No Grudging Admiration

The muffler man, as Arvind Kejriwal is admired and loathed in equal measure, has not set the Yamuna on fire since his return to Delhi Sachivalaya. But across the Radcliffe Line, named after its architect, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, in Pakistan, he is the toast of the town with commentators searching for their own local AK. In the Pakistani perspective, the near clean sweep achieved by AK broom in Delhi is relevant to the land of the pure. Issues like free water, cheap power and disciplining the police that Kejriwal has championed are issues dear to the Pakistani aam aadmi as well. There is also a vicarious satisfaction there that the underdog has punctured the Modi bubble, and thus proved that “contrary to popular perception, the BJP is not equally popular in all parts of India,” as a letter to the Editor in The Express Tribune points out, while recalling that Modi had accused Kejriwal in 2014 of being a ‘Pakistani agent,’ and in 2015 of being a ‘Naxalite.’ Put simply, the fixation with AK is not grudging admiration we are familiar with in the India-Pak context.

No surprise, some analysts have begun to hope that the playboy –cricketer turned politician, Imran Khan, who has perfected “dharna” politics, would become the muffler man of Pakistan. Ideologically and even social background-wise, there is little in common between the two leaders.

Imran has been around Pak political scene for about two- decades by now, and has tasted success and failure in equal measure at the ballot box. AK, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer and his baptism in politics coincided with his first electoral semi-final in 2013. But what brings AK and Imran on the same page is the fact that they have challenged the traditional politics – BJP and Congress in India, and PPP and PML-N in Pakistan. Both used the anti-corruption plank to hit the headlines.

In electoral terms, Imran Khan has not done badly vis-à-vis Kejirwal. His Tehreek-e-Pakistan (PTI) is in the driver’s seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), which is familiar to us in India as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). He secured the mandate two years ago promising to make KP a model state. And the promise has remained a mirage thus far with Imran Khan focusing his energies on street politics in order to capture Islamabad in three years down the line. This period has seen him championing the Taliban cause while befriending the Army, which is the permanent establishment of the country.

Variation in line and length is an asset in cricket. Not in politics, which demands consistency, more so in Pakistan, where instead of democracy, religious fundamentalism is taking deeproots with every passing day, partly as a part of state policy, and partly on account of external forces, who have neither interest nor faith in democracy. The short point is, therefore, that Imran and Kejriwal have different trajectories. And Imran faces an unenviable challenge ahead. It is much bigger than the one confronting Kejriwal, which is living up to the electoral hype and finding funds to fulfill his promises of cheap electricity and buckets full of water for every Delhi house-hold.

Kejriwal is already facing flak from seasoned politicians and administrators, whose unsolicited advice is that he should dump these promises and focus on what is achievable. Veteran old war horse, Sheila Dixit, has gone to the town to declare that AAP leader is “encouraging theft” by promising people free water and cheap power.

“When the government gives power (electricity) to somebody, then they have to pay for it. Otherwise, it will be considered theft. If you (Kejriwal) can make water a fundamental right, then good. But you are encouraging theft,” Dixit said in an interview. Other political leaders from the Congress and the BJP are set to pick up the refrain as summer sets in full vigour, and the muffler man searches in vain for a magic wand to end water and electricity shortages. Delhi depends on neighbours for its life-line.

For every politician aspiring for a place under the electoral sun, the muffler man has a lesson or two. Even for Imran Khan, who has cemented his place in Pakistani hearts by leading Pakistan to 1992 World Cup and by proving his worth as a social worker who has built a multi-specialty cancer hospital named after his mother.

While on cricket, nothing hurts the Pakistani psyche more than a defeat at the hands of the infidels living across the border, who are, after all, their ‘eternal’ enemies. Be it the battlefield, politics, economics, films or even sport, they just cannot accept that India has surged ahead of them in any field. Whenever India gets the better of Pakistan, well, a conspiracy theory is propounded like after the latest world cup defeat against India in Adelaide.

The Pakistanis have taken the cue from one of their players to raise a chorus against an ICC umpire, Steve Davis, who, if they are to be believed, has a ‘history’ of being ‘anti-Pakistan’. In every match played by the Pakistani team where this gentleman was standing in as the umpire, the decisions were invariably against Pakistan.

The cricket crazy Pakistanis have not alleged that Steve Davis was bought off by the Indians. Or, there were the wily Indian match-fixers behind their defeat, who had enticed their deeply religious players through cash and other allurements. No small mercy it is, given the state of bilateral relations despite Pakistan’s penchant to borrow Indian idiom for its political discourse.

It is this reality check coupled with Modi government’s flip-flops which are conditioned by its domestic electoral compulsions and external pressures that inject realism.

The projection of Foreign Secretary Jaishankar’s visit to Islamabad as part of Saarc Yatra is a clear give away that Delhi is not very hopeful of a turnaround in Indo-Pak ties unless Islamabad gets anywhere near a closure on the 28/11 mayhem as the first step to pave the way for resumption of a structured dialogue.

By: Malladi Rama Rao