India: Arvind Kejriwal, from social activism to politics

Text by: Tirthankar Chanda Follow

Triumphantly re-elected head of Delhi's territorial administration, Indian regional leader Arvind Kejriwal, was sworn in on Sunday morning February 16. Portrait of an atypical politician who bit the dust at the BJP, the powerful party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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In 2011, Arvind Kejriwal became known to the general public by participating in the largest mobilization against corruption in public life that India has known since independence. The vast esplanade of Ramlila Maidan, in the heart of Delhi, had served at the time as headquarters for the actors of this movement. Almost ten years later, this February 16, 2020, it is on this same place that Arvind Kejriwal was sworn in, succeeding himself at the head of the government of the region of Delhi.

For the third time in a row, his party won the election to renew the legislative assembly of the Indian National Capital Territory. Surrounded by his loved ones, the elected chief minister and his team of ministers are committed to fulfilling their electoral promise: to make the capital region livable for all its 20 million inhabitants.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives in his residence in New Delhi the Chief Minister of the territory of Delhi, after the announcement of the results of the regional election of February 2015. PIB / AFP

Invited to attend the ceremony, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party representing the nationalist Hindu right was beaten to death by the ballot on February 8, declined the offer. The Prime Minister's Office evoked a planned displacement, it seems, for a long time.

On the other hand, the voters who voted overwhelmingly for the "Aam Aadmi Party" (AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal, did not shirk their pleasure. They were there: they celebrated their champion and all of his team.

Congratulations to AAP and Shri @ArvindKejriwal Ji for the victory in the Delhi Assembly Elections. Wishing them the very best in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of Delhi.

Indian welfarism

The enthusiasm of the PAA supporters was at the height of the electoral victory. The party won 62 of the 70 seats in the regional legislative assembly. " It was a clear, unambiguous victory, the leavers rewarded less for their ideological orientations than for the immense work they have accomplished, especially in the working-class districts of the city, " explains Sanjay Kumar, director of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and analyst of Indian electoral trends. " This is a classic example of good governance paid by the voters, " added this political scientist specializing in electoral analysis.

In recent years, the territory of Delhi has been the privileged terrain for experimenting with Indian welfarism . To put it simply, according to this theory, public policies must be evaluated according to their consequences on the well-being of the population, and not only on the wealth or growth generated. The brain of this policy in Delhi is none other than its chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. However, the latter is not a politician like the others. Unlike other leaders of Indian parties, the fiftieth, mechanical engineer by training and former senior official of the tax department, is not a professional in politics.

Coming from civil society, Arvind Kejriwal broke into political life in 2012 by creating his party Aam Aadmi . This name, which in Hindi means " ordinary man ", testifies to the humanist ambition of its founder. It contrasts with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the " Hindu People's Party " of Narendra Modi, which highlights its religious (Hindu) nationalism. It also differs from the Congress party and its prestigious history of resistance against British colonization with which its name is associated.

The current ministers' meeting of the Delhi regional government in a public garden in the capital (May 2015). Sajjad Hussain / AFP

Fight against corruption

For the ideologists of the AAP, the ordinary man is confronted with corruption, the great scourge of Indian political life, especially since the 2000s. With the broom as an emblem, this party promises to clean up within the political class immersed in corruption cases.

Corruption is not an abstract concept for Arvind Kejriwal. After having passed competitions to become a senior civil servant, he joined in 1995 the tax department. It was at this point that the future founder of the PAA became aware for the first time of the extent of the corruption plaguing the Indian bureaucracy. According to legend, from the first day, his colleagues worked to introduce him to the art of enriching himself easily at the expense of taxpayers.

The man is repulsed by the practices of his colleagues, but does not resign from his post. On the other hand, he took advantage of the long holidays to which he was entitled in the public service to launch militant initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency and transparency of the administration. With other Indian activists, he is fighting in particular for the strengthening of the Right to Information Act ( RTI), which will be passed by the Indian Parliament in 2005. This new law is a significant advance for the democracy in the country because it allows any citizen to seize the administration in the name of the public interest and to ask for clarification on such or such decision taken by its officials.

Arvind Kejriwal himself will leverage the RTI to successfully mobilize pressure groups against the government's plan, backed by the World Bank, to privatize water supply in Delhi. He is also involved in civil disobedience movements, denouncing individual cases of corruption and swindles within the "Public Distribution System" responsible in particular for distributing essential food and fuel to the poorest. In 2006, his civic activism was rewarded with the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay prize reserved for emerging leaders in Asia.

It is with its reputation as a public agitator that Kejriwal joined the urban protest, which gained momentum from April 2011, under the aegis of Anna Hazare . The anti-corruption campaign launched by this militant Gandhian septuagenarian in the Indian capital aimed to force the federal congressman, entangled in vast scandals of corruption implicating his ministers, to set up an independent body endowed with investigative powers extended and empowered to track down crooked politicians, up to the Prime Minister.

The hunger strike launched by Hazare, the iconic leader of the protest, attracts the attention of the whole nation and ignites the imaginations. The crowd throngs the Ramlila Maidan esplanade where the movement had set up its headquarters, gathering 100,000 people. The government finally gives in, but will vote a watered-down version of the law demanded by the demonstrators.

