Thinking Allowed: AAP in self-destruct mode

New Delhi: AAP jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye, to baat ban jaaye! It would be just perfect if someone like you came into my life, sang Nazia Hassan, then barely 15, as Zeenat Aman gave lip and hip to it in the film Qurbani. The song had been playing in my head pretty regularly ever since AAP in this case the Aam Aadmi Party came into its own in 2013. And after the AAP swept the Delhi Assembly elections last month, the song did seem to have a smug ring to it.

 

Now it seems to have an ominous ring. Haan, haan, baat ban jaaye! (Yes, yes, it would be just perfect!) Now that the AAP has come into our lives especially into the lives of those of us who live in Delhi, we have found a party that deals with power by committing ritualistic suicide.  If the 2013 attempt at hara-kiri by resigning after 49 days of governance in Delhi failed to kill it, then the attempt must be renewed through public bickering. Not good enough? What about vulgar attacks on the founding fathers and pillars of the party? Perhaps the ugly throwing out of its sanest and most respected voices would help? Still alive?

 

 

The party that shot to power as a unique political experiment, spouting moralising mantras, promising clean politics and aiming to cleanse Indian society and politics of corruption and underhand dealings is now super busy exposing itself as neither very clean, nor unique. Through various weird “sting” operations, the AAP has stung itself pretty badly.

 

Amazingly, the media, which was once in love with the AAP, is now so confused by its antics that it is finding fault where there is none. So what if Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who was recently occupied in elaborately twisting his legs into knots and stylishly cleaning his nose with a spouted pot, as seen on national media had planned to split the Congress in order to garner support? There was no mention of money or rewards of any kind. What is the fuss all about? We may be shocked that Mr Kejriwal did what seasoned politicians do and we applaud their pragmatism and political skills but that doesn’t exactly make Mr Kejriwal corrupt.

 

In another secretly taped conversation, Mr Kejriwal says that there was no pressing need to field more Muslim candidates, since Muslims did not expect that and anyway saw the AAP as the only force capable of halting “the Modi rath”. Nothing scandalous about that either. Hard political realities need to be recognised and addressed and the AAP was doing just that.

 

What is indeed scandalous is the way members of the AAP were stinging each other. What kind of person secretly tapes private conversations between friends and colleagues? And Rajesh Garg, the former AAP MLA who stung Mr Kejriwal with the charge of splitting the Congress, proudly proclaims that he “records all conversations on his phone through an app, just like journalists do.” Well, only people with little to do would secretly record every phone conversation, not journalists who are gainfully em-ployed. Meanwhile, former Congress MLA Asif Moham-mad Khan has been holding forth on a secret, unrevealed video of AAP leader Sanjay Singh trying to lure Congress MLAs with ministerial posts. The secret spy camera fitted in his wristwatch did the trick, declared the pleased ex-MLA.

 

It is this shameless spying on each other and creepy secret surveillance by those who should be respecting their colleagues and protecting citizen’s rights, including the right to privacy, that is truly worrying. And the AAP seems to have emerged a frontrunner in this race for suicidal shamelessness.

The instinct of self-destruction kicked in the moment the AAP came to power in Delhi with an overwhelming, mind-blowing majority something that psephologist and AAP leader Yogendra Yadav had somewhat predicted. Voters had flocked to the AAP hoping for good governance, clean politics, development, a corruption-free state.

Exasperated by the dubious acts of big political parties, voters had turned to the AAP as a ray of hope. For decades, the Congress had been the obvious choice, but it was getting increasingly difficult to vote for a mammoth party stuck deep in corruption and headed by a boy who will never grow up.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party offered a more energetic option, but came with its own sectarian agenda that not everyone was comfortable with. And when the BJP government at the Centre made very little progress on last year’s poll promises, there was a new wave of discontent. The AAP had stepped in at that point, offering an option to those who had turned away from the Congress in disgust, had looked to the BJP in hope and was feeling let down. People decided to overlook AAP’s 2013 drama, accept its apology and promise of a steady government and give the new party of young idealists a second chance.

 

Boosted by the support of other secular parties, the AAP’s landslide victory consolidated the anti-BJP vote. And this feeling was not just limited to Delhi. Around India people were cheering the new party that promised to change Indian politics forever. This was the moment for capitalising on that enormous wave of hope, on the support of the secular parties and on the spectacular victory in Delhi. Mr Yadav, also a respected political analyst, had declared that the AAP would now expand and spread to other states. He was publicly snubbed as  Mr Kejriwal chose to declare that the party would not contest elections in other states. Mr Kejriwal failed to stop his members from squabbling in public, but made sure that critical voices were silenced swiftly and rudely. 

 

In the process, the two principled people who gave the AAP its intellectual and ethical credibility, Mr Prashant Bhushan and Mr Yadav were heckled, given a bad name and finally thrown out of the party. Mr Kejriwal who had spoken so evocatively about the need to shun arrogance just a few days earlier was clearly engulfed by arrogance himself. In moves that would make a contortionist envious, the AAP has gone directly for its own jugular. Hopefully, Mr Kejriwal the yoga enthusiast can get the AAP out of the knots he is tying it up in.