[Whatever the merits, or otherwise, of Kejriwal, that a "terrorist" has come back to power with resounding victory, despite full-throated hysteric screams by the hugely more resourceful Modi-Shah duo and its minions, is definitely a smart slap in their face.
Not that they're going to mend their ways. Not that they will step back from their "destroy India" project. Most likely, would press on the accelerator even harder. Nevertheless. To be sure, Kejriwal was the principal aide of Anna Hazare, in turn, having close relationship with the RSS, particularly via Nanaji Deshmukh. But, a massive electoral defeat, right at the national capital, of the BJP - which poses an immediate and overwhelming threat to "India", is, no doubt, worth celebrating, with the appropriate riders in place. AA. <<It would be tempting to see this result as a cutting rebuke to the style and tone of the BJP's campaign. The days of the BJP selling itself as the party of governance are long gone, on the trash heap alongside its actual governance record. Instead, the Delhi campaign has been about everything but governance - unless traffic management problems caused by the Shaheen Bagh protests count as governance issue. The party and its leadership centred their appeal for votes on their true and unmistakable agenda: the demonisation of India's Muslim minority and the identification of Indians of Muslim background with Pakistan. Even the party's own partisans agree on the nature and theme of the campaign. Thus I suppose some liberal triumphalism was inevitable, but it should be roundly rejected. It might feel wonderful to declare that this was the voter in Delhi rejecting divisiveness and declaring her disagreement with what the BJP had to say, but that would be a brazen misinterpretation of what has actually happened. In fact, the BJP won the argument. It simply did not win the election. The AAP has not disagreed with the BJP on the themes or substance of its critique of Shaheen Bagh, of the anti-CAA protests, and so on. Arvind Kejriwal himself complained the problem with the CAA was that Indians themselves were not getting jobs. He also declared that if given a free hand, he would clear Shaheen Bagh in a couple of hours, and that nobody had the right to block traffic indefinitely. Quite amazing hypocrisy from a man who rose to power on a record consisting solely of pointless, fruitless, and interminable protest. If the BJP's campaign has been one of open malice, the AAP's campaign has been no less damaging to India's soul. This is a victory of not just cowardice, but of submission to the BJP's core values. ... In some ways Kejriwal has always been the purest expression of the middle class Indian's id. Middle class India's idea of a perfect politician has always been some sort of Singaporean technocrat who focuses on material outcomes without doing any actual politics. Kejriwal fits right in. I used to think, once, that in the end it would be street protestors like Kejriwal who would lead the opposition to Modi while traditional politicians would roll over and play dead. But clearly I was wrong. Because Kejriwal seems to have no problem with a future in which all of India's children learn the RSS' values and its preferred history in school - as long as the school is nicely painted and air-conditioned. ... The Aam Aadmi Party is not a national contender to replace Modi, nor should we welcome it becoming one as long as it does not seek to contest Modi's vision for India. It is a regional party of a relatively small state - and, by the standards of regional parties, a relatively meek one. It has not spoken up in defence of federalism like the DMK. It has not run rallies in support of constitutional values and citizenship rights, like the Trinamool. It has not said a word for free speech, which even the new Shiv Sena has. So, yes, it is good news that the BJP's vile campaign has not been rewarded with victory. But let nobody think that the Aam Aadmi Party is here to stand up against hate.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.) BB. <<A first reaction to the Delhi outcome is simply that of relief — voters chose to treat this as just an assembly election and not as an India-Pakistan confrontation. They refused to equate the BJP with India. Relief also because the crowds chanting “goli maro saalonko” were probably not representative of the aam voter. Elections often have a tendency of bringing out the worst in irresponsible politicians, confident that they can make the voters match their own malice and vice. Delhi has probably ducked the issue of responding to this tendency. But has it really negated that tendency? ... The only way one can make sense of AAP’s victory can be in terms of its performance. Re-election, therefore, not just endorses what the government did but also symbolises the fact that voters do reward parties for their performance while in power. But perhaps the more significant signal is about what the voters did not buy. The election was happening in the backdrop of the anti-CAA agitation, the assault on students of JNU and Jamia Millia Islamia and of the unregulated venom being poured by important BJP leaders. ***Every effort was made to turn the voter into a cynical instrument of communal division. In that sense, the choice before the voters was between governmental performance and an open invitation to uncivilised, divisive animus. A straightforward reading of the result would assure us that the voter did not choose animosity over performance.