White Dwarf Arvind Kejriwal

Finally the much awaited results of Indian General Elections are out. The agility of world’s largest democracy has taken the world by awe. India shows the world how to decide the fate of a nation in most peaceful and perhaps most constructive way.

While the elections have sprung many surprises; none compares the fate of the newly formed AAP (Aam Admit Party) and its founder Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. To many, he was the youngest star born on the horizons of Indian Politics. His rise was unconventional and for a good time he gave all those veteran seasoned politicians a good run for their money. His guerilla warfare antics kept all on their toes.

The pinnacle of his popularity and success was the point where AAP made its debut in Delhi Assembly elections. Kejriwal humbled the Goliath in Congress and BJP to claim the top seat in Delhi Elections.

Kejriwal had two choices here.

Choice 1:
Toil as Delhi Chief Minister and attempt to fulfill all the utopian promises made to win the elections. Grow from strength to strength. Show sincerity in accomplishing the claims made in the state elections manifesto. At the same time; grow organically as a national party; perhaps focus on PHD (Punjab, Haryana, Delhi) in the upcoming National Elections.   

Choice 2:
Takht ya Taboot

Go all out for whole of India. Delhi Chief Minster seat is too small to fulfill the ambitions of Kejriwal. It is not possible to do justice to the seat of Chief Minister in Delhi and follow the national dream. Dump the CM seat and go back to the streets and take all the bigwigs head on. The risk is to lose whatever is at hand and the reward is the top post of the nation.

I am no political pundit or psephologist but what gives me liberty to make my own version of audacious analysis and hindsight is that probability of me being right or wrong is same as of those who are doing this for a living:-  50%.

We all know that Kejriwal led AAP went for Choice 2 and now we all know the consequences of it.
Let’s try to muse a bit on what would have happened if AAP went for the first choice.

Simulation, if AAP went for Choice 1;

Both Congress and BJP would be too happy to keep Kejriwal contained in Delhi region and would have conceded to a number of his eccentric demands. After Delhi results; there was a fear psychosis in BJP and Congress circles about Kejriwal’s ability to churn out unpredictable results in national elections.
Kejriwal could have shown off his moral and character superiority on BJP and Congress and perhaps would have won 20 odd seats in PHD region. There was a clear BJP wave this time. BJP had a set of staunch supporters who were adamant to vote him to power. AAP and Congress divided amongst themselves the votes of people who were anti BJP/Narendra Modi. If AAP had not fielded its candidates from all the constituencies; due to vote consolidation; perhaps UPA could have won 30-40 more seats at national level. In that scenario; BJP would have to seek alliances from other regional parties to form Government.

It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman and behind every unsuccessful man; there are two! Narendra Modi attributes his success to one woman; his mother. Imagine the situation where BJP did not have clear majority and Narendra Modi would have to depend on two women; Mamata Didi and Jayalalitha Amma! NDA might still have gone ahead and claimed the power at centre but it would have been a much humbled and limited in capacity.

I feel very thankful to Kejriwal that he went all out at national level. This allowed BJP to have clear majority. In my opinion; the growth vision of Congress and BJP are more or less the same. It is only the limitation of working under the control of irritant and demanding allies that slows down the progress and materialization of all the progressive projects.
I am sure; NaMo will do a sterling job in taking the growth of Indian nation to a new height. Congress could also have done similar things if they had clear mandate. Also job rotation is good as it helps flow of out of the box ideas that have incubated all this while. So, I expect more from BJP at this point of time.

Coming to the fate of rising star, Arvind Kejriwal; I am tempted to draw an analogy from a branch of Astronomy, Formation of stars. It is said that the new stars like our own sun undergo fusion reaction under the force of gravity where Hydrogen atoms combine to form Helium; releasing tremendous amount of energy in the process. When all the Hydrogen exhausts; under constant gravitational pull; the Helium atoms undergo further fusion to form Carbon atoms and thus goes the formation of heavier elements. This does not go on forever for all the stars!.  The big stars, which are 8 times or more massive to our own Sun explode in a spectacular Supernova. If the mass of the star is similar to our own sun; the most probable fate of the star is to become white dwarf. After all the Hydrogen has converted into Helium; the smaller stars swell into a red giant stage and eventually shed off the outer layers. What remains is the corpse of the star; a dim remnant where no Hydrogen fusion occurs. No fireworks come out of them.

Kejriwal attempted to explode like a Supernova but has shrunk to a white dwarf. He and his Aam Admi Party may remain there for a good long time but I do not expect any spectacular rise of his party again. The novelty of AAP antics has turned into predictability and an all-powerful Modi Sarkar will crush his road side agitations with brutal force if he tries them again. He is also expected to lose much of his red-giant layers of supporters as people have got disillusioned in masses and have their doubts in ability of this man to deliver anything tangible apart from dharnas.

