AK blitzkrieg against media

Four months ago, mechanical engineer turned social activist Arvind Kejriwal was a “super aam aadmi,” who can do no wrong; and, he appeared as the real challenger to the new India mascot. Today, he is anything but a superman. Some see him as petulant preschooler; some consider him as a bull in a China shop. It is possible that Kejriwal is neither but a mixture of both, a two-faced gent. But the question is: what has gone wrong with the one-time disciple of Anna Hazare, the Ayatollah against corruption?

It is patently unfair to say that Kejriwal has become a misguided missile after the Delhi electorate delivered to his kitty 67 of the 70 assembly seats in the 2015 election. As Chief Minister he has to play a second fiddle to the Lieutenant -Governor (L-G), and it is not to his liking; it is not that he is unaware of the limitations of Delhi Chief Minister, who is often described as a glorified Gram Pradhan.

The Delhi Police reports to the Home Ministry through L-G. Land and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) belong to the Urban Development Ministry. Luyten’s Delhi, where the high and mighty of the political and bureaucratic class including Kejriwal resides, is outside Kejriwal’s purview. He hoped that the media and the intelligentsia would side with him in his tussle with the L-G. This has not happened; in fact, the media sees his fight as phony, and is not showing in him as much interest as it showed when he was called a deserter by Delhi’s political class. Moreover he has not got any brownie points by managing to become AAP’s one-man high command.

Kejriwal has set his eyes on the South Block office on the Raisina Hill; he knows he has to wait for four more years to take a shot at the goal. In the meantime, he can make some pickings in the Badals’ land; these will come his way as some consolation prize only since Punjab is no Delhi; when his home state, Haryana, has rejected him outright he cannot expect to fare well in Punjab. Like the Dravidian voters, the Punjabi electorate votes for the Badals-BJP combine and the Congress alternatively. The cumulative effect is the Kejriwal irony. And it has been left to the Supreme Court to bring it out in its true colours while suspending the operation of what has come to be known as AK’s Defamation Order (AKDO).

This is not for the first time that a politician in power has tried to gag the media. Long years ago, MGR in Tamil Nadu, NTR in the then composite Andhra Pradesh, and Jagannath Mishra in Bihar had turned their ire on the media as they could not digest ‘reality’ reports, and went to the town projecting media as their adversary number one. Rajiv Gandhi also could not escape the temptation to target the media. What motivated these leaders was the fear of losing in popularity index. Of course, they could not persist with their war on media and they had to beat a hasty retreat from the front line. That is beside the point.

The issue is what made Kejriwal to fret and fume against the media. He has not yet run out of his proverbial honeymoon period with the public and by extension with the media. So what is the need to threaten to invoke the defamation law against journalists, when he himself has knocked at the Supreme Court against the Constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of Indian Penal Code that deal with defamation?

Well, the AKDO issued on 6th May is not an innocuous order as Kejriwal wants us to believe. Shorn of bureaucratese, the order asks his officials to report to Principal Secretary (Home) about any article or news published or aired by the media that damages the reputation of Delhi Chief Minister, his ministers and senior bureaucrats.

For quite some time, Kejriwal has been making verbal attacks on the media. One day he questioned the integrity of media personnel. Another day he suggested that most practitioners of the journalistic craft were on the pay rolls of corporate houses. Then he accused some journalists of taking ‘supari’ from business barons to attack him and his AAP. Soon he resolved to send all carping and bitching journalists to jail!

True to the style of Indian political class, he has since retracted and said that he is not talking about all journalists. His loyalists are no less active in targeting journalists and political adversaries. In short, what we are witnessing is new AAP culture in full bloom. Now cut to the first term of Kejriwal as the Chief Minister in 2014. When Delhi was shivering in January cold wave, his Law Minister of the day Somnath Bharti carried out a midnight raid on the residences of some Ugandan nationals one night claiming that they were part of a prostitution ring. His vigilantism dented India’s image and gave a bad name to AAP itself.

So, what did Kejriwal do to undo the damage? He sat on dharna at the Rail Bhavan along with his ministers saying “Delhi police is busy fighting us and neglecting rape cases and prostitution.” It served as a good diversionary tactic. So did his charge against Sushil Kumar Shinde, then Union Home Minister, that money changed hands for transfer and posting of Station House Officers (in-charge of police stations) of Delhi Police.

Today, Arvind Kejriwal is back at his old game of bluster and bluff as he grapples with the reality that he cannot deliver on his poll promises from water to electricity and police. His sweeping charges, and his penchant to lock horns with the Lieutenant –Governor, Najib Jung, who is a seasoned bureaucrat, serve one single purpose. It is that for everything that is wrong in and with Delhi, you cannot make him bear the cross. A lesson well learnt from the trauma of Sheila Dixit, who fell flat on her face by becoming Delhi’s face.