*** [Emphasis added.] That is where the romance with the Delhi outcome must halt. During the campaign, the BJP continuously sought to trap Kejriwal into taking a position on the CAA, nationalism and Shaheen Bagh protests. It was tactically clever of Kejriwal not to fall into that trap. This allowed him to retain his electoral base. This also begs two questions: What really is/was his stand on these issues? We will probably never know. Or, post-results, he may muster courage and formally dissent from the BJP’s position. But the more nagging question is: If he had indeed taken a stand in favour of the protests during the campaign, would voters still vote for AAP? Was it because of the ambiguity of Kejriwal’s stand that the voters could vote for him despite their continuing love affair with Narendra Modi? Because this would mean that state parties should refrain from taking a stand on critical issues about national identity and the nature of nationalism in order to make local electoral gains. Such a strategy would ensure victories of state parties in state elections and yet facilitate BJP victories in national elections. This is not merely about the separation of the menus and platforms in state and national elections. This is about opening up passages of popular approval for the ideas and views the BJP propagates. If so, we shall soon experience a misleading political scenario where many states witness a rejection of the BJP without necessarily discarding the agenda the BJP represents.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.) CC. <<India’s national capital is voting for a new state government on February 8. The election is taking place against the backdrop of nearly two months of protests against the Modi government’s controversial amendments to India’s citizenship law, which critics say undermine the country’s secular foundations. The protests have been largely peaceful and have seen the participation of students and citizens of all communities. But the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has sought to portray them as violent, emphasising their Muslim character, in a bid to polarise the electorate on religious lines. The main target of its hate campaign is Shaheen Bagh. The locality was barely known within Delhi until its women residents decided to sit down on a road in December to protest against the Citizenship Act. Fifty days later, they are still there – with no less than India’s prime minister and home minister denouncing them in election speeches. Another member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party even went to the extent of claiming the protestors of Shaheen Bagh would rape and kill women if his party did not win the Delhi election. As the BJP attempts to demonise the protestors, is its campaign working? More importantly, what do the residents of Delhi think about the right to protest in a democracy?>> (Excerpted from sl. no. III. below.) DD. <<The BJP held 6,577 public meetings over the past month, including 52 road shows and public meetings by Shah. In around 30 speeches, he urged people to press the lotus button on the EVM so hard that its “current” would be felt at Shaheen Bagh forcing protesters to leave. A similar messaging went out from the rest of the leaders, with BJP MP Parvesh Saheb Singh calling the Chief Minister a terrorist; Union Minister Anurag Thakur chanting “Desh ke gaddaron ko…” as people responded “Goli maaro saalo ko…; Uttar Pradesh CM saying Arvind Kejriwal was feeding protesters biryani; and Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a conspiracy was afoot to disturb peace in the country. Clearly, these failed to strike a resonant chord with many voters.>> (Excerpted from: < https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/diminishing-returns-in-states-for-bjps-hard-ideological-push-6263617/ >.) EE. <<***Another highlight of this approach — the refusal (of the AAP) to cede the Hindu nationalistic space to the BJP — also found reflection in his (Kejriwal's post-victory) speech. “Aaj mangalvaar hai, Hanumanji ka din hai, Hanumanji aap apni Delhi pe kripa barsayi hai, Hanumanji ka bohot bohot dhanyavad, prabhu ka bohot bohot dhanyavad. And we pray that prabhu, in the coming five years, also continues to provide the necessary strength and show us the way so that the two crore people of Delhi, a family, is transformed,” he said.*** [Emphasis added.] The speech also had a personal touch, with the CM telling the crowd that his family were his biggest supporters, and that it was his wife Sunita’s birthday today. He ended the little over six-minute speech with chants of Inquilab Zindabad, Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Vande Mataram. Slogans he began with.>> (Excerpted from: < https://indianexpress.com/elections/arvind-kejriwal-aap-delhi-election-results-2020-6263651/ >.) FF. <<“The national capital must have given its mandate after careful thinking. Our vote percentage has increased from 32% to around 38%,” said BJP’s Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari, who was viewed as a possible chief ministerial candidate in case his party won. “We indulge in the politics of development and not in the politics of hatred. We’re against the roadblock in Shaheen Bagh as we were earlier.” ... As its victory became apparent, AAP gave hints of taking its politics national. Addressing volunteers, the party’s Delhi chief Gopal Rai said the city gave votes to love and defeated hate. “Baat nikli hai toh dur talak jaigi (We will go a long way),” he said, adding this “politics of change” will not just be limited to the national capital. Analysts say AAP could be eyeing Punjab and Goa where it has significant support before considering a plunge in the 2024 parliamentary polls. The party had fielded 434 candidates in the 2014 general elections but managed to win just four, all of them in Punjab. It contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in 40 constituencies, mainly from Delhi, Goa and Punjab, bagging just one seat. It has also tried its luck in assembly elections of Punjab, Goa, Maharashtra and Haryana but without any notable success.