AAP's Chimera of Change

The spectacle of Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, sleeping on the road, braving the winter cold of Delhi, worsened by occasional drizzles, has perhaps accomplished his objective of strategic communication, no matter how hoarse the media gets about his “anarchism” and Republic Day remarks. Two policemen being sent on leave was a petty gain from this two-day tamasha that met the eye of the critics, but what the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) effectively accomplished may only show up in its tally in the coming general elections.

Indeed, it is hard not to be impressed by Arvind Kejriwal as a strategist. The manner in which he has galvanised the lot for whom politics was merely a matter of gossip into a real political vortex and made his supporters wield broomsticks that hitherto just symbolised the unmeritorious underdogs is simply fantastic. It is easy to be cynical about the entire episode but hard not to admire the stratagem in deploying the accumulated anger of the majority of the people against the politics and political class, the guts to carry the protests out in the face of the entrenched political establishment’s combined opposition, this with exemplary zeal and élan, coloured a bit with petty prejudice.