http://www.niticentral.com/2012/10/in-six-months-people-will-ask-kejriwal-who-2.html#comment-4476
In six months people will ask, Kejriwal who?
By Virendra Kapoor on October 21, 2012
So the tsunami of corruption scams continues unabated. Like a Nordic saga, the seemingly unending naming and shaming of crooked politicians by civil society activists has found an eager national audience. Television channels have to thank Arvind Kejriwal that they do not have to scrounge around for highly engaging content, as ever-new grave charges of wrong-doing provide ready fodder for indulging in the most favourite pastime of politician-bashing.
Indeed, Arnab Goswami of Times Now and his fellow television anchors should consider instituting an award in Kejriwal’s name — the man has done more in recent weeks to show politicians in their true colours than all the channels put together. That would also encourage other public-spirited persons to expose the venality of the ruling elite. The Lavasa ‘expose’ by retired Mumbai cop YP Singh, naming Sharad Pawar as a key suspect, may well have something to do with the fact that Kejriwal alone was hogging the limelight. Competitive crusading might land more and more politicians in trouble in the coming days.
Yet, the question uppermost in the minds of everyone is as to how the Arvind Kejriwal phenomenon will eventually pan out. That he has stirred and shaken up the cosy world of politics is undeniable. From Sonia Gandhi to Nitin Gadkari, everyone had reason to be frightened as to what he would reveal next from his little basket of scandals. Gadkari may well have been targeted by default so that India Against Corruption can plead an equivalence between the Congress and the BJP, but the Congress’s first family was left thoroughly mauled by the well-documented disclosures concerning the money-making rackets of Robert Vadra.
However, instead of trying to do something silly, like Salman Khurshid has threatened to do, the Gandhis and their megaphones would do well to bide their time; soon Kejriwal will run out of steam and fade into the margins of the civil society movement. For, he is already showing signs of falling prey to his own newly-acquired celebrity status. In his anxiety to come out with a scam-a-day, he seems to have outsourced fact-checking to the likes of Anjali Damania. She sought to elevate personal pique into a national cause, believing that sporting an aam admi cap would hide her own shenanigans aimed at safeguarding her financial interests.
The so-called Gadkari expose undermined the credibility of IAC. Given that the Kejriwal phenomenon is largely a product of the 24×7 television news channels, he is hard put to say and do something every other day to stay in the national limelight. Unfortunately, the rough and tumble of real, grassroots politics is not a television soap opera; it is a tough grind. That would explain why despite facing serious charges of corruption, Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and a host of other leaders are still thriving in the business of politics.
The short point is that Indian politics will have to undergo a huge transformation for it to embrace the likes of Kejriwal. He is not the first to try and cleanse the system. And, certainly, he won’t be the last. Remember the fate of a number of well-heeled wannabe politicians, particularly that international banker, Meera Sanyal, who had made bold to take the plunge in the wake of the 26/11 atrocity? Even terror-stricken Mumbaikars did not deem it right to help Meera Sanyal save her security deposit when she contested the 2009 general election as an independent.
So, do not be surprised if Kejriwal and his band of starry-eyed IAC comrades fall off the national radar in the next couple of months. The system is not ready to accept them. Hide-bound politicians of all hues see them as a temporary nuisance. There is no place for people like Kejriwal in electoral politics which subsists on layers of self-sustaining vested interests, the first layer starting with the poor, the actual voting class, and the third and last culminating at the level of the ruling elite. Between the two there is the urban middle-classes — the chattering classes, really — which occasionally embrace do-gooders like Anna Hazare and Kejriwal only to relapse into a long phase of cynical disinterest when they too fail to reform the system.
One does not have to be a soothsayer to predict that Kejriwal’s yet-to-be-named political outfit will prove to be stillborn. It will struggle to win a seat even in the local municipal elections in the national capital which thus far has served as his base of anti-corruption crusading. This is most unfortunate, but cannot be wished away. Voters, the same ones who thronged in large numbers the Anna Hazare rallies last year, are eventually swayed by extraneous factors such as caste, community, region and religion, and, of course, those bundles of cash and liquor bottles distributed before voting day, rather than the idealism of an Anna Hazare or an Arvind Kejriwal.
Therefore, instead of blotting their copybooks by hurling foul invectives against Kejriwal and his comrades on TV talk shows, the Manish Tiwaris and Renuka Chowdhurys of the ruling party ought to take a few weeks off from defending the indefensible. This would not only deprive TV anchors of a verbal cockfight, but, what is more, take the sting out of the IAC’s anti-corruption campaign. As for Kejriwal and his comrades, they will soon discover that politics is not their cup of tea. This will be an unfortunate but inevitable denouement to the latest anti-corruption campaign. That is, till another idealist emerges to mesmerise the nation for all-too-brief a spell.
(Photo credit: PTI)
कोणत्याही टिप्पण्या नाहीत:
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा