Did you say a wild comparison?
After all, one is a 49-day chief
minister of Delhi, India’s National Capital Territory, who had to apologize for
his ‘act of absconding’. Though he doesn’t accept it morally, the electoral and
political compulsions after his ‘political martyrdom’ efforts tanked down in the Lok Sabha polls forced him
to own the disaster his decision to vacate the Delhi CM’s office in order to
look for greener pastures had become. He was forced to accept the ‘deserter’
tag in his own toned-down version.
And the other is the successful (though
debatable on who sees what) President of the United States of America, the
world’s only superpower (still). The world’s most powerful political person is
in the second term of his Presidential office.
Professionally, Arvind Kejriwal
began as engineer and graduated to become a finance professional working for
the Government of India. Barack Obama is a Harvard educated lawyer.
So, where is the ground for
comparison?
It is there, thanks to the
Norwegian Nobel Committee and thanks to the Delhi electorate!
If not qualitatively (and
certainly not), the two factors certainly give the pretext to compare them –
when your pen intends to play with words in some lighter moments – and a wild
thought crosses your mind.
The case of Arvind Kejriwal and
AAP is much like the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Peace
Nobel to Barack Obama, the first African American US President, for the ‘hopes
and aspirations’ that he raised with winning the US Presidential election in November
2008 after a heart-winning campaign.
The electorate of Delhi awarded
the new political outfit with an unexpected 28 seats in the House of 70 making
it the second largest party while not giving clear majority to any party and
thus opening the door to the possibilities that later on allowed AAP to form
the government. Besides AAP’s door-to-door campaign, the voters had in mind the
anti-corruption movement of 2011 led by Anna Hazare. Arvind Kejriwal was its
central strategist. Public was frustrated with the regime in office and saw the
possibility of change in Arvind Kejriwal led outfit and awarded him hoping he
would deliver. The hopes were legitimate and the aspirations were high.
While we cannot compare the
Delhi’s sociopolitical situation with the global geopolitical equations that
the Nobel Committee had in mind while sealing Obama’s name, the grounds were
similar – thoughts aspiring for change – thoughts of millions in Delhi – and thoughts
of the select few of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
While Obama’s post Peace Nobel
performance has been debatable, he has gone on to win the second Presidential
term and remains one of the most acceptable global leaders.
On the contrary, Arvind Kejriwal
and AAP look in the state of inertia. They are still not reading the rule book
clearly to work on organization and its political ethics. They see a chance to
win back the Delhi assembly elections and that is legitimate. But the way they
are trying to do it makes the intent and the strategy behind it questionable.
They are again making it person-centric and Arvind Kejriwal is concentrating
all the resources available to further his political career (like he did in the
Lok Sabha polls that he contested from Varanasi against Narendra Modi) when
there are practical needs to look in other directions as well.
One has honestly tried to live up
to expectations and aspirations and has been satisfactory so far, even if has not
been able to justify his Peace Nobel.
The other has killed expectations
and aspirations by manipulating the meaning of people’s trust to further his
self-centered political agenda. He has been an absolute disappointment so far.