So, I take the liberty to write off Mr. Arvind Kejriwal.
R.I.P AAP 

AAP –From Doubt to Disappointment to Disgust

Swearing in ceremony of Arvind Kejriwal left me spellbound. His song from the podium gave me goose bumps. It felt like witnessing a history in the making. I could identify myself with him. Here was one amongst us; a middleclass intellectual young man who showed the courage and grit to take on the bigwigs of dirty Indian Politics.  

In all honesty, I had my quota of criticism and cynicism about him all along and had been speaking my mind in my blogs for some time now. Nonetheless I admired his grit; his focus and fearlessness. There was a wishful part of me which wanted to give him all the benefits of doubts. I hoped to be proven wrong. I secretly enjoyed when my “die-hard Kejriwal fan” friends and colleagues picked on me for my cynicism. I enjoyed getting bashed up as I always wished to see Kejriwal succeed in his mission.

The Doubts crept in:
For a week, Kejriwal and his ministers used shared auto / public transport to come to office. Then came the news of them getting Toyota Innova cars. These cars are priced at around 10-15 lakh rupees in India. “They will not have the red beacons”, clarified the CM. Mr. AK then tried to sneak into a 10 room bungalow in central Delhi. “Only 5 rooms for my family and 5 rooms for my office work. Compare this with lavishness of ex CM’s house” AK spoke with his assuring poker face. “Shiela must be using her bungalow for running a massage parlor, aerobics classes and gourmet restaurants.” He wanted us to believe. Somehow, his supporters were not convinced. True to his style; AAP asked people to send SMS and his wish to move in the bungalow was declined by his supporters. Then there were water and electricity subsidies which drew flacks.

                Honestly, these were not big issues for me. Ministers are entitled to accommodation, conveyance, a decent salary to be able to discharge their duties and also deserve to have a level of comfort for the services they provide. If Mahatma Gandhi was alive today, even he would have approved of these amenities. I saw the hypocrisy and took this more as a learning curve. “We have given so many chance to corrupt people. Let’s give some time to mature to honest people.” I like many others chose to ignore these comical circumstances and looked forward to more substantial actions from them.

Then came the Disappointment

At the stroke of a pen, Kejriwal reverts the ruling of FDI in retail sector in NCT. This was a ruling duly passed by the legislative council after much debate. For a trivial thing like shifting to the chief ministerial bungalow, he went for referendum and tweets and SMS; for FDI, he did not feel any need to debate.

Now there are strong for and against lobbies for FDI in retail sector and it can be an endless debate; here is my take on this:

We live in a world of reciprocity. If US expel an Indian diplomat; we feel obliged to send two of theirs back (sans cavity search). Mr. Kejriwal not necessarily came to power by support of poor people but by aspiring middle class youth; many of whom are connected to IT. IT is our biggest foreign export. If other countries take a cue from this and start refusing to do business with Indian IT companies, what should we do? Protectionism beyond a point is highly counterproductive. If Indian farmers were in a happy state; probably there was not much need to try anything different. Today hundreds of farmers in rural area commit suicide; live on less than 1 Dollar per day in spite of no FDI in retail. Will their situation further deteriorate?  Farmers in India are the exploited lot. I do not see any way the Walmarts and Tescos or for that matter our own Reliance and Tata paying lesser price to farmers than the unorganized sector full of middlemen and Kiranawallahas. Farmers will get better price; consumers will get cheaper products and better quality due to competition.

No process or option is fool proof. No matter what we choose; we need to have regulations, quality control and checks. It is much easier to implement all the checks on organized sector than the kirana owners.
One of the arguments given is that the number of people employed in retail sector will fall drastically if big players come in. That can be a blessing in disguise. In India, we not only suffer from unemployement but also hidden unemployment. A piece of land can be tilled effectively by 1 person but 4 brothers till the same land as they do not take the effort to try to do something else. If we get the flab out of retail sector; they can contribute elsewhere in the economy.

Now the Disgust!

My worst fear came true. In his obsession to come to power at any cost; Arvind did not miss a single opportunity to attack the then Government of Shiela Dixit. He held her responsible for rapes in the city, held candle vigil and felt it justified to derive all the political mileage out of these sorry and unfortunate incidents.

Now, this inevitable social vice has surfaced again in Delhi. A Danish national got raped at knife point. I expected Kejriwal and his team to have the spine to apologize and take moral responsibility and reflect on their act of brandishing the previous government and settling using this for political mileage.

