AAP and its brand of local activism
I admit it, I have been a skeptic of AAP and its manifesto from day one. While I would like governmental fairplay and I would like a political party that has woken up and smelt the coffee and realized that government is supposed to be for the people and not above them, I found myself deeply disturbed by the kinds of poll promises made. I found distasteful Kejriwal’s call to arms to Delhiites asking all of them not to pay for electricity. It’s one thing to say that if you have evidence of doctored meters or of mismanagement hiking up the rates. But to say that any citizen has the right to use and not pay for resources is asinine. The promises of free water and electricity I found as gimmicky as those of any other party. But when it comes wrapped in a thick muffler of self-righteousness, it’s more dangerous than when it comes as the typical self-aggrandizing of a mai-baap dyed-in-the wool politician, because by now the Indian public has learnt to see through it. But now the Khirki...