Aam Aadmi Party founder and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is remarkably quick to adapt to new situations. Consider the difference between the Congress party's general decline since the 2G spectrum scandal emerged in 2010 and Kejriwal and his cohorts since around the same time.
Congress since 2010: Essentially still following the same model as then ‒ hoping Vice President Rahul Gandhi will come in and save the day.
Arvind Kejriwal since 2010: Started India Against Corruption. Earned a national stage, using activist Anna Hazare as a figurehead. Realised dharnas will only go so far. Started a political party and split with Hazare. Converted the India Against Corruption prominence into a near-victory in Delhi in 2013. Realised near-victories are only so useful. Tried coming to power in an alliance with the Congress. Realised that will only take them so far. Resigned from government and attempted to contest Lok Sabha elections across the country in 2014, hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party. Failed at that. Decided to apologise for resigning and focus on Delhi once again. Retook Delhi in a landslide in Feburary. And now shed elements in the party that were criticising his model.
What's clear is that Kejriwal is more than willing to make difficult choices, whether things are going well or badly. He decided to take political route even though a huge number of India Against Corruption supporters, including its figurehead Hazare, was opposed to the idea. He decided to take on Narendra Modi in Varanasi in the Lok Sabha elections, even though his chances of winning were slim.
And now he has decided to get rid of two co-founders of the party, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, even though volunteers from across the country have advised him against it and in the knowledge that it will hurt the party's image, at least among the influential intellectual classes. If there's one allegation that can't be lobbed at Kejriwal, it's that he is risk averse.
Put another way, if Kerjiwal were running the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and possibly the entire Nehru-Gandhi family would be long gone. That might seem like a bit of an exaggeration, considering we have come to see the Congress and the Gandhi family as being synonymous, but it wasn't always so ‒ at least not until Indira Gandhi ‒ and there are people who can see it once again regaining its vitality without the family.
In a video of Kejriwal's speech at the Aam Aadmi Party National Council meeting on Saturday, Kejriwal explains how long, in his words, he tolerated what has come to be seen as the "anti-party activities" of Bhushan and Yadav. The chief minister says they have been working against the party's interests since before February last year, back when the party had just decided to join hands with the Congress to take power in a 49-day stint that people still remember with fondness.
This is almost to say that getting rid of Yadav and Bhushan might have been Kejriwal's toughest decision yet, especially if he has agonised over it for the past year, but it has been done. In the process, the party's reputation has been severely damaged, the space for internal dissent has become tiny and a serious atmosphere of mistrust remains among many of the volunteers. Worse, still, Kejriwal's personal brand will always have an autocratic taint, no matter how much he attempts to explain why the rebels were kicked out.
But it's hard to fault his political instincts, and moreover, his ability to change tack when needed. The question now remains whether he is able to build a party that can go beyond just his own abilities. He has done remarkably as a politician, yet now, more than ever, the party depends entirely on Kejriwal for its leadership. Few will bring up concerns in quite the same way as before and the chances of him being surrounded by only those who agree with him will only get higher.
The comparison with the Congress is again relevant here. A clear problem with that party's inability to evolve over the last few decades has been the belief that the Gandhi family is indispensable. This has impeded the growth of other leaders and worse, made it hard for the party to make the tough choices if those would endanger the position of the family at the centre.
AAP and Kejriwal are far from being in such a position, and the chief minister has made it clear that he can take difficult choices when he needs to. But if that difficult choice ends up involving conceding to others who might have the right approach, will he still be willing to take these risks?
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Congress since 2010: Essentially still following the same model as then ‒ hoping Vice President Rahul Gandhi will come in and save the day.
Arvind Kejriwal since 2010: Started India Against Corruption. Earned a national stage, using activist Anna Hazare as a figurehead. Realised dharnas will only go so far. Started a political party and split with Hazare. Converted the India Against Corruption prominence into a near-victory in Delhi in 2013. Realised near-victories are only so useful. Tried coming to power in an alliance with the Congress. Realised that will only take them so far. Resigned from government and attempted to contest Lok Sabha elections across the country in 2014, hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party. Failed at that. Decided to apologise for resigning and focus on Delhi once again. Retook Delhi in a landslide in Feburary. And now shed elements in the party that were criticising his model.
What's clear is that Kejriwal is more than willing to make difficult choices, whether things are going well or badly. He decided to take political route even though a huge number of India Against Corruption supporters, including its figurehead Hazare, was opposed to the idea. He decided to take on Narendra Modi in Varanasi in the Lok Sabha elections, even though his chances of winning were slim.
And now he has decided to get rid of two co-founders of the party, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, even though volunteers from across the country have advised him against it and in the knowledge that it will hurt the party's image, at least among the influential intellectual classes. If there's one allegation that can't be lobbed at Kejriwal, it's that he is risk averse.
Put another way, if Kerjiwal were running the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and possibly the entire Nehru-Gandhi family would be long gone. That might seem like a bit of an exaggeration, considering we have come to see the Congress and the Gandhi family as being synonymous, but it wasn't always so ‒ at least not until Indira Gandhi ‒ and there are people who can see it once again regaining its vitality without the family.
In a video of Kejriwal's speech at the Aam Aadmi Party National Council meeting on Saturday, Kejriwal explains how long, in his words, he tolerated what has come to be seen as the "anti-party activities" of Bhushan and Yadav. The chief minister says they have been working against the party's interests since before February last year, back when the party had just decided to join hands with the Congress to take power in a 49-day stint that people still remember with fondness.
This is almost to say that getting rid of Yadav and Bhushan might have been Kejriwal's toughest decision yet, especially if he has agonised over it for the past year, but it has been done. In the process, the party's reputation has been severely damaged, the space for internal dissent has become tiny and a serious atmosphere of mistrust remains among many of the volunteers. Worse, still, Kejriwal's personal brand will always have an autocratic taint, no matter how much he attempts to explain why the rebels were kicked out.
But it's hard to fault his political instincts, and moreover, his ability to change tack when needed. The question now remains whether he is able to build a party that can go beyond just his own abilities. He has done remarkably as a politician, yet now, more than ever, the party depends entirely on Kejriwal for its leadership. Few will bring up concerns in quite the same way as before and the chances of him being surrounded by only those who agree with him will only get higher.
The comparison with the Congress is again relevant here. A clear problem with that party's inability to evolve over the last few decades has been the belief that the Gandhi family is indispensable. This has impeded the growth of other leaders and worse, made it hard for the party to make the tough choices if those would endanger the position of the family at the centre.
AAP and Kejriwal are far from being in such a position, and the chief minister has made it clear that he can take difficult choices when he needs to. But if that difficult choice ends up involving conceding to others who might have the right approach, will he still be willing to take these risks?