The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) electoral debacle in Delhi signals the collapse of an extraordinary dream. To the cynic, it may be the inevitable downfall of an illusion that was always unsustainable in the contemporary age. To many rationalists, the denouement marked the natural end of the urban middle-class myopia and the eclipse of a maverick without ideological roots. To Arvind Kejriwal’s foes, it was the inescapable fate of a political charlatan.

Yet, one fact is irrefutable. However short-lived it was, AAP and Kejriwal scripted a new experiment in India's political history. In its 13-year journey, AAP stood in stark contrast to all the dark forces that have engulfed our polity and society—religious and caste sectarianism, endemic corruption, hunger for power and wealth, unscrupulous market capitalism, and the politics of triviality and self-interest. AAP was the first political party that actually translated its promises immediately after it came to power to improve the lives of the poor. At a time when the political landscape has turned starkly communal and bigoted, AAP appeared as a solitary secular island. Its very name and symbol (broom) resonated with the common people's long-cherished desire to cleanse India's political pigsty.

AAP’s image owed most to its founder Kejriwal who embodied all its virtues. A graduate of the elite IIT who gave up a coveted IRS job to fight corruption and serve the common people, he personified honesty, sacrifice and selflessness. A Magsaysay award-winning crusader against corruption, the diminutive Kejriwal in his blue Maruti Wagon R, his trademark Monte Carlo sweater, the ubiquitous muffler, with even a persistent cough, truly looked like the archetypal common man (Aam Aadmi). “A circle of Arvind Kejriwal’s shirt was poking from a hole in the middle of his rumpled sweater. And below his bare feet were clad in well-worn sandals with a relaxed coating of dust”, wrote Andrew North of the BBC in 2014.

This was in stark contrast to the bloated, and extravagant Delhi netalog cruising in limousines, escorted by machine-gun trotting black cats. This made a tremendous impact on people, especially in the age of television and social media. Born out of India’s most vocal and widely covered anti-corruption movement -India Against Corruption-, AAP embodied the idea that the browbeaten nation has been waiting for a long time. Kejriwal assumed the aura of a messiah of the masses and a crusader in shining armour.

AAP’s debut in the Delhi assembly poll of February 2013 was simply stunning. Ever since independence, the nation's capital had been ruled only by Congress or BJP. Unlike these two grand old parties which were led by stalwarts who were well-known in Delhi, the newly born AAP consisted of unknown and ordinary........

© Mathrubhumi English