>> (Excerpted from: < https://www.news18.com/news/politics/delhi-assembly-elections-results-2020-live-updates-counting-votes-time-bjp-aap-arvind-kejriwal-congress-exit-poll-result-2496379.html >.) GG. <<With the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) returning to power in Delhi for a third stint in the government following a massive mandate in the Assembly elections, where it bagged 62 of the 70 seats, leading publications across the world called it a “stunning” defeat and setback for Narendra Modi’s party amid a polarising campaign.>> (Excerpted from: < https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-election-results-aap-bjp-world-media-report-6264251/ >.)] I/III. https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/kejriwal-didnt-stand-up-to-modi-he-side-stepped-him-2177811?fbclid=IwAR0P9NCRX2X4BRu3eD6OkrpsRESyF4xlMznbmALSN6P8ect9hgVBH1msuPk Kejriwal Didn't Stand Up To Modi - He Side-Stepped Him Mihir Swarup Sharma Updated: February 11, 2020 06:36 pm IST The Aam Aadmi Party has, once again, swept Delhi - just months after the Bharatiya Janata Party won all of the capital's seven seats. For many, this victory will come as a relief. Urban India has seen sustained and energetic protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens, and the epicentre of these has been Delhi and Shaheen Bagh. That the BJP has been defeated here is therefore of national importance, especially as the party and its leaders sought to turn this into a quasi-referendum on Shaheen Bagh. It would be tempting to see this result as a cutting rebuke to the style and tone of the BJP's campaign. The days of the BJP selling itself as the party of governance are long gone, on the trash heap alongside its actual governance record. Instead, the Delhi campaign has been about everything but governance - unless traffic management problems caused by the Shaheen Bagh protests count as governance issue. The party and its leadership centred their appeal for votes on their true and unmistakable agenda: the demonisation of India's Muslim minority and the identification of Indians of Muslim background with Pakistan. Even the party's own partisans agree on the nature and theme of the campaign. dletb22o Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party looks likely to win a sweeping 60-plus seats - marginally short of the 67 seats it won in 2015 Thus I suppose some liberal triumphalism was inevitable, but it should be roundly rejected. It might feel wonderful to declare that this was the voter in Delhi rejecting divisiveness and declaring her disagreement with what the BJP had to say, but that would be a brazen misinterpretation of what has actually happened. In fact, the BJP won the argument. It simply did not win the election. The AAP has not disagreed with the BJP on the themes or substance of its critique of Shaheen Bagh, of the anti-CAA protests, and so on. Arvind Kejriwal himself complained the problem with the CAA was that Indians themselves were not getting jobs. He also declared that if given a free hand, he would clear Shaheen Bagh in a couple of hours, and that nobody had the right to block traffic indefinitely. Quite amazing hypocrisy from a man who rose to power on a record consisting solely of pointless, fruitless, and interminable protest. If the BJP's campaign has been one of open malice, the AAP's campaign has been no less damaging to India's soul. This is a victory of not just cowardice, but of submission to the BJP's core values. There are those who think politics should only be about schools, and they might wish to rejoice over the AAP's victory. But politics, especially in India has always also been about more than that - and doubly so in Modi's times. There are those like Kejriwal, who seek to turn the conversation away from those aspects of the Modi agenda - Kashmir, the essential Hindu-ness of India, and so on - with which they have no dispute. The famous answer that Kejriwal gave a television anchor probing him about Shaheen Bagh was indeed revelatory - but it hardly deserved the plaudits it received. He said this was all a "distraction". A distraction? Fighting to preserve what remains of India's constitutional values is a "distraction"? Kejriwal ran away from power once; now, to keep power, he is running away from the issues. 1pgv4p1 AAP had expressed confidence that its performance in health and education sectors and free power and water to the people will see it through Let us give the Aam Aadmi Party the benefit of doubt they do not deserve and assume that they have merely chosen a politics of cynicism and cowardice. Certainly, in spite of a record filled with such answers, it is possible that the Delhi Chief Minister himself genuinely disagrees, personally, with the RSS' view of the world. The best we can then say is that he believes this disagreement is not worth pursuing politically. Is he right? Leaders like Modi understand that politics is about the creation and contestation of ideas, ideologies, and identities as much as it is about bijli-sadak-paani. But Kejriwal wants to fight only on the latter - and even there he doesn't have sadaks, given that Delhi's voters decided the AAP couldn't be trusted with the municipal corporation. In some ways Kejriwal has always been the purest expression of the middle class Indian's id. Middle class India's idea of a perfect politician has always been some sort of Singaporean technocrat who focuses on material outcomes without doing any actual politics. Kejriwal fits right in. I used to think, once, that in the end it would be street protestors like Kejriwal who would lead the opposition to Modi while traditional politicians would roll over and play dead. But clearly I was wrong. Because Kejriwal seems to have no problem with a future in which all of India's children learn the