Of Agitators and Administrators

--Ziauddin Choudhury
From street agitation to seat of administration can be a long road, it may not happen in most cases, but when it happens there are only two consequences. One is a miraculous change, and the other is chaos. The first can happen when the agitators are people who have had the experience of running a government or an institution in the past or they are people with a vision and gifted with skills. The second can happen when street agitators with no previous experience of running an administration find power thrust upon them because people find them an attractive alternative to the authority in place. When politicians agitate in the street they do it with an ulterior motive, which is to topple the government in place. When common people agitate they do it to vent their grievances against authority and bring about an end to their complaints. Normally in both cases politicians take over when the agitations succeed in toppling a government; the agitators move away and allow a new set of rulers or administrators run the affairs for them. An exception to this norm happened last year in India, more precisely within limits of national capital territory of Delhi. Created in 1991 as a self-governing federal territory Delhi has its legislative assembly and a chief minister like all other Indian states and federal territories. What made Delhi capture news headlines last year was not the likely change of government of the country in the next national elections, nor likely induction of Narendra Modi as the next Prime Minister of India, but one Arvind Kejriwal who was kicking up quite a storm with his protests and hunger strikes over a series of social and economic issues close to the heart of Delhi common people. He was carrying out these protests under the banner of his newly Aam Aadmi Party (Common Mans Party) that he had formed with a band of followers in 2012 breaking away from a broader Anti-Corruption Movement led by Anna Hazare, a social activist. Among his captivating protests last year one was an indefinite fast to mobilize people against inflated power and electricity bills at a house in a low-income group resettlement colony in North-East Delhi. The other was supporting the agitation of Delhi auto rickshaw drivers, who were protesting the Delhi government's ban on advertisements on auto rickshaws. Kejriwal claimed that auto rickshaw drivers supported his party and they carried AAP's advertisements on their auto rickshaws and this is the reason for Delhi Government's ban and he challenged that volunteers of AAP will put 10,000 advertisements on auto rickshaws as a protest. The net result of his tenacious and somewhat dramatic protests against corruption, government apathy, and ineffectiveness was that Kejriwal was able to grow his support base among common people to a level where he could field enough candidates in the legislative assembly elections in 2013. His ultimate success was when his fledgling party fought the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections in November 2013 and won 28 of 70 seats. Kejriwal was transformed from a street agitator to administrator when his party was asked to form the government with support from the Congress Party and he became the seventh Chief Minister of Delhi.

But Kejriwal had new forces to deal with besides dealing with his new role as an administrator. He would face institutions and people who had deeper roots and more experience in handling elected personnel than he had with them. In this battle his experience of working as a mid- level government official in the countrys tax department early in his career was not enough. So he took resort to his agitator role once again when he failed to persuade the central Home Ministry to fire the officer in charge of a Delhi Police Station for its inaction in a case of rape of a foreigner in Delhi. On 20 January 2014, Kejriwal and his ministers staged protests against the Home Ministry in Delhi streets after the police refused entry to his cavalcade to the North Block, near the Home Minister's office. In the same dramatic way that Kejriwal held his other protests in the past; he took his protest to the streets against the Home Minister, but this time along with fellow Ministers. He not only held sit down protests even more dramatically to the delight of his supporters and to the chagrin of some others but he also carried out his office work from the street. It was quite a sight to see a State Chief Minister to stage a sit down strike against an arm of the national government, carrying out the age old tradition of agitation. He later claimed that it was the first time in Indian political history that a Chief Minister had protested on the streets to raise his Government's demands for a fair inquiry. After two days, he ended his fast when the Lieutenant Governor intervened by sending two policemen on leave and setting up a judicial enquiry. Was Kejriwal right in doing what he did? It would have been seemly if he were the activist that he had always been. But should the head of a government resort to his same role that he had in the past to vent his protests? When Gandhi took to his usual protest of hunger strike even in an independent India he had not taken up the mantle of government head, not even in a state. When Maulana Bhashani in Bangladesh resorted to his agitator role in independent Bangladesh, he was as removed from government as he was some fifty years before. The role of an agitator does not behoove an administrator. In Bangladesh we have some examples of agitators turning into administrators, but most of these persons rode in the coat tails of an established political party. In the past we have seen rise and fall of many such people who shot into lime light through agitation, but their ultimate anchor had been a wellestablished political party with deep organizational roots. There had been some political aspirants who had been inspired by peoples frustrations with known faces. But these aspirations have been ephemeral since they lacked the systemic support from organized political parties. We are not sure which way Kejriwal and his new party will be headed to. His supporters and the people who always hope for an alternative to established political parties will no doubt hope for his success. But in a system that has been nurtured by a political network of money, power, and muscle it will be a difficult road for sovereign existence of a band of street warriors bereft of blessings from the wealthy, political power houses, and highly organized political groups. It may be that Kejriwal will be able to ride over his difficulties for his current term, but to take it to the next level he will need to make compromises, compromises that probably his agitator self will not approve of. It is sad but it is true, politics in our part of the world has been made difficult by the same people who want to serve people.

The writer is a US based political commentator and analyst.