By Kamal Chenoy
It seems that for a part of the Delhi citizenry the honeymoon is over. The poor and large sections of the middle class is solidly with AAP and the efforts to increase water supplies, control electricity tariffs, and have a participatory budgets discussed in Mohalla Sabhas.
Unfortunately, as the Gajendra and Kumar Vishwas issues showed there is also a Centre inspired effort to create issues out of nothing: 1) the misrepresented non-case against Kumar Vishvas taken up by the DCW, of which little is heard now; 2) the attempt by the Delhi Police to implicate AAP in the public suicide of Gajendra Rathore in the AAP rally. With so much media coverage, probably as instructed by their masters at the Centre, a wild and wicked attempt to destroy Arvind Kejriwal’s and AAPs image was put in place. The police refused to collaborate with the investigating magistrate. Of course proving that because of the Centre it was law by order.
But issues like the forged certificates of Law Minister J. Tomar were not tackled swiftly. Instead the Delhi government was satisfied by the Minister’s assurances, which the Bar Council of Delhi has rejected. The most controversial decision was to go after the media; from public trial to constant scrutiny by officers in the Delhi Secretariat of the media for potential cases of defamation. AK has himself opposed Sections 499-500 IPC incorporating “criminal” defamation. These are British colonial laws, withdrawn in 2009 in the UK itself.
By why go after the media? Of course, sections of the media are controlled by corporate influences and non-media norms including politico-economic influences. But the media as a whole is far from sold out. AAP should argue for a long awaited Press Commission which will make corporate holdings clear and Acts that protect working journalists from extra-media pressures. The idea is to further empower the media, not to shoot the messenger.
Cumulatively, with these negative factors in play, we have lost the upper middle class and the affluent. Other sections of our class alliance are wavering. If we do not readjust our policies, the supreme effort to build an “alternative politics” will be lost. That potential loss would deny AAP it’s potentially historic contribution and the people “a new politics.”
(Kamal Chenoy is a Professor at SIS, JNU. This article is reproduced from his facebook post.)