RSS' values and its preferred history in school - as long as the school is nicely painted and air-conditioned. v4fa63h8 AAP, which accused the BJP of polarising the voters over the Shaheen Bagh protests, said the results indicated that the "real nationalism is to work for the people" The fact is that through protests like Shaheen Bagh and through election campaigns, political identities are born. Narendra Modi, the paramount politician of our times, understands this; he created the aggressive BJP of the 21st century not thanks to his handling of the 2002 riots, but through how he conducted the election campaign that followed. Kejriwal sought to win by avoiding the tough questions; Modi triumphed by embracing them. That is how you create a public, and that is how you change minds. There is an entire group of commentators and politicians who think that only by avoiding discussion of the real questions that Modi asks of the idea of India can he be defeated. Not only is that wrong, but even if it were to happen, defeating a politician without repudiating the ideas he represents is pointless. The Aam Aadmi Party is not a national contender to replace Modi, nor should we welcome it becoming one as long as it does not seek to contest Modi's vision for India. It is a regional party of a relatively small state - and, by the standards of regional parties, a relatively meek one. It has not spoken up in defence of federalism like the DMK. It has not run rallies in support of constitutional values and citizenship rights, like the Trinamool. It has not said a word for free speech, which even the new Shiv Sena has. So, yes, it is good news that the BJP's vile campaign has not been rewarded with victory. But let nobody think that the Aam Aadmi Party is here to stand up against hate. (Mihir Swarup Sharma is a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.) II/III. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/delhi-election-results-aap-arvind-kejriwal-bjp-6263301/ By ignoring ideological questions, AAP remains within BJP’s framework AAP's win in Delhi elections provides relief, hope. But the romance with the Delhi outcome must halt. Written by Suhas Palshikar | Updated: February 12, 2020 11:59:51 am Arvind Kejriwal addresses supporters after AAP’s victory in the Delhi Assembly elections, at AAP headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday, February 11, 2020. Kejriwal’s wife Sunita, daughter Harshita and son Pulkit are also seen. (PTI Photo: Manvender Vashist) A first reaction to the Delhi outcome is simply that of relief — voters chose to treat this as just an assembly election and not as an India-Pakistan confrontation. They refused to equate the BJP with India. Relief also because the crowds chanting “goli maro saalonko” were probably not representative of the aam voter. Elections often have a tendency of bringing out the worst in irresponsible politicians, confident that they can make the voters match their own malice and vice. Delhi has probably ducked the issue of responding to this tendency. But has it really negated that tendency? To be able to put the outcome of Delhi elections in perspective, three things need to be noted. One, that this was not an election on which the fate of national politics hinged — after all, it was an election to the Assembly of a union territory where the elected government is severely constrained by statutory provisions. But the BJP sought to make this election disproportionately important. That makes the failure of the BJP look even more impressive. Two, notwithstanding what the spin doctors may say about improved vote share, winning margins and so on, the BJP squarely lost and the Aam Admi Party won handsomely. The BJP must realise that its all-too-powerful national leadership seems repeatedly unable to deliver at the state level and that shrill rhetoric does not necessarily win elections. Three, these elections happened in a rather extraordinary context, which has an all-India relevance. In deciphering the outcome, without taking away the credit from the AAP’s record over the past five years, it is necessary to go beyond the Delhi-specific fallout and look for the larger meaning of the result. In discussing election outcomes, the term mandate is thrown around somewhat loosely. The “mandate arguments” gain popular currency particularly when the result is rather one-sided. However, often enough, mandates are read into outcomes post-facto and even crafted post-facto. Therefore, instead of rushing to declare the victory of performance or drawing satisfaction from rejection of the BJP’s deeply divisive stand, we need to estimate who will craft a mandate and in which way. It would be hard to deny that this outcome throws up mixed signals. It does not reflect the “national mood” in an electoral sense and yet, there is an eerie reflection of the national mood in this result. The only way one can make sense of AAP’s victory can be in terms of its performance. Re-election, therefore, not just endorses what the government did but also symbolises the fact that voters do reward parties for their performance while in power. But perhaps the more significant signal is about what the voters did not buy. The election was happening in the backdrop of the anti-CAA agitation, the assault on students of JNU and Jamia Millia Islamia and of the unregulated venom being poured by important BJP leaders. Every effort was made to turn the voter into a cynical instrument of communal division. In that sense, the choice before the voters was between governmental performance and an open invitation to uncivilised, divisive animus. A straightforward reading of the result would assure us that the voter did not choose animosity over performance. Editorial | AAP scripts a win with an inclusive civic agenda as counter to BJP’s hyper-nationalism