Two separate events this week are tied by a common thread: Both frame a political party performing to the people, and at the same time, showing them a certain disregard. The images of AAP’s new Delhi Chief Minister touching the feet of former chief minister and party supremo Arvind Kejriwal after taking oath of office could be read as Atishi paying her respects to a senior somewhat ostentatiously. But the public display of reverence combined with her fervent declarations that the “only objective” for her and the party is “to make Arvind Kejriwal CM of Delhi again”, drove home a larger, sobering message: The people of Delhi, and their problems, are missing in Delhi’s new CM’s to-do list.
In her own telling, Atishi is focused on the return of Kejriwal to the seat she will hold until he does — not on her 13 portfolios or on governing the city-state that is showing visible signs of infrastructural and administrative crumbling.
The second — and more far-reaching — event was the Union cabinet accepting the recommendations of the Ram Nath Kovind committee for One Nation One Election. The Kovind committee was set up last year to go into a question with a predetermined answer — to see how to, not whether to, implement the BJP’s pet project of simultaneous polls. To that end, it was packed with those who supported the ONOE proposal and/or the BJP.
Express View on One Nation, One Election | Reject
But what was most striking about the motions that it went through, and the showy ritual of the Narendra Modi government stamping its approval on its conclusion, was how, in the name of the people, the people’s will was being made subservient in a democracy. If the ONOE goes through — it still has to make its way past Parliament with a special majority and then be ratified by state legislatures — elections will be held not as and when governments lose the trust of the electorate, as embodied by their elected representatives. They will take place only at fixed intervals, ostensibly because it will save money and privilege good governance, but actually because a government in search of uniformity, or out of fear of diversity, or because it wants to give a parliamentary and federal system a presidential and unitary cast, wants to synchronise them with elections at other levels and in other places.
By all accounts, both the AAP, as it swears in a place-holder CM, and the BJP, as it brings out a big-bang idea, are putting up a performance that they hope will help them paper over the cracks in a time of difficulty.
The AAP has been struggling for some time now to keep its head above the political waters. On the one hand, its top leadership was languishing in jail in a corruption case — Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were released only days ago. This must have been especially galling for a party that started out as a crusader against the corrupt, defined in its book as everybody-else-but-me. On the other hand, as its paltry tally in the general election showed in Delhi and Punjab, its governments are seen to be fumbling in terms of delivery.
The BJP is not in a good place either, having returned to power for a third term after a limited mandate that denied it a majority, and made it dependent on its allies. By denting the PM’s aura of invincibility, the verdict has opened up spaces for the Opposition and sent a signal across the political and institutional spectrum that is sinking in slowly but surely.
It is not surprising that the AAP, in this moment, should mount the stage and enact an emotive spectacle of Kejriwal’s “agnipariksha (trial by fire)”. Or that the Modi-BJP should try to change the subject from its own downsizing by resorting to another shock-and-awe strategy. Both performances aim to engage and entertain their audiences, while distracting them from turning their attention to the disturbing underlying meanings.
A chief minister has been installed who swears that her primary commitment is to the Leader, not to her responsibility to serve the people. The election schedule is sought to be fixed to privilege the convenience of government over the voice of the people. That’s what the AAP and BJP are doing, shorn of their self-righteous histrionics.
Till next week,
Vandita