Arvind and his team are on the back foot and they are circumventing the question. Sad to see how quickly the lust for power can erode our conscience and moral standing. Perhaps this was the reason for which Anna Hazare was proscribing to join the seat of power and work as a social activist.

AAP and Hype Cycle

AAP and the Hype Cycle

Hype  cycle is a branded graphical tool developed and used by IT research firm Gartner,  representing the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies. It is amazing to see how beautifully this Hype cycle curve fits in most of the phenomena of day-to-day life.

Basically Hype cycle talks about 5 phases of any new product/technology that is launched:

1.       Technology Trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.

2.       Peak of Inflated Expectations: Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.

3.       Trough of Disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.

4.       Slope of Enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.

5.       Plateau of Productivity: Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

Let’s map these 5 phases to rise of AAP (Aam Admi Party)

1.       Mass Movement Trigger: Kejriwal and the team associated with the movement worked on a number of groundbreaking initiatives; Right to Information Act; Jan Lokpal Bill, Mohalla Sabha and Referendum participation of citizens in decision making process for welfare of the locality.

2.       Peak of Inflated Expectations: Kejriwal makes the sensational announcement of forming the AAP and contest Delhi elections. Promised to bring the electricity bills down to a fraction; free water; abolish VIP culture; no red beacons, no government cars or bungalow for the ministers, use of public transport, no security for the ministers, charge sheet all the corrupt politicians and government employees, upliftment of governance, infrastructure of NCT, bring the crime down, everything in Delhi to be hunky dory, every citizen to feel empowered and on sky 9 under the rule of Kejriwal.

3.       Trough of Disillusionment:  Slowly the sheen of promises made by AAP starts wearing off.  Kejriwal  gets judged and stopped by his own set high standards to move to a decent Chief Minister bungalow. His ministers get Toyota cars minus red beacon. The announcement of electricity and water rates looked more like rejig and misleading jugglery of numbers with little net benefit to the citizens. Refusal of apparent security cover by AAP members indirectly adds 10 times more burden on police to arrange sheath security. Rakhi Birlan added to confusion by making noise about her car being attacked by opposition, only to discover that it was just a cricket ball which came in the way unintentionally. Kejriwal asks hurriedly to withdraw the case. People feel disappointed that suddenly Kejriwal and his side kick Viswas stopped their relentless rant against the corrupt politicians (Rahul baba , Shiela Dixit, Vijay Goel and others) whom they vowed to bring to books after coming to power. Night shelter in 5 unused bus for homeless people was a noble gesture but not up to the expectations people had formed of AAP.
CItizens nervously wait to see something more tangible; more radical than this. The chaos at the first junta durbar set up by Kejriwal did not help the cause either. Critics start raising their head. Murmurs get louder and AAP feels the heat of public glare and scrutiny.  Helplessly they realize how the opposition takes them to task for every statement they make. Embarrassingly Kejriwal has to refute Prashant Bhushan’s statement on Kashmir security and his side kick Kumar Vishwas had to apologize for his insensitive remark about Muslims 8 years ago!
Kejrival and his team learn with pain that now they also need to apologize for their actions and look for covers. Till this time, they only knew how to attack. They felt the whole world owed them an answer and they had birth right to make any allegation on any public figure.

However, this is the most important juncture for AAP and can be a game changer.It is to be seen if Kejrival and AAP learn their lessons and get through the Slope of Enlightenment and Plateau of Productivity. Public voted them to power as they gave the hope of cleaning the system; bring effective governance and sustainable growth, prosperity and security to the common man. They have a tight timeline and formidable competition in Narendra Modi and BJP. One wrong move and you are out of the equation. The common man has always been impressionable. For starters, Kejriwal and his team succeeded to make the right first impression but if they do not rise through the next 2 phases of Hype cycle; they might get reduced to another political party. 

Kejriwal - the good thief

Once I was invited by my friend for lunch at his place. At the dining table; my friend and his wife had a small problem. Their 2 and half year old bundle of joy was adamant she wanted pasta for lunch while they had prepared rice. No matter how much they would plead and cajole; the kid would not relent.

Thanks to having 3 younger siblings; I have some experience in babysitting and handling obstinate toddlers. I started a conversation with my friend, pretending to totally ignore the child.

“Look, all this rice is for me. Do not give any rice to Nimmi. Give only pasta to Nimmi. Only I will eat this tasty rice.  This rice is only for me.”

“Mama, give me rice” Nimmi suddenly announced.

“No, you cannot have rice. You have to eat pasta only” I played tough.

“No! I will eat rice only!” the kid screamed in a determined voice.

It speaks volumes about Kejriwal’s acumen and shrewdness that he handled the veteran seasoned politicians of Congress and BJP with the same ease as I handled the kid.