That is where the romance with the Delhi outcome must halt. During the campaign, the BJP continuously sought to trap Kejriwal into taking a position on the CAA, nationalism and Shaheen Bagh protests. It was tactically clever of Kejriwal not to fall into that trap. This allowed him to retain his electoral base. This also begs two questions: What really is/was his stand on these issues? We will probably never know. Or, post-results, he may muster courage and formally dissent from the BJP’s position. But the more nagging question is: If he had indeed taken a stand in favour of the protests during the campaign, would voters still vote for AAP? Was it because of the ambiguity of Kejriwal’s stand that the voters could vote for him despite their continuing love affair with Narendra Modi? Because this would mean that state parties should refrain from taking a stand on critical issues about national identity and the nature of nationalism in order to make local electoral gains. Such a strategy would ensure victories of state parties in state elections and yet facilitate BJP victories in national elections. This is not merely about the separation of the menus and platforms in state and national elections. This is about opening up passages of popular approval for the ideas and views the BJP propagates. If so, we shall soon experience a misleading political scenario where many states witness a rejection of the BJP without necessarily discarding the agenda the BJP represents. It is not just Kejriwal’s tactical silence on critical issues raised by the BJP. The Delhi elections also underscore how the popular imagination of a good CM candidate (or for that matter a good political leader) is being shaped. By reciting Hanuman Chalisa, Kejriwal didn’t just exhibit his piety, he opened up new tests for future politicians. Nobody should grudge Kejriwal or any other political leader a personal space to hold and practice her religious and spiritual beliefs; but by making that into a public virtue, are we not implicitly shifting the criteria of both a public worker and the public sphere? This insistence of holding your faith on your shirtsleeves characterises the BJP’s Hindutva. While the AAP’s victory is a small window to let fresh air in, for that opening to be durable and real, we need to address two questions. First, does the defeat of BJP mean disapproval of its divisive stand? Second, is the alternative to the BJP to be necessarily a softer copy of the BJP itself? Explained: What is the challenge ahead for AAP 2.0? While the outcome of Delhi’s election does not give a convincingly affirmative answer to the first question, it portends the possibility of an affirmative answer to the latter. That is where we encounter a deep paradox when reading the Delhi outcome. It rebuffs the BJP and facilitates a respite for its opponents but at the same time, the outcome actually hints at the possibility that discourse and agenda would continue to be determined by the BJP. Parties wanting to seriously pose a challenge to the BJP can do so only within what this writer has long been describing as the new “middle ground”. One suspects that the ground on which the BJP operates remains more or less intact. It may be well that instead of over-reading the mandate, the Delhi outcome is seen as a small, tentative step towards reshaping the battleground that BJP currently seems to be controlling. This article first appeared in the print edition on February 12, 2020 under the title ‘New winner, same game’. The writer, based at Pune, taught Political Science and is currently chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics. III. https://scroll.in/article/952263/a-victory-for-aap-wont-mean-a-defeat-of-the-bjps-hate-campaign-in-delhi-heres-why?fbclid=IwAR2WFbaJoLJxbJZVqdyIDikODwOyWIBMNAXb9XqklG-BcKuvolzyhNL2Z5o A victory for AAP won’t mean a defeat of the BJP’s hate campaign in Delhi. Here’s why What Aam Aadmi party’s supporters have to say about Shaheen Bagh. A victory for AAP won’t mean a defeat of the BJP’s hate campaign in Delhi. Here’s why A worker dismantles the loudspeakers installed for a rally of Adityanath in Delhi. | Supriya Sharma Feb 06, 2020 · 09:00 am This is the fourth part of our series on what Indians think of the state of Indian democracy. Read the introductory note to the series here. India’s national capital is voting for a new state government on February 8. The election is taking place against the backdrop of nearly two months of protests against the Modi government’s controversial amendments to India’s citizenship law, which critics say undermine the country’s secular foundations. The protests have been largely peaceful and have seen the participation of students and citizens of all communities. But the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has sought to portray them as violent, emphasising their Muslim character, in a bid to polarise the electorate on religious lines. The main target of its hate campaign is Shaheen Bagh. The locality was barely known within Delhi until its women residents decided to sit down on a road in December to protest against the Citizenship Act. Fifty days later, they are still there – with no less than India’s prime minister and home minister denouncing them in election speeches. Another member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party even went to the extent of claiming the protestors of Shaheen Bagh would rape and kill women if his party did not win the Delhi election. As the BJP attempts to demonise the protestors, is its campaign working? More importantly, what do the residents of Delhi think about the right to protest in a democracy? The night of February 2, the BJP candidate for Uttam Nagar constituency in West Delhi uploaded two video messages to his Facebook page. In one, he promised to build more