Kejriwal
A Dangerous Idea: No Establishment Will Let Him Survive
Saeed Naqvi
The wag has a point. The 2017 Delhi
Municipal Corporation elections, we are being persistently reminded, were won
by the BJP handsomely because of a single factor: a Modi wave. Fair enough. But
the BJP won the two previous Delhi Municipal elections also. Who generated the
waves then?
The anchors were hopping on their seats
in orgasmic ecstasy. “Kejriwal routed, Kejriwal routed”. One of them, his mouth
protruding like he was about to burst a gole-guppa, thrust his three fingers
forward in a gesture of uncontrollable excitement. “Kejriwal is coming third;
Kejriwal is third.”
As it turned out Kejriwal was not third.
He came second with 48 seats. Third was Congress with 30 seats. BJP, ofcourse,
was way ahead of either with 181 of the 270 seats contested.
Terms like “routed”, “swept away”,
finished”, “buried”, “destroyed”, “crushed”, “smashed” were used for Kejriwal
with such relish that one wondered what words would be pulled out from the Thesaurus
for the Congress which had actually come third. Moreover, how can Kejriwal and
AAP be “swept away” from the MCD where they never were. Yes, Congress was
annihilated, but the anchors seemed uncomfortable with that reality. They would
register that detail in tones of unbelievable politeness.
This visceral hatred for Kejriwal in the
media remains something of a puzzle for me. Having been a pen pusher and TV
anchor for decades, I cannot for the life of me understand “hatred” as an
ingredient in a journalist’s make up. In journalism, as in diplomacy, the
cardinal principal always was to keep ones balance.
The high decibel, partisan hysteria
which is the staple at all prime time discussions these days, takes ones breath
away: the anchor shouts at inconvenient panelists and hands lollipops to BJP
spokespersons.
I hesitate to lay all the blame at the
door of journalists who man today’s media. They operate in a particular system
of media ownership: he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Circumstances were not dissimilar a few
decades ago. A proprietor in the classical mould, Ramnath Goenka, for instance,
had abiding political interests. He, along with the RSS’s Nanaji Deshmukh, was
one of the architects of what came to be known as JP’s Bihar movement.
Subsequently he had a proprietary interest in the Morarji Desai led Janata
Government. But keeping these facts in mind, the paper’s policy was enunciated
by the powerful editor S. Mulgaonkar. There was credibility in the filtration
process. The presentation was plausible.
It is not for a moment suggested that
Kejriwal is God’s gift to Indian politics, but he has been quite unambiguous in
his opposition to corporate power, xenophobia, communalism and a general
militarism. Surely this should be to his credit.
Little wonder none of this registers
with the media which came into being in the wake of economic liberalization and
accelerated globalization. It was designed to carry advertising which the neo
liberal economic policies would boost. A media in the image of Rupert Murdoch
became a vogue. This Murdochized media was placed supinely in the service of
crony capitalism which reveled in the two-party systems. Whichever party came
on top was owned by corporates. I have personal knowledge of even the
mainstream Left having its hands in the same till. Rampaging corruption
enveloped regimes in Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, US, Indonesia, India,
Pakistan – any country boasting of an electoral democracy.
A suffocated electorate began to break
out of the two party strait jacket. The Left surfaced in countries where
economic issues dominated – Syriza and
Podemos, both communist parties, in Greece and Spain, for instance.
Islamophobia and anti immigrant xenophobia were fuelled in Societies fearful of
the biggest migration in history from West Asia and North Africa following
America’s 9/11 wars. Marine Le Pen is the direct consequence of such fears.
The post Soviet global establishment,
with the US as its central column, weakened considerably after the 2008
economic meltdown. But it is resilient enough to fight and contain the two
extremities. The formula is simple: where possible, a right-of-centre formation
should be supported. But in a situation where extreme Left is in competition
with the extreme Right, it is the Right which will obtain the vote of
confidence. In other words, xenophobia and racism are preferable to anti austerity
politics.
In the recent French campaign, the
Communist Jean-Luc Mélenchon surged ahead of most other candidates. Supposing
the run-off on May 7 were between Le Pen and Mélenchon, the establishment would
have thrown its full weight behind Le Pen. She would have won. But Emmanuel
Macron is a crafty candidate of the establishment in disguise: his En Marche!
(March ahead) party is brand new and yet as a former banker he is nothing if
not the establishment.
Kejriwal’s strength and weakness derive
from the same fact. He is truly anti establishment. It was extremely audacious
of him to stand on that kind of a platform. The result is there for all to see.
He stunned the nation winning 67 of 70 seats in the 2015 Delhi elections. He
stood out all the more because his extraordinary success came within months of
Modi’s victory. He alarmed the establishment, Modi, BJP, Congress, Lt.
Governor, Police Commissioner and, above all, the corporate media. Kejriwal,
unchecked, was a dangerous idea. He had to be waylaid at every turn. He must be
politically exterminated.
Providing free water and cheap electricity,
mohalla clinics to Delhi’s poor despite his hands having been tied behind his
back, is no mean achievement. A fearful Congress and the Akali-BJP combine ganged
up against him in Punjab but he came second, ahead of the Akali-BJP.
True, he does not have the please all skills
of a Macron. It therefore remains something of a pity that a duplicitous outreach
in multiple directions has to be placed in the category of a virtue for success
in today’s politics.
