Few doubt the timing of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, which came days after the election announcement and just a few hours after the Election Commission released a tranche of electoral bond details that reveal sources of political donations. While sceptics could see the arrest as a diversionary tactic and continuing misuse of investigative agencies, it raises questions on the political raison d'etre of the Aam Aadmi Party and its supremo, both being products of the anti-corruption movement that swept the nation a decade ago. While raising of finances using ‘conventional’ means could have mainstreamed the AAP into the political system, which is still in the quest for a credible political funding mechanism, AAP’s list of alleged ‘scams’ dispels hope of ‘alternative’ politics free of corruption.
Just an hour before the team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials made it to the official residence of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal on the evening of 21st March 2024, the Election Commission of India had published the purchase and redemption details of Electoral Bonds (EBs) on its website. The subsequent events that culminated in the purported arrest of Kejriwal could seem to any keen political observer as perfectly timed to deviate the nation’s gaze from these crucial documents which have immense political significance.
Instead, what emerged as a strange paradox for the nation’s conscience was the fact that a prominent political figure who emerged on the national scene as the result of a spectacular anti-corruption crusade has found himself beset by allegations and prosecution that challenge his very political raison d'être. The irony has been so stark that Kejriwal’s arrest prompted his mentor, Anna Hazare, to break his maun vrat (vow of silence) of many years to blame his erstwhile protégé’s deeds as the reason for his arrest.
When Kejriwal and his cohorts, including Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, broke away from the Anna Hazare movement of 2011, they had promised to cleanse the Indian political system of corruption but also alternative politics that would place the common man (Aam Aadmi Party) as the pivot of the political landscape. While the latter objective could have fructified, even if only in Delhi where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has carved out considerable support, Kejriwal seems to have stumbled in the original mission of ‘clean’ and ‘alternative’ politics.
When the Anna Hazare movement split in mid-2012, the Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption group metamorphosed into the Aam Aadmi Party in November 2012. Those like Kiran Bedi and Baba Ramdev, who opposed the political plans, stayed put with Team Anna, which too, though, lost relevance and retreated from the limelight thereafter. The AAP made an impressive debut in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections winning 28 of 70 seats and short-lived government which saw Kejriwal, even as incumbent chief minister, protesting near the Central Secretariat against the Central Government, and declaring himself as an anarchist.
By the time AAP swept the Delhi assembly polls in 2015 winning 67 or 70 seats, it was confronted with major dissensions with prominent founding members like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan being ousted from the party. While it was evident that Kejriwal engineering their exit, many other founding members including journalist Ashutosh and poet Kumar Vishwas subsequently left the party which turned into a coterie of Kejriwal acolytes.
The differences were visible not just over a few Rajya Sabha seats or the AAP’s nationwide expansion but manifestly driven by the discomfit of many founders over the party’s decision-making moving from collective leadership to Kejriwal usurping the role of a supremo. While Kejriwal might have managed to smoke out potential challenges to his numero uno position and exert complete dominance, it is eventually his ambitions that seem to have led the AAP to a position where a cloud is cast of its very ideology raison d'être.
Alternative politics versus national ambitions
The impressive show in Delhi in 2013 propelled national ambitions for the AAP as a party and Kejriwal as its leader. After all, an anti-corruption movement, when taking a political turn, cannot be restricted to one region or the national capital. Kejriwal took no time in presenting himself as an alternative to the national parties and their poster boys by challenging the BJP prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, in Varanasi in the 2014 general election and bagging over 2 lakh votes in this outing.
Even when there was a steady erosion of senior leaders, Kejriwal cultivated a legion of loyalists and an effective organizational base in Delhi. The first full tenure in the Delhi government saw numerous governance initiatives that stuck the right chord with the denizens. Besides reforming school education, setting up of Mohalla clinics, investments in public transport and many such inroads, the ability to provide free water, subsidized electricity and free bus transport for women were landmark measures that accounted for effective governance, if not alternative politics.
The attempt to expand the ‘Delhi model’ to the rest of the country saw the Kejriwal-led party contesting elections in various states, with the objective of gradually making inroads. This steady effort saw the party capturing power in Punjab in 2022 and making its presence felt in a handful of states including Goa, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Gujarat.
AAP’s political expansion saw its mainstreaming in the Indian system and consequently adapting many of the practices of other political parties. The campaign in these states necessitated raising copious amounts of financial resources which could naturally require ways and means that need not necessarily fit the ‘anti-corruption’ and ‘alternative’ political dogmatic paradigms. Questions can, hence, be raised on whether anti-corruption was merely a ruse for an aspirant to enter politics at a time when the ruling grand old party was facing an existential crisis. Or, instead, does Kejriwal’s scam taint indicate the failure of Indian democracy to adopt clean politics?
