Defeating his own goals
Arvind Kejriwal is furious over the fear of losing his 21 pairs of “eyes, ears and hands”—the parliamentary secretaries he appointed on March 13, 2015. President of India Pranab Mukharjee has rejected a proposed legislation by the Delhi government to exempt the post of Parliament Secretary from the purview of office-of-profit. An internal report of the Election Commission (EC), which examined the representations made by the 21 AAP MLAS in the office-of-profit controversy, also clearly states that the updated version of the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act 1997 along with all the amendments that have been made to the act so far were examined and the EC has come to the conclusion that the appointments made by the Kejriwal government are invalid.
Caught in his own blunder Kejriwal is accusing Congress and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) of double standards. I recall the month of March 2006 when President of the Congress party Sonia Gandhi resigned from her parliamentary seat over the controversy of holding the ‘office-of-profit’ as the chairperson of National Advisory Council (NAC) and announced that she would re-contest the election from Rai Bareli. Budget session of the parliament was abruptly ended that year after an uproar in the house by BJP and other opposition parties such as Telugu Desam. Despite the fact that several other party leaders including the left parties were of the opinion that as there is a lacuna in the laws that need to be addressed and until that is not done there is no need to resign, Sonia drove to the residence of the then speaker of Lok Sabha and handed over her brief resignation. She came back from Rai Bareli this time after the voting on May 8, 2006 with more than 80% of votes polled in her favour in comparison to around 59% in the election of 2004.
I feel that Kejriwal has lost an opportunity to cash on a controversy in which he is losing his 21 MLAs. If he would have asked his MLAs to resign forthwith, the chances of around half of these MLAs coming back in re-election could have been there. The clinginess he has shown for past few weeks will ensure that even one fourth of his colleague do not return to the assembly. Kejriwal is one of the most unfortunate examples of a person who started out with good ideas and actions, but lost his way with the experience of success and mass acclaim. His actions were subconsciously tainted by a wish to recreate the buzz and hysteria of his successes which climaxed with his party’s performance in the Delhi assembly elections. Today, Kejriwal is a person, who lacks any clear ideological consistency and lost his moral compass.
Kejriwal came to power with the promise of a new political system. I hardly find any change in the system of governance under his rule. The change in Kejriwal though is clearly visible. The years in power made ‘the agitator’ more arrogant, more anarchist, more adamant and more antagonist. He is unnecessarily more argumentative and absurd now. He has also become more abusive and aggressive. Now we see a Kejriwal who has become addict of flouting every norm and the rule of the book. Activism is healthy as it seeks to constructively negotiate solutions. But arrogance and obstinacy is neither healthy, nor necessary and can only be damaging to the processes of democracy.
I watch every other day Kejriwal and his lieutenants on different TV channels and it often flabbergast me to see how they all enjoy the sound of their own voice. I have occasionally faced their verbal terror during the discussions on channels and have observed that the desire for self-aggrandisement is growing very fast among team-Kejriwal. I do not know how much purity was there in the initial inspiration when Kejriwal used to fire his ammunitions using the shoulders of Anna Hazare, but his years in power have revealed that he is unable to conquer the lust for having his ego massaged by admirers.
In the early days of Arvind Kejriwal’s politics, psychologists described him exhibiting ‘servant leadership style‘. But now he is proving otherwise because servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities. Kejriwal has adopted the style of accumulation and exercise of power by one at the top of the pyramid. He does not nurture participatory environment and does not encourage the talent of followers anymore. Even traditional leaderships cannot afford this style now-a-days.
The credit of Kejriwal’s political birth, in my opinion, primarily goes to a pan-Indian phenomenon of ‘learned helplessness’ where people, who constantly fail to get results out of their action, give up trying and thereafter helplessness becomes a learned behaviour. This segment saw a strong ray of hope in Kejriwal way of doing politics. He was seen as a saviour who would undo this sense of helplessness and make people feel empowered to rise up and fight for change. But this initial feeling which freed people from learned helplessness has gone with the winds.
The second most important reason behind the rise of Kejriwal was using the psychology of persuasion very effectively. Authority and attractiveness of the persuader is one essential ingredient of this psychology. Kejriwal used the names of powerful, influential and popular figures as his supporters and this made many people change their party preferences. People tend to be easily persuaded by whom they are similar to. The name of Kejriwal’s party created this sense of similarity. If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honour it commitment. Kejriwal’s large scale signature campaigns, membership drives and online commitment gimmicks while launching his party paid huge dividends. But the political headwind of past years has taken away most of these virtues from Kejriwal’s kitty.
Delhi or for that matter India does not believe in an impatient and impulsive leadership. I am sure Kejriwal is not so innocent that he cannot realise that how hard he is working to defeat his own goals. He is clever enough to enter Rajya Sabha one and a half years from now. National capital then will be left with a badly tumbling political outfit playing on the laps of equally overrated novices.
Author is Editor and CEO of Global India Investigator.
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