Without ideology or loyalty: Arvind Kejriwal and his pursuit of power

Rajendra Pal Gautam, Tahir Hussain and Amanatullah Khan have joined a long list of colleagues who have been left high and dry by Kejriwal. They were, in the end, mere props in his pursuit of power

Aam Adami Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal traded in Mahatma Gandhi's pictures in his office for those of Bhimrao Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh to appeal to the voters of Punjab. So, his reaction to a recent Buddhist conversion event was nothing short of astounding.

He forced his cabinet colleague in the Delhi government, Rajendra Pal Gautam, to resign after publicly converting to Buddhism in Ambedkar's footsteps, along with 1,000 Hindus on October 5. The problem was that in repeating the 22 vows of conversion framed by Ambedkar, the converted neo-Buddhists promised to distance themselves from Hindu gods, goddesses, beliefs and practices.

Perhaps Kejriwal was put on the defensive by the appearance of posters in Gujarat depicting him in a kaffiyeh and skull cap and describing him as anti-Hindu. Why else would he have declared himself "rabidly religious" but to appease Gujarati Hindu voters?

Kejriwal's astounding somersaults show that he stands for neither Ambedkar's nor Bhagat Singh's politics. He could not live with the reality of Ambedkar's critique of ritualistic and caste-ridden Hinduism. And did he know that Bhagat Singh was an avowed atheist who wrote his famous "Why I am an Atheist" from the Lahore central jail?

Pandering to the Gujarat electorate, Kejriwal claimed that he was an agent of Lord Krishna, having also been born on Janmashtami like him, sent to Gujarat to destroy the descendants of the mythic tyrant king Kamsa. Dwarka, the mythical Kingdom where Krishna settled after killing his uncle Kamsa, is believed to be in Gujarat, and Vaishnavism based on Krishna worship is central to Gujarati Hindu culture. Not only was his claim of a shared birthday off by a day (in 1968, Janamasthami fell a day before Kejriwal's birthday on August 16), but never in the worst lows of Indian political discourse had a political leader described himself as the avatar of a Hindu god and his adversaries as the children of demons.

However, Kejriwal's politics would have been no less fickle even if the dates had not been fudged. His political beliefs have proved to be mere convenience turning from Gandhian secular to "rabidly religious".

Kejriwal's political rise relied on brand rub-off from those with political credibility. He got the self-confessed Gandhian, Anna Hazare, to lead the anti-corruption movement by claiming that he had no political aspirations for himself. Old pictures of the agitation show Hazare and Kejriwal framed by large photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and the Rani of Jhansi, Laxmibai, in the background. These were safe icons, and ranting against corruption offered a low entry bar to joining the protest.

The agitation was never confrontational enough for the state to call in the cavalry, its demands were minimalist, and it was not like West Asia's "occupy" movements, demanding regime change. The "at no-personal-cost" protest attracted large sections of urban India, turning it into a vast picnic and a great media show.

Having perfected his mobilisation methods through political volunteers and created a constituency against corruption in governance, Kejriwal finally launched a political party. After capturing Delhi, however, his politics has not grown beyond being a please-all. As the devout Hindu, he performed televised Laxmi pooja at government expense. As the tolerant secularist, he made Imams in mosques salaried employees of the Delhi government, and as the dutiful son, he offered free pilgrimages to the elderly and told them to get vaccinated. Opponents have been hard put to argue against free electricity and water for the poor. Nor can anyone disagree with the delivery of better education and health, areas he chose to focus on.

Kejriwal switched his heroes when AAP moved to Punjab, jettisoning Gandhi for Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh. With nearly 32 per cent of the Punjab population being Dalit and the state having a Sikh majority (58 per cent), the swapping was inevitable. He had lost his first foray in Punjab in 2017 due to rumours that the party was flirting with extremist Sikh elements abroad. In 2022, Kejriwal wisely paid obeisance to all the Dalit Hindu and Sikh deras to harvest their influence. After initial dithering, AAP even named a Sikh, Bhagwant Mann, as its chief ministerial candidate. Kejriwal was rumoured to have vied for the job but withdrew after an unfavourable response from the Sikh community.

Yet such is his personality-driven politics that Kejriwal has not kept his hands off Punjab. He has not desisted from taking a meeting of senior Punjab government officials. He has also been accused of using Punjab's resources to campaign in Gujarat. Gujarati TV channels are reportedly being flooded by clips of the Punjab government's anti-corruption measures. An RTI application has revealed that the Punjab Civil Aviation Department was billed over Rs 44 lakh for aircraft hire by Mann to visit Gujarat earlier this year with Kejriwal to launch AAP's election campaign.

Among the erstwhile supporters Kejriwal has conveniently jettisoned, the Muslim voters in Delhi stand out. He did not support them against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Nor did he or his ministers visit minority households during the communal riots in north-east Delhi in February 2020. He has not stood by his party councillor Tahir Hussain, who, in trying to protect his constituents during riots, stands charged with murder. He has also distanced himself from party legislator Amanatullah Khan after he was charged in an alleged Waqf Board recruitment scam. He can abandon his secular credentials as his dependence on the minority vote in Delhi has lessened. Similarly, with Punjab in his pocket, Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh can be confined to official picture frames.

In effect, Kejriwal successfully converted the collective movement for the transformation of governance into the celebration of one man's leadership. Almost everyone with an independent personality in the India Against Corruption movement – from Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan, Prof. Anand Kumar to his poet friend Kumar Vishwas – has been chased out or parted ways with Kejriwal. Rajendra Pal Gautam, Tahir Hussain and Amanatullah Khan are only the latest entrants to the long list of colleagues who have been left high and dry. They were, in the end, mere props in his pursuit of power.