AAP 2.0 is very different – there’s a new coterie, loyalty to Kejriwal matters more!
AAP has sacked its women and child welfare minister Sandeep Kumar because of a video that caught him in a seemingly consensual sexual act. What does this say about the party, and its attitude to personal freedoms?
The motivation for this speedy sacking is to defuse the media scandal, and prevent political rivals from gaining any advantage. Some AAP leaders have explained the sacking in terms of compulsion or majboori. Even though the party doesn't think that Sandeep Kumar did anything wrong, they have to expel him anyway because that is what is expected of them — this is the gist of the lengthy explanation from senior leader Ashutosh.
That "perception management" is now a key goal of the party is significant. This is an interesting move away from the usual high moralistic discourse on virtue and vice that has dominated AAP's politics in the past, to a notion of morality as a public performance. I see this as part of AAP's repositioning as a party that is concerned about "governability" and "winnability" rather than impractical ideals. This took place during the run-up to the Delhi elections in 2014-15, when the pragmatism versus idealism divide literally split the party.
AAP has sacked its women and child welfare minister Sandeep Kumar because of a video that caught him in a seemingly consensual sexual act. What does this say about the party, and its attitude to personal freedoms?
The motivation for this speedy sacking is to defuse the media scandal, and prevent political rivals from gaining any advantage. Some AAP leaders have explained the sacking in terms of compulsion or majboori. Even though the party doesn't think that Sandeep Kumar did anything wrong, they have to expel him anyway because that is what is expected of them — this is the gist of the lengthy explanation from senior leader Ashutosh.
That "perception management" is now a key goal of the party is significant. This is an interesting move away from the usual high moralistic discourse on virtue and vice that has dominated AAP's politics in the past, to a notion of morality as a public performance. I see this as part of AAP's repositioning as a party that is concerned about "governability" and "winnability" rather than impractical ideals. This took place during the run-up to the Delhi elections in 2014-15, when the pragmatism versus idealism divide literally split the party.
Apart from public perceptions, I think other calculations went into the decision to sack Kumar and are related to internal party tensions. When similar "sex scandals" and allegations of domestic violence have engulfed other leaders (Kumar Vishwas, Somnath Bharti), the party has rushed to defend them. Why was Kumar sacked — what makes him more politically expendable than the others?
Over the last few months, Kejriwal has continued doing the David and Goliath act with the Modi government. To some extent, this is meant to show how little the Delhi CM can do, but he often dramatises the unequal battle ("Modi may kill me", etc). How long can AAP hold the "not like other parties" pose?
AAP's main identity is that of a political outsider that takes on the establishment. The melodramatic flourishes of its David-Goliath confrontation with the Modi government is a reflection of that anti-establishment political style. It's always difficult to maintain an outsider identity when you become an insider. AAP experienced this in its first term, and the "CM on dharna" episode is believed to have engineered its fall from public grace.
Since its re-election in 2015, the agitational politics of the party has been muted, and we don't have the party-as-government protesting on the street anymore. Instead, the conflict has been personalised, as the Kejriwal-versus-Modi scenario of two lone warriors on the battlefield. This reflects the "strongman" turn taken by Indian politics (and for that matter, politics around the world today, think Trump and Erdogan) since the 2014 elections, and the rise of the Great Leader narrative. Paralleling the elevation of Modi within the BJP we have the repositioning of Kejriwal as the supreme authority within the AAP.
Are there diminishing returns to this "war with the Centre" narrative?
There's certainly fatigue and sarcasm in media/social media discussions of late, and I don't think it will work very effectively in the context of the upcoming Punjab electoral mobilisations, where the federal relationship is cast differently, and central assistance is regarded as financially and politically valuable for the state at many levels.
Which section of the public is AAP now directing its actions at?
Rather than a specific caste-class constituency, I think these incidents underline the importance of the "media public" for AAP. The media public is the imagined audience of TV news and debates, Twitter gossip and Facebook controversies.
How do you see its growth beyond Delhi?
This is an interesting moment for AAP. Unlike the first time when they moved from Delhi to the national stage in the 2014 election by trying to scale up their message without much localised adaptation, they are doing this niche marketing, and tailoring their message in Punjab, Goa and Gujarat. So we often get mixed messages. Sometimes they do the things they once rejected, like pandering to identity politics in various forms, from penance at the Golden Temple to this Jain muni defence.
The question of AAP's growth beyond Delhi is also a question about the urban character of its politics. So far, AAP's politics has been about delivery of basic civic amenities like water, electricity, education, and health — how will that translate across rural Punjab, where the issues such as agrarian distress, drug cartels, etc. cannot be resolved by visible, "quick fix" solutions (like rolling out mobile health clinics or slashing electricity prices)?
There's also a marked difference between AAP 1.0 and AAP 2.0. There's a new coterie, a sense of central command, and opacity in decision-making. It's all done by a tight clique of men, and personal loyalty to Kejriwal seems to matter greatly in the way the party is structured.
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