As the plane started its descent over Delhi, my neighbour asked me if I was "Mayank Gandhi from AAP". I corrected him with a smile: I was ex-AAP, I had quit politics, I told him. He smiled, knowingly.
I could not resist asking him how the Kejriwal government was doing in Delhi. I could see him mulling my inquiry - should he speak his mind out or should he hold back? Finally, he made up his mind to speak out. He spoke with anger and venom. "You guys have fooled the entire nation. I still remember my son wearing the Anna cap and we had all hoped for a new India, but you are no better than other parties. At least we had no hopes from other parties, but you guys...."
Even though his body language was violently angry, I ventured, "But the Delhi government is working terrifically in education and health". He did not take the bait, and continued, "So many people have suffered this winter because of pollution and your CM was playing his usual politics. Did he not know that every year there is pollution and so many people die due to sickness? Why did he not do something about it and only played politics like others? I wasted my vote on him."
"But AAP is doing great in education," I pushed back. He grunted. I realised that he was one of the 27 per cent voters that AAP had lost between 2015 and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections.
As I stepped out into Delhi, I got similar reactions through the day. I met hundreds of Delhiites and people in the Kisan Morcha that I had gone to attend - the mood was similar. Most conceded that their government was doing good work in education and some good work in health, but that was not enough. They had expected much more and were feeling betrayed. As I spoke to journalists, my pointed question was, "If there was an election, how many seats would AAP get?" The average figure was 20. This was worrying. More worrying was this pervading sentiment that most MLAs and leaders were as corrupt as the earlier ones.
I spoke to a few intellectuals and activists. They seemed to have turned negative on AAP. They quoted facts and figures to show how the education and health work was social media hype, not much else.
I was an idealist and a romantic. I had quit my job and shattered the security of my life for a new political culture in the country. After the 2015 elections, Arvind's style and method of controlling and managing the party made it amply clear that hopes of an "alternative politics" were dead.
Arvind and I used to interact a lot whenever he was in Mumbai since the early days of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. One of the biggest concerns we both had was about the centralisation of power in the hands of one individual in every party. Arvind would always speak passionately about collective leadership and inner party democracy. But after what happened to Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and others, I realised that power had changed Arvind completely. As leader of AAP, he has been centralising power in his own hands, just the opposite of what he believed in as an activist. Here was a man I admired for his ideas and courage, but I can't recognise him now. Power, I guess, can change everything. This is the reason why I quit this whole game of power.
Arvind began to like getting praised. He even began to praise himself and with narcissism setting in, he started believing that he was the only solution to every problem the country was facing. I would say that at some point of time he started believing that the whole world was evil and he was the only messiah. I was thoroughly disillusioned.
But there were many others who were more practical than I was. Though disappointed at the demise of the dream of "alternative politics", they continued supporting the party, sure that this party was better than the others and that it would give exemplary governance. In my heart of hearts, I was praying for that too. The nation still needs an alternate party whose behaviour and political culture is different from the mainstream parties. The vacuum that we had come to fill is still very much there; AAP could not fill it.
I saw the documentary movie, An Insignificant Man. It's on Arvind and the workings and growth of AAP prior to the 2013 Delhi elections. It brought back such precious and pure memories. Of a party fighting the people's war with honesty, integrity and principles. Listening to Arvind insisting on values, principles and honest candidate selection. Arvind talking about giving voice and space to the lakhs of volunteers. The movie was all about using all these lost values of integrity, honesty and simplicity in the public domain and winning. The country stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the ethics and values that we proposed. In Mumbai, where I saw this movie, a part of the audience broke out into spontaneous applause at the end. We only had to consolidate that support, but look what has happened instead!
As I climbed the stairs down the theatre, my heart was filled with the pain of how this country and especially the youth have been let down. What could have been!
Let me try and recount why AAP slid down the slippery slope from a position of love and respect to one of mirth and mocking.
There are four major strategic errors that AAP made, after the victory in Delhi in 2013, when it won 28 seats.
- To fight over 400 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. We did not have the bandwidth nor the leadership and organisation in place. The loss affected our image and self-worth immensely.
- To take the crown of victory in Delhi 2015 and put it on Arvind Kejriwal's head, to the exclusion of all others. The effort was credited to only one person, not the team. Then, arrogance of victory led to putting down alternative voices in the party.
- To pitch for prime ministership in 2019 in a direct presidential-style contest with Narendra Modi; neither Arvind nor AAP possesses such firepower, there's only ambition backed by very little.
- To abdicate the basic principles of integrity and others in favour of "winnability". Removing Swaraj from the AAP constitution, paying little heed to transparency, accountability and participation of the people. Removing the donation list from the party website, taking in the worst candidates only because they had a chance to win.
All of these have proved harmful for the party and for the hopes of people, especially the youth. The party lost Punjab, Goa, MCD and the recent UP civic polls. It may repeat that performance in the Gujarat elections and the Punjab civic polls. "After the removal of Prashant and Yogendra Yadav, AAP has lost almost all elections," a friend recently reminded me. This actually meant people were not happy with AAP becoming like other parties. We had become them. It reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
The scenario today is not much different from the time when we started the party five years ago. The mainstream parties are still the same, the BJP and the Congress. The nation is still looking for an alternative, as they were doing five years ago. We failed them. But can AAP recover? Can AAP deliver?
Can Arvind's ego be contained in the interest of serving larger causes? Can the party reinvent itself to go back to the basics? The basics that people loved and supported? Someone needs to think straight, with his head and heart, with love for the nation and not oneself. Someone needs to rise above a small coterie of sycophants and reach out to the nation for support and help. There are such wonderful, unselfish people in the country that if one goes and apologises for the mistakes made, they will welcome the party again with open arms. But it needs a person like Gandhi ji, who had the moral courage and honesty to win over the nation and his adversaries by his admission of guilt and preparedness to change. The country has always needed ethical, value-based politics, but do AAP leaders even understand? Young volunteers who are part of AAP come to me with tears in their eyes. I can feel their pain but I am helpless. My biggest regret is that the movement had the potential to change the whole country but we messed it up because of the lust for power of one person. Millions of people fought the battle but one person put the crown on his head and declared himself the leader. I feel that the country may not trust any other new political movement because of AAP. I feel that we have wronged not just this generation but future generations too.
A social worker, Mayank Gandhi was once on the core committee of India Against Corruption and national executive member of AAP