All about money, honey!
As has been illustrated in the Electoral Bonds (EB) matter, there is no credible system of political funding in India as parties have to heavily depend on corporate funding. While the Indian public is not inclined towards political contributions as a pervasive quality of citizenry, they have generally very little understanding of how parties mobilise financial resources. Indian citizens expect corporate groups to fund the political parties as an act of altruism, for the profits gained from Indian society, and yet not indulge in inducements or quid-pro-quos.
The Aam Aadmi Party started strong with crowdfunding support, largely a method opted by India’s communist parties, and also managed to garner abundant financial support from non-resident Indians who were awed by the ‘anti-corruption’ message. However, the decision to contest in many other states necessitated greater financial resources, which seemingly prompted the party to tap into ‘traditional’ sources. Among the initial corruption allegations against AAP was the ‘tanker scam’ which added credence to the suspicion that the party had to deviate from the anti-corruption plan and pursue the conventional fundraising methods.
The tanker scam allegation was followed by the so-called ‘liquor scam’ which led to key AAP personalities including Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia long incarceration and eventually led to the arrest of Kejriwal, himself, who is alleged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the ‘kingpin’ of the ‘scam’. In between, the Mohalla Clinics also came under the scanner for fraudulent dealings.
It might be premature to predict the fate of these alleged scams and their investigative outcomes. The more visible aspect, however, is the inability of ‘alternative’ politics to take root in the world’s most populous democracy. The idea that corruption-free politics can be practised in democracies also remains a fallacy. As the details in the electoral bonds files illustrate, the ruling party at the centre had gained the dominant chunk of contributions from corporate groups, including those with dubious records or under various investigations as also some that are suspected to be shell companies. Parties ruling in various states including AAP have also obtained considerable corporate funding.
In an ideal ‘clean’ political environment, all such donations will need non-partisan scrutiny in order to ensure that there were no inducements, cajoling or quid-pro-quo behind these contributions. Instead, the nation has witnessed blame games, ludicrous claims and mutual finger-pointing rather than any honest attempt to get to the bottom of the donation-for-favours allegations and suspicions.
In this context, the investigations against Kejriwal and other AAP leaders may also hit a dead end once the political contingencies of the moment pass. For AAP leaders claim that no money trail has been found by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which could link the AAP leaders with the liquor barons who were beneficiaries of the since-annulled liquor policy. On the other hand, the BJP is seen to have cashed electoral bonds bought by these liquor barons after the investigations were initiated and they turned approvers.
While the ruling party at the centre has been silent on these grey areas and visible linkages with companies under investigation, the concerted effort to train all investigative agencies on the opposition parties and build an incredible narrative on corruption may reveal its inherent duplicity. However, it is worth mentioning that the opposition parties have also failed to generate the nation’s gaze on the key missing areas in the corporate funding affair – be it through electoral bonds or otherwise – wherein some prominent corporate groups are missing in all accounts of contributions, especially to the ruling party.
What holds for AAP and the anti-corruption messiah?
Kejriwal and his party may tide over the legal conundrum by benefiting from the lack of incriminating evidence or if the court considers the renegade actions of the liquor barons who were collusive and chief beneficiaries in the alleged corruption and yet sought exoneration by turning approver.
Yet, the impact of the arrest, and repeated rejections in the court, may cause lasting damage to any semblance of an anti-corruption crusader image that remains as residue in Kejriwal’s political identity before the masses. This erosion of credibility seemingly is what the BJP has sought to target with the arrest timed with the election campaign.
Political observers do not rule out the possibility of Kejriwal’s untimely arrest creating sympathy in his favour, and enabling him to cleave back some Lok Sabha seats in Delhi where AAP now has a formidable ally in Congress, its erstwhile political rival. It is also likely that AAP may remain in power in the national capital even in the upcoming assembly polls, thanks to the numerous initiatives that have attained traction win Delhiites.
However, Kejriwal’s ability to gain new ground, be it in Haryana, Goa or Gujarat, might be stymied in the short term owing to the damage caused by the arrest as AAP may no longer be able to position itself as a party crusading against corruption and promising alternative politics. Rather, AAP may have to confine itself to a junior partner to the Congress in these states where the latter has a considerable base and remains the immediate contender to the BJP’s sway.
Nonetheless, Kejriwal’s arrest could draw the curtains on a decade-long anti-corruption movement that seemed to have already lost its place in the public imagination with the mentoring figure, Anna Hazare, retreating into oblivion and irrelevance. The disgrace faced by AAP and its supremo marks the unremarkable conclusion of this journey even as a new narrative, framed by the ruling regime and its tallest standing leader, has gained centre-stage in the nation’s political imagination.