parks in the area since “children have no space to play”. In the other, he urged the area’s residents to gather for an election meeting of “Hindu Hridya Samrat”, the emperor of Hindu hearts, Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who is best known for his virulent anti-Muslim politics. This exemplified the curious dichotomy of the Delhi election: a municipal-level contest has been turned into a high-stakes battle by BJP. A communal battle, in fact. The campaign songs of the BJP barely conceal hate against Muslims. A central minister led chants inciting gun violence against protestors. Days later, gunmen actually fired at protest sites. Even the entry of the rabble-rousing chief minister of Uttar Pradesh seemed aimed at injecting more poison into the election. Adityanath: Kejriwal is not providing any facilities to the people of Delhi, he is feeding biryani to protesters at Shaheen Bagh. He would do everything that goes against the country. On the afternoon of February 3, Adityanath was addressing a public meeting in Uttam Nagar. He was repeating the now-familiar hate-mongering against the residents of Shaheen Bagh, calling them anti-national and declaring that Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal supported them, just like he supported the Azadi chants of the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and the people of Kashmir. He even supported the government of Pakistan. Adityanath: When is Arvind Kejriwal happy? When Pakistan is happy. The meeting itself was small: not more than 200 people packed into a road clearing in a lower middle class residential area called Bindapur. Right next to the dais was a park. Those basking in the winter sun – old men, mothers with babies, young boys playing games – crowded along the boundary to peer over the metal railings and even occasionally cheer for Adityanath. Adityanath: Should your sympathies lie with Kejriwal? Crowd: No! Adityanath: Speak louder Crowd: NO! Was this rhetoric swaying voters? Opinion polling had shown AAP had a lead over the BJP. Was the BJP’s hate campaign narrowing the lead? A group of women stood on the edge of a public park to listen to Adityanath's speech. Adityanath’s speech ended in 20 minutes. As soon as he left, the park regulars returned to their spots. The empty benches filled up. The children were back on the swings. I walked up to a group of middle-aged men sitting down on a mat rolled over the grass. Supriya Sharma: So what is the atmosphere here? Who are people voting for? Johri Singh: The man who is doing good for everybody. The cryptic response was easy to decode as a chorus of voices broke out. Dharam Kumar: We are voting for the broom. Vishnu Dayal: Everyone here is voting for the broom. Anonymous man: Anyone who lives in Delhi will vote for the broom. Yeh aayenge kya UP se kuch karne. Will these people [BJP leaders like Adityanath] come from UP to work for us? The broom is the symbol of the Aam Aadmi Party, which was born out of the anti-corruption movement of 2011. Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, a former Indian Revenue Service Officer, successfully positioned himself as a common man fighting corrupt political elites. His rise to power was meteoric. Within a year of its formation, AAP had won enough seats in the Delhi assembly election of 2013 to form a short-lived minority government with Congress support. In the next election of 2015, it went on to win a sweeping mandate. Since then, it has positioned itself as a party of governance, with pro-poor, pro-welfare policies – a message that seems to be working. Supriya Sharma: Why do you support the broom? Johri Singh: Kaam kiya hai, kaam karega bhi. They have done a lot of work, they will work in the future too. Anonymous man: ...Not like these people who are closing down factories and taking away our jobs. The caustic remark was aimed at the Modi government. The man, who did not want to reveal his name, said he lost his job two years ago when the garment factory where he worked was shuttered as part of an official “sealing drive”. Aimed at enforcing zoning regulations in Delhi, the drive had been prompted by a court directive, but workers like him blamed the Central government. Anonymous man: Kehte hai Modi ne tala lagaya. It is said Modi locked the factories. Berozgaar baithe hain. We are now unemployed. More complaints poured out about the economic policies of the Modi government. One man said he had given up on making and selling iron fasteners because of the changed rates under the Goods and Services Tax regime. Vishnu Dayal: Instead of 5% tax, iron materials are now taxed at 18%. No one is buying from us anymore. My entire business has closed down. But the Goods and Services Tax was implemented in July 2017. The sealing drive in Uttam Nagar took place in 2018. If there was deep anger over the Modi government’s economic policies, what explains the fact that BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and the AAP received a drubbing? Johri Singh: At that time, everyone said that Modi ji was the best option for the Centre. There was no one else in the fray. But now it is a state election. People are looking at the work of the state government. And this government has done a lot of work. Water and electricity supply has improved, schools have improved. There are mohalla clinics – one, in fact, just 10 steps down the road. We often go there, pick up medicines for free, and then come and sit in this park. The group of men included some former factory workers who no longer had jobs. But what about Adityanath’s characterisation of Kejriwal as someone sympathetic to ‘anti-national’ protestors? Johri Singh: Yeh galat hai. This is wrong. Supriya Sharma: You mean the BJP’s attacks are wrong? Johri Singh: No, the slogans are wrong. No one should raise slogans