I remember the 2010-11 period when Anna’s movement (mastermind by Kejriwal) had caught the imagination of the Indian public. Cornered by the mass movement; Congress and BJP were daring team Anna to join mainstream politics. As if to get them committed on their words; Kejriwal went on length to reiterate that they are apolitical and will never come to politics.

I remember Manish Tiwari, a spokesperson from congress singing “Tadbeer se bigdi hui takdeer bana le; apne pe bharosa ho to ek daun laga le”. “File your nomination from Chandni chowk” he challenged Kejriwal. Many others made similar comments.
“He is not fit for a municipal seat” others mocked.

All these words were music to the ears of Kejriwal. Congress and BJP got castled completely. Now Kejriwal announced his plans to join active politics. The immediate fall out was split in Team Anna. Kejriwal had already calculated the price he had to pay. The good news for him was that Congress and BJP had lost their chance to accuse Kejriwal’s political ambition behind his movements.

Circa Dec 2013 feels like déjà vu. AAP has astonished everyone with its performance in Delhi Elections but just falls short of clear majority to form the government.
Kejriwal beats the rhetoric. “I vow on my 2 kids; I will never form a government with support of Congress or BJP.”
Congress and BJP both bite the bait and start prodding Kejriwal to accept the mandate given by junta and form the government. Kejriwal ignores them. He chooses to be silent for next 10 days. Congress and BJP get buoyant on their conviction that they have caught Kejriwal on the wrong foot. What Kejriwal was doing was to wait and let Congress and BJP make all the persuasion to him to form the government.

Now he accepts to form the Government in Delhi. Congress and BJP appear fools in front of him. They have lost their opportunity to taunt that Kejriwal is power hungry.

Now, the breed of politicians in our country is thick skinned. I do not expect a Manish Tiwari or Kapil Sibbal or Vijay Goel or Dijvijay Singh to look apologetic and ashamed. However, they are alarmed and intimidated. For now, Kejriwal has beaten them on their own turf. What Kejriwal has achieved is no mean feat.

Am I elated by the win of the common man? Not still. My instincts tells me that Kejriwal’s win is not win of light over darkness and hence no cause for celebrating an early Diwali. Kejriwal has just won the battle of wits. How virtuous he is and how just his governance would be; is to be seen. In all fairness, we need to give him time of next 1 year to deliver and run the government.

Let’s recount some of the handles Kejriwal used to garner his popularity; some of the moves being highly populist and unfair in my personal opinion.

Ø  He gets some picture of Sheila Dixit sharing stage with singer Honey Singh and declares her responsible for all rapes happening in Delhi

Ø  A girl is brutally raped in a moving bus in Delhi and Kejriwal caught the opportunity to blame it on Sheila Dixit. Thousands of young men joined him in condemning Shiela’s government. None of the youth in the crowd is asked to retrospect and accept if they ever were involved in eve teasing; stalking or making unwelcome move towards the opposite sex.

Ø  He found some people not willing to pay for their electricity bills; he goes and reconnects their electricity lines.

Ø  Promise to regularize all the illegal colonies in Delhi.

Ø  Promises to provide free 800 litres water to all the houses.

Ø  Promises to slash Electricity bills by half.

Ø  Encourages people to take law in their own hands

What he is doing is not something done for the first time. I find many of his traits matching with Mamata Banerjee. She has been ruling Bengal by her populist policies; not necessarily by bringing better governance or making significant upliftment  in the lives of masses. When these movements get uncontrolled; they turn into point of no return like naxalite, maosit menace we have seen in India.

What is Kejriwal’s message here?

Does he approve of everyone who wants to encroach and put up illegal settlement in Delhi or is he saying that he has done it only one time to win the elections and after he comes in power; no one should settle illegally and respect law?

Similar questions pop up about electricity. Do the electricity companies have right to discontinue supply if the consumers stop paying for bills or not?

What will he do if Haryana or UP refuses to provide free water to Delhi?

Knowing the grit of Kejriwal, I know he is in for a long haul here. He has already thrown hints of his game plan. He has told that he would not shy from prosecuting Robert VAdra, Sheila Dixit of BJP politicians. He can use this effectively to blackmail the Congress and BJP to give in to his demands; no matter how unreasonable they may sound.

Key point is; Kejriwal has nothing to lose while the Congress and BJP have everything on stake. If his government is toppled; he will say that Congress and BJP were scared that he will prosecute their corrupt practices. So, I expect a lot of dirty linens being washed in public. Nonetheless, is very good for our democracy. Feel very happy with defeat of the veterans by the rookie.
Time will tell if Kejriwal was modern day Jayaprakash Narayan or just a V. P. Singh. Hypersmash.com