To bid for power outside Delhi, AAP needs to blaze trail, not copy BJP ideas

With the launch of the Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana, personally conceptualised and steered by Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal, he has undeniably cast himself in a mould that is completely different from the persona he displayed when he made his national political ambitions evident in 2014 public by contesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi.

This transformation over seven-and-a-half years is symptomatic of his unceasing pragmatism and belief that ideological contestation with Modi and the BJP has progressively become a losing game.

Time will determine if voters beyond Delhi consider his party an alternative to the BJP purely on the strength of its civic agenda while its ideological moorings decisively shifts to the Right and he opts for a ‘softer hue’ of saffron.

On December 10, the second train to Ayodhya departed on a four-day trip to the temple town. This was after the scheme was flagged off with great fanfare by Kejriwal from New Delhi’s Safdarjung railway station a week earlier amid chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, no longer merely a daily expression of greeting others, but a battle-cry.

Although the pilgrimage scheme for senior citizens of the capital was launched in July 2019, it came under public spotlight after Ayodhya was added to the list of destinations covered under the scheme in late November.

Also read: AAP’s ideological dilemma and tryst with tricolour nationalism

Prior to the addition of Ayodhya to the list of pilgrimages, Kejriwal made a well-publicised visit to the temple town and went for a darshan to the Ram Temple that is being constructed there.

He also performed Hindu rituals along with his wife at a government-controlled sports stadium. The event was televised live on several news channels even while a large model of the Ram Temple being constructed in Ayodhya provided the backdrop. He has long declared that he is a huge devotee of Lord Hanuman.

Although the chief minister has added to his list of pilgrimages the destination of Ajmer, where the famous ‘dargah’ of the revered Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti is located apart from the Golden Temple and Kartarpur Sahib to avoid an exclusive Hindu orientation to the scheme, a majority of the destinations are primarily Hindu sites.

Talks are still underway with representatives from the Christian community about including the Velankanni Church of Tamil Nadu.

But if the electorate does not embrace the AAP when voters seek alternatives to the BJP, the party will get restricted to being a lesser regional party with limited political clout and no sub-national or caste-based support.

In time, its electoral stranglehold over Delhi too, shall likely cyclically rise and decline due to anti-incumbency sentiment and the law of diminishing returns.

Kejriwal’s success or failure in emerging as a political alternative to Modi, in states beyond the capital – the AAP is trying to make inroads in Goa and Gujarat besides Punjab – will provide clues in establishing if ideological contestation is now passé.

Now onwards, will most elections be fought solely on programmatic lines, and not on basis of political philosophy, social principles and constitutional doctrines?

To grasp Kejriwal’s and AAP’s transformation, it is important to recall the pledge to voters in 2014: “Those practising politics in the name of religion would be dealt with strictly.”

The AAP backed this promise with the declaration that India was “founded on the conviction that people belonging to different faiths can only tolerate each other.”

More importantly, Kejriwal, in his search for a secularist identity, put his signature on the party’s claim that India witnessed “betrayal of Muslim community”.

The party contended that consequently, it was necessary to “further the interests” of the community. In its manifesto, the AAP made specific promises to Muslims, including ending “police harassment” and “false cases against Muslim youth.”

The AAP and Kejriwal now maintain radio silence on these recurring issues. The party has also not taken any stance on several matters since 2019. These included the Centre’s disputable legislations on Kashmir, triple talaq, CAA and the making the UAPA more strident.

The Delhi chief minister stayed away from the anti-CAA protest site, Shaheen Bagh, besides looking the other way during the Delhi riots in early 2020 and the subsequent witch hunt of Muslim, civil society activists and sections of the media.

In addition, the state government sanctioned prosecution of former Jawaharlal Nehru University student activists, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others.

When Kejriwal’s critics flagged this, party publicists sought cover, pleading that the Delhi government has no say on matters related to the Home Ministry.

But limited power of the Delhi government has nothing to do with the party’s consistent caginess on issues that enables the BJP to polarise the electorate.

In recent years, the AAP’s standpoint has been formulated with an eye on ‘practical politics’ and not principles, undeniably the basis of the India Against Corruption movement, AAP’s genesis.

Irrefutably, AAP’s position on issues related to secularism and targeting of Muslims has been watered down. This was accompanied by Kejriwal’s and his party colleagues’ constant efforts at publicly displaying their Hinduness, the latest instance being the train to Ayodhya.

Significantly, the pilgrimage scheme has its genesis in a devotional programme organised by the state government on Mahashivratri in 2018. The pilgrimage is arranged through IRCTC and offers AC trains and AC hotels free of cost.

It would be easy to justify the chief minister’s public displays and statements affirming his personal religiosity by contending that this is a rising trend in the entire opposition space.

Rahul Gandhi and his sibling Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, even the acerbic Mayawati who took potshots at so-called ‘Manuwadi’ (followers of Manu) forces in the past, and several others – almost everyone emphasise their Hindu identities.

Barring a handful of largely inconsequential communists and a few others, no one protests against the continuing efforts at ‘invisibilising’ Muslims, be it for performing Namaz on Friday, or for their presence and voice in policy and politics. Kejriwal’s public persona is just like his peers, supporters would contend.

Yet, it is necessary to differentiate between personal temple visits, statements and using state resources to construct a replica of the under-construction Ram Temple at Ayodhya as Kejriwal did for Diwali and besides mounting for a televised religious ceremony at a public venue.

Also read: Kejriwal announces AAP’s plan to contest 6 state polls next year

While there is no need to partake in the kind of tokenism that Nitish Kumar once did by taunting Modi that in India it was a necessity to sometime don both tika and topi, there must matching reach out to various religious communities because India’s multi-religious character and rights are enshrined in the Constitution.

Not just pietism, but the AAP also emphasises developing nationalistic fervour in a vocabulary that seeks to match the BJP and its leaders. Likewise the pledge for the 2020 assembly polls to introduce “Deshbhakti curriculum” in schools, demonstrated that the leader and his supporters are in sync with Modi and BJP’s vision on patriotism.

The AAP acquiesces with the BJP not merely on ideological issues, but also on matters of economy and governance. For instance, the Delhi government’s recently launched Business Blasters scheme and the video advertisement campaign with deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, to push the idea, is a straight lift from Modi’s long-standing campaign to make India a nation of job-givers, not job-seekers.

The belief behind these two drives is the same – people need to be provided easy-to-access loans to enable them to turn entrepreneurs, the difference being that while the Centre aims to reduce the working class numbers and shift hundreds of thousands from the unemployed to self-employed category, the Delhi government aims to target them young, when they are still in school.

The AAP’s elections campaigns post-2014, increasingly underscore that its governments would be driven by providing various services to citizens.

The BJP too promises similar services-based programmes for citizens – besides unceasingly publicising various non-discriminatory welfare measures it rolled out since 2014. The BJP however, astutely packs in its ideological component too besides its foot soldiers and social media army taking charge during periods between polls.

Bereft of any distinctive ideological position that would set it apart from the BJP and having a common purpose, with a few minor tweaks, behind the promises of citizen services made, Kejriwal and AAP stand the risk of being seen by voters as an irresolute replica of the BJP.

If the saffron party overcomes the leadership crisis in Delhi and projects an alternative popular individual, there is a strong likelihood that the people may opt for the ‘real thing’, and not a copycat version.

With the AAP displaying seriousness in making a bid for power in Punjab and Goa in next year’s elections, the stance the party adopts hereon will determine if it is willing to limit its ideological evasiveness.

(The writer is a NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. His other books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin)

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)