This will be the trigger for a number of agitation leaders, like Arvind Kejriwal. He decides to embark on the electoral political struggle, with the hope of changing the system from the inside. He then succeeded in convincing experienced activists of the social movement and novice activists gathered around the anti-corruption challenge of Anna Hazare to join the adventure. On November 26, 2012, the Aap Aadmi party was born.

Do politics differently

It is driven by its ambition to play politics differently than the PAA entered the political arena. “ Coming for the most part from the militant social movement, its leaders are longtime fellow travelers of Arvind Kejriwal. What is for example the case of Manish Sisodia, former journalist who joined the founder in the early 2000s , recalls Vijay Singh, Indian novelist and filmmaker based in Paris. Their militant activism as well as their reputation for integrity and progressiveness are reflected in the political agenda of the PAA, focused on local issues, challenging the power of money and patronage. "

The 2013 territorial election is the first electoral passage exam for the AAP. Because of his real social commitment, coupled with the work done by activists for the registration of the urban poor, Kejriwal succeeds at the outset to beat Sheila Dikshit , chief minister and great figure of the Congress party. In power since 1998, Congress vacillates and agrees to support the minority government formed by the AAP, in order to block the way for the Hinduists of the BJP. But forty-nine days after the formation of the government, Kejriwal must resign following the blocking of his laws by the lieutenant-governor appointed by the central government of New Delhi.

The chief minister of the territory of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, challenges in the street the reform of the status of the capital by the federal authorities (2014). Prakash Singh / AFP

In February 2015, the AAP returned to power thanks to a new electoral deadline. This time the party won an overwhelming majority of 67 seats out of 70. Kejriwal now has a free hand to implement its social program, especially since the party recorded its best scores among Muslims and among the lower castes which until then had constituted - there the traditional base of the Congress.

The “ muffler man ”, one of the many names of the boss of the AAP, is working hard. He concentrates most of the action of his government on improving the daily life of small people, facilitating their access to running water, electricity, public transport or education. " Health has been a main priority of this government, as evidenced by the creation of clinics where doctors give consultations and issue prescriptions for free, " said Vijay Singh.

This action in favor of development has just been acclaimed by the Delhiites who re-elected the PAA party on 8 February as the head of their region. “ It is a personal victory for this atypical politician who is Arvind Kejriwal, even if with 62 seats to his credit, he is doing a little worse than five years ago, and his rivals opposite have seen substantially increase their share of the vote ”, nuance Sanjay Kumar.

Nevertheless, 62 seats out of 70 is a tidal wave that pushes the rivals opposite, the Hinduists of the BJP, to take the Kejriwal phenomenon seriously. Witness the attacks on social networks against the Delhi strongman, who have redoubled their violence since the announcement of the results.

► The victory of the PAA in Delhi makes the anti-Modi dream

From our correspondent in Bangalore, Côme Bastin

Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal attends an opposition rally with Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of Bengal and President of the Kashmir National Conference Farooq Abdullah (February 2019). Chandan Khanna / AFP

Popularly throughout India, the AAP has never really broken through until its victory in the Delhi elections in 2015. But its triumphant re-election breathes new life into the party and now inspires those who want to oppose the BJP in India. A strong party man, Arvind Kejriwal announced that more than a million Indians had joined the PAA just 24 hours after his re-election as Delhi's chief minister. Can the PAA's political strategy pay off in the rest of India?

For the newspaper The Quint , the victory of Arvind Kejriwal effectively shows opponents " the art and science of politics " to confront the BJP. In Bihar, where elections are scheduled for October 2020, the allied party of the BJP conceded that the results of Delhi proved that the people rewarded " those who worked " for them. In the process, the president of the PAA in Bihar announced that he intended to reproduce the success of Delhi by proposing solutions " to the simple problems affecting the life of the ordinary man ".

In Bangalore, where the PAA launched without success in 2017, campaigner Shanthala Damle announced that he would present a candidate in each of the city's 198 neighborhoods for the local elections in August 2020. With spots videos touting a " new Bangalore " and marches throughout the city, the party intends to show that the Delhi model can be replicated in Indian Silicon Valley. Even at the national level, Arvind Kejriwal does not rule out the idea of ​​running in the national elections of 2024.

These dreams of conquest, however, come up against several limits. As explained in a study by the political research center CSDS involving more than 3,000 voters, the votes in the capital follow their own logic. " 60 % of voters voted for local concerns such as education, water, health and pollution, and only 7 % for national issues such as recent citizenship laws ," said Sanjay Kumar, director of the 'study. It is therefore an encouragement for politicians, but it does not prejudge the choice of voters for the upcoming elections. "

At the entrance to the Delhi administration headquarters, led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (December 2015) Prakash Singh / AFP

What calm the fervor of those who want to see in the results of Delhi a rejection of the policy of the BJP in India. Former founder of the AAP which he then left, and author of the book AAP and Down ( The AAP, from dream to decline ), Mayank Gandhi nevertheless judges that the election of Delhi could open the way to other successes. of the PAA in India, given the weakness of the opposition. It would still be necessary that the omnipresence of Arvind Kejriwal fades to make way for " state teams, solid local leaders and a democratic organization of the party ".

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