CAPITAL LETTER. The loneliness of Arvind Kejriwal

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , Karl Marx observes, “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionising themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language.”

Marx, in this instance, was explaining how the revolution of 1848 in France eventually resulted in actions mostly motivated to satisfy the bourgeoisie. Less than a century later, in Germany, Adolf Hitler cast a spell over his impoverished countrymen with cries of “cleansing the system” with his comrade Ernst Rohm, a man later executed by the Fuhrer at the behest of the business class and the military.

Indeed, in our times, the credit for conjuring up the vision of a messiah wielding his magic wand to save the nation must go to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal.

He and his now-forsaken elder, Anna Hazare, were the first since VP Singh and Jayaprakash Narayan to evoke Bharat Mata to nail the corruption-ridden Congress. They created a political vacuum with Jan Lok Pal being the vehicle for systemic change.

Of course, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was initially only too ready to add fuel to the fire against a rapidly disintegrating UPA government and let Hazare and Kejriwal harbour the illusion of being the harbingers of change. The picture of Ram Madhav delivering a letter of support to Anna on the stage is all too vivid even though Madhav, who is now the all-powerful general secretary in the central BJP, would like us to forget that foray into radicalism.

The Sangh Parivar and Baba Ramdev’s antics continued for a while as they set their own machinery at work to pave the way for the then chief minister of Gujarat to begin his march to Delhi.

The momentum of the media hype and public support that Hazare’s anti-corruption movement generated sustained itself till the elections to the Delhi Assembly last year Of course, by then, the BJP had projected its own superhero on the national stage. Kejriwal’s AAP secured 28 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, leaving the BJP just short of a majority with 31 seats (plus one more for the Shiromani Akali Dal).

It was only a matter of time before the real messiah would eclipse the impersonator. To the dismay of liberals clutching at straws to tide over the Modi tsunami, the moment of truth arrived too soon for Kejriwal.

Of course, he helped hastened the process by resigning, the shocking vigilantism championed by some of his colleagues in organising midnight raids in the homes of supposedly “loose” women and the crudity of star campaigners such as Kumar Vishwas.

The loneliness of Kejriwal is complete in the run-up to the next round of elections in the beginning of February next year. Not only have his friends Shazia Ilmi and former Delhi Assembly speaker and AAP legislator MS Dhir joined the BJP, even the Jan Lok Pal Bill seems to have succumbed to the law of diminishing returns. The talk of 20 new colleges in a city that already houses five universities and innumerable colleges, besides education loans and power subsidies, seems to have replaced the Jan Lok Pal in the AAP’s public interactions.

Alongside the structural and ideological problems pulling back Kejriwal’s party, it is also the unstated aim of both the BJP and the Congress to squash him in the upcoming elections. The BJP will pit Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the mythological level of his popularity against Kejriwal’s rudderless politics. The BJP has already shed most of what weighed it down in the last round of elections — infighting, groupism, and erroneous brand image as an anti-migrant, Punjabi-Bania party.

Under Modi, the BJP promises to turn Delhi into a model, smart capital city with a coherent strategy for the migrant population. And if the local stalwarts don’t like reporting to an upstart like the new State BJP president Satish Upadhyay, they don’t say it loud lest Modi gets to hear about it. The BJP will not project a chief ministerial candidate, following their strategy in Maharashtra and Haryana, and if the Prime Minister favours sending his Education Minister to Delhi after the elections, no one is really in a position to argue.

The ruling party’s prospects are bright and the opinions polls predict that it looks set to repeat its performance in the Lok Sabha when it swept in all seven seats in Delhi. More than that, the BJP would relish the prospect of humiliating Kejriwal in his own fortress.

The Congress’s strategy, such as it is, has one thing in common with the BJP: it aims to target Kejriwal. Unlike its neighbouring States, the Congress in Delhi has a couple of experienced and skilled leaders in Ajay Maken, Arvinder Singh Lovely and Haroon Yusuf who are looking to wrest their bastions in the slums and resettlement colonies. While the Congress is micromanaging elections in these constituencies, the BJP has landed with an even bigger advantage.

There has been communal tension in Trilokpuri, Bawana and certain other areas in the city. While there is a consolidation of Jats behind the BJP since the riots in neighbouring Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh last year, Valmiki-dominated areas such as Trilokpuri too are now gravitating towards the BJP. Trilokpuri presently has an AAP MLA who secured a majority of the Muslim and Valmiki votes in the previous election.

This time round, the communal tension that erupted over a religious congregation during Diwali has clearly upset the AAP applecart with the local Valmikis gravitating towards “Modi’s party”.

Altogether, it looks like the start of a long and lonely winter for Kejriwal. The best he can hope for is bettering the Congress’ score. The latter did not get even 10 per cent of the seats to secure the leader of Opposition slot in the Delhi Assembly.