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

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 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.