazine House" at Ganeshgudi in the western ghats is a place worth staying at in monsoons if you don't mind walking around in heavy rains. Apparently, if you like to do some bird-watching, December is the best time to visit this place.

2. Galibore - This is a well known weekend getaway place for Bangaloreans. Worth a visit.

Politics

   As a keen observer of Indian politics, I found 2014 very exciting. Some of the noteworthy happenings were - The emergence of the AAP in Delhi - a ray of hope for people who desperately wanted to witness and get involved in clean politics, their political blunders that followed, their surprising success in Punjab in general elections, the bhakts' never-ending trolling on twitter in the beginning of the year because of the rise of AAP and then the celebration of their man's astounding victory by some more trolling, the sad and probably irreversible-in-the-near-future fall of the Congress and most importantly, the way in which the educated urban middle class around me fell cheaply to brilliant marketing by today's"strong PM", without asking the right questions. Having said that, looking at the alternatives we had, I do believe the voters have made the right choice for now. While it's too early to judge whether the new government is a better one functionally, it has definitely been more entertaining than the previous one, thanks specially to some of the folks in saffron and of course the Swamys, the Iranis and so on.