that harm the country. This was confusing. I asked again. Supriya Sharma: You think what Adityanath said about Kejriwal is right? Johri Singh: No, no, that’s the usual politics, the BJP needs to say this to try and win over some support. Vipaksh hai. It is the Opposition. It will attack Kejriwal. The men did not endorse the BJP’s criticism of Kejriwal – they were staunchly in support of AAP – but they wholeheartedly supported the criticism of the protests by the residents of Shaheen Bagh. Dhirendra Singh: Poori Dilli jaam karke rakhi hai. They have blocked all the roads in Delhi. Gadar machaa rakha hai. They have raised a storm. Shaheen Bagh is 30 km away from Uttam Nagar. But the vehemence in his voice would have you believe the protest was happening right in this neighbourhood. Supriya Sharma: Has any road been blocked in West Delhi? Dhirendra Singh: No, but who knows, tomorrow they may land up here too. Supriya Sharma: Don’t people have a right to protest in a democracy? Johri Singh: Yes, they do, but not if it causes harm to others and damage to public property. The men believed that the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act had caused widespread damage to public property in Delhi. This, when even the official list of damages released by Modi government paled in comparison to the losses incurred during the Jat agitation in Haryana in 2016. Supriya Sharma: No one called the Jats anti-national, even though they burnt down government buildings. Why are the women of Shaheen Bagh being called anti-national? Johri Singh: Dekho ji, they should not raise objectionable slogans. Supriya Sharma: What have they said that’s objectionable? Have you gone there and heard for yourself? Johri Singh: No, but we have watched on TV. They say in the news that the people there are chanting slogans, Hindustan Murdabad, Pakistan Zindabad. This was untrue – the protestors at Shaheen Bagh had often sung India’s national anthem and read the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. But the men would not budge. Johri Singh: TV pe galat thode na dikhayenge. They won’t show fake news on TV. Supriya Sharma: But I have been there… Johri Singh: You probably got there after the anti-India chants was over… A young woman, possibly a member of the press, records Adityanath's speech in Uttam Nagar. The Citizenship Amendment Act was passed on December 11. The first flashpoint in Delhi was reported on December 15, when an empty bus was burnt near the Jamia Islamia Millia University. The same evening, Delhi Police entered the university, firing tear-gas inside a library and beating up students. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal responded with an anodyne condemnation of the violence and an an appeal for peace. Three days later, in his first comments on the Citizenship Act, he questioned the need for the amendments. He asked how India would offer employment to migrants when its own people lacked jobs. He studiously avoided saying anything about the religious discrimination inherent in the legislation. For over a month, the Aam Aadmi Party, born of a protest movement, kept a distance from the protests, even when the Delhi Police, which reports to the Central government, continued to baton-charge peaceful protestors in the city. The only statement of support came from the deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, who, on January 23, unexpectedly and fleetingly, expressed support for Shaheen Bagh. The BJP immediately latched on to Sisodia’s comment, attacking AAP for supporting “anti-nationals” and the “tukde tukde gang” – a phrase used by the party to tarnish its critics as people working for the balkanisation of India. In the face of the BJP attacks, AAP walked further away from the protests: on February 3, Kejriwal asked why wasn’t Home Minister Amit Shah evicting the protestors and clearing the road at Shaheen Bagh. He said if his government had control over the police, it would have cleared the road in two hours. Forget defending the protests, AAP had further delegitimised them. No surprise then, its supporters had internalised all the hateful propaganda of the BJP. As political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in a recent column, the BJP’s hate campaign was aiming for gains larger than the Delhi election: “The creation of a country where the political justifications of violence are not merely episodic, but routine and perpetual. That is the long-term prize the BJP is after; not just a short-term logic of electoral dividends.” A publicity van of the Aam Aadmi Party parked outside the park in Uttam Nagar. After the group conversation, I gravitated to a lonesome man sitting on a bench. He turned out to be another laid-off factory worker. But unlike the others who were bitter about unemployment, Ramesh Chandra Gupta, in his sixties, was fine not having a job. His children had jobs. That was enough, he said. The conversation began rather innocuously. Supriya Sharma: Who will you vote for? Ramesh Gupta: Aam Aadmi Party Supriya Sharma: Why? Ramesh Gupta: Kaam kiya hai. They have done work. Supriya Sharma: Who did you vote for in the Lok Sabha election? Ramesh Gupta: BJP Supriya Sharma: Why? Ramesh Gupta: We need Modi at the Centre. He is doing good work. Gupta said he was not always a BJP supporter. He used to vote for the Congress but switched to the BJP in the 2014 national elections drawn by Modi’s charisma. He thinks he made a good choice. He listed what he saw as Modi’s achievements: the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370, the criminalisation of triple talaq and the preparation to build a Ram temple at Ayodhya. But in Delhi, he backed AAP. Ramesh Gupta: Kejriwal is a good man. Kejriwal in Delhi, Modi at the Centre. His support for Kejriwal was so strong, he rubbished the allegations of BJP leaders. Ramesh Gupta: Yogi ji aise bakwas kartein hain. Yogi ji is mouthing nonsense. Delhi Police is not under Kejriwal. Even [Home Minister] Amit Shah is mouthing nonsense. You have control over the police, you are the godfather, Kejriwal is the son. You can break the dharna anytime you want. Why are you not doing it? Supriya Sharma: You think the demonstration should be broken? Ramesh Gupta: Yes, it is important to end the protest because it is causing major losses. People who took 15 minutes to get to work now spend two hours on their commute. Supriya Sharma: Do you know anyone who has been affected because of the protest? Have you been to the spot? Ramesh Gupta: No I have not been there, but I read the newspaper and I watch TV news daily. Supriya Sharma: What are they showing in the news? Ramesh Gupta: This only, that people are needlessly protesting there… They should be caught and put in jail. But the BJP does not have the courage to do that. Instead it is calling people terrorists… This was a reference to a comment by Parvesh Verma, the BJP MP from West Delhi, who had called Kejriwal a terrorist. While AAP had energetically sprung to Kejriwal’s defence, launching a campaign to counter the “terrorist” remark, it hadn’t bothered to defend the protestors at Shaheen Bagh – or even their right to protest. Solitary men sitting in the park at Uttam Nagar. Ramesh Gupta declined to be photographed. Supriya Sharma: Don’t people have a right to protest in a democracy? Ramesh Gupta: You can protest but not like this, not in a way that harms others. The poor people who can no longer travel to Faridabad to earn their rozi roti, ask them what they feel. Those who are ill and travelling in ambulances, ask them what they feel. That ambulances were not being allowed passage through Shaheen Bagh seemed to be a persistent myth that no amount of fact-checks had managed to debunk. This is because some of India’s most-watched TV channels had chosen to run factually dubious, openly hostile commentary against the Citizenship Amendment Act protests. Worse, their coverage of the Citizenship Act, veering on government propaganda, had convinced people like Ramesh Gupta that there was no reason for Muslims to protest against the amended law. Ramesh Gupta: It does not take away anyone’s citizenship, it only gives citizenship to Hindus coming from outside. Supriya Sharma: But it is not just CAA, people are concerned about NRC… Last year, home minister Amit Shah repeatedly claimed a pan-India National Register of Citizens would follow the Citizenship Amendment Act. And that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians need not worry about it– if they were left out of the NRC, they would be taken back in as refugees under the CAA. But Muslims would not, he implied. Ramesh Gupta saw nothing wrong with that. Ramesh Gupta: How can we allow foreigners to stay in India? Our people do not have food, how can we keep these Rohingya Muslims. How can we invite all these people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan to settle down, while our own people starve to death. Supriya Sharma: But CAA is all about giving citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. You think that is fine? Ramesh Gupta: Bilkul theek hai. Supriya Sharma: But you just said India cannot take in more migrants. Ramesh Gupta: Where will Hindus go? Muslims have 56 countries, Hindus have no other country… This echoed the Hindutva worldview, which sees India as a Hindu nation. And so Hindus from other countries must be seen as refugees worthy of citizenship, but the loyalties of Indian Muslims are suspect. The fact that Muslims were protesting only bolstered Gupta’s belief that they were disloyal to India. Ramesh Gupta: Why don’t Muslims go to Pakistan? Why stay and suffer in India? Supriya Sharma: But these are Indian Muslims. Ramesh Gupta: If they are Indian, then why are they scared, they will surely have some proof… He showed no understanding of the difficulties of proving citizenship in a document-scarce country. Worse, he had mixed up basic facts about the protests. Ramesh Gupta: These people have been protesting for 45 days. They have burnt vehicles, pelted stones, fired bullets. People have died, who is responsible for that? Supriya Sharma: Bullets have been fired at the protestors, not by them. And no one has died in Delhi. Ramesh Gupta: Many have been killed, it has been reported in the papers. Supriya Sharma: Which paper has reported this? No one has died in Delhi. Ramesh Gupta: In Delhi and in UP. Twenty-four Muslim men had been killed in Uttar Pradesh in a brutal police crackdown in December. The police had initially denied firing bullets but later accepted it had. But Gupta insisted it hadn’t. Ramesh Gupta: No, the police did not fire, those people died in their own crossfire. Look, in Shaheen Bagh, a country-made weapon was used. In Jamia, a boy from Jewar fired bullets. When I underlined that the two firing incidents that he cited were both of Hindutva-inspired gunmen taking aim at protestors in Delhi, he changed tack and defended the gunmen. Ramesh Gupta: What they did is right. Open the damn road. Supriya Sharma: Is it okay to fire bullets at peaceful protestors? Ramesh Gupta: Why shouldn’t it be okay? The road is closed. I am dying, does it mean I should keep dying? Supriya Sharma: It was not about a road. The man who fired bullets said only Hindus will prevail in India. Ramesh Gupta: Muslims at Shaheen Bagh say they will rule over Hindustan, that’s okay? Supriya Sharma: No one has said this. Ramesh Gupta: Go and watch TV. Patrakar kiss cheez ke ho, jab kuch pata hi nahi hai. What sort of journalist are you, when you don’t know anything. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZgADS7R3RzaZyzSKHRUbBQndedXcaTxMUJ-7Pyu1XjDqA%40mail.gmail.com.
