Why AAP has lost my vote

“I do not hesitate to say that even if there is only one man in Massachusetts who is opposed to slavery, he should effectively withdraw his support from the government, both in person and property, without waiting till the majority is on his side. For, he is not alone. Any man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one already” – Henry David Thoreau

In the close to three years that I have heard Arvind Kejriwal’s theses on decentralisation of power, I have never been so scared of it. Call it my naivete or the desperate need  for a political party that spoke my language I, like many others had started believing – almost – that corruption is the mother of all ills. Even if in my heart of hearts there was a niggling doubt about a political party which seemed to draw its economic policy from the vaults of the extreme left and its morality from the rabid right.

Till I bumped into Somnath Bharti.

But before elaborating on the now infamous Bharti – not that he needs any, “sirf naam hi kaafi hai” – it is important to understand that Delhi beneath its glitz and malls, is really many cities in one. For now let’s limit ourselves to only two of those avatars. The heart of Delhi - its villages - jostling for space with its posh façade. Munirka and Vasant Vihar, Khirki and Malviya Nagar, Madipur and Punjabi bagh – the list is endless. And like any cosmopolitan city, Delhi’s colonies are a mishmash of cultures, languages, food habits and value systems.

That’s the part where Somnath Bharti comes in and Kejriwal’s promise of a Mohulla Sabha becomes a demon waiting to strike. I do not know whether there really was a drug racket running in Khirki but anybody who has lived for a decent period in Delhi or for that matter in any Indian town, city, village, kasba whatever would know that prostitution is, in most cases a subjective term, applied loosely for a bunch of women whose dress, company, habits or morality are at odds with that of their neighbours.

Especially if you are a single woman staying in Delhi, the entire neighbourhood often makes it their business to “discipline” you. As a young journalist working in Delhi I have had officious old neighbours (not my landlady) walk up to me and ask why I cannot come home sooner that the 9-10pm that was my wont. “I usually come home later,” I had chosen to reply before walking away.

But now with the likes of Somnath Bharti on the prowl, I may need to heed to their curfew or the moralities of myriad neighbourhood uncles who may not like it if some of my male friends choose to crash for the night after a long party or may think that or my skirt and boots combo amounted to soliciting clients. And god forbid should there actually be a mohulla sabha, they can probably even decide “punishments” like the kangaroo court in Birbhum did.

Okay that’s probably an exaggeration. 

May be they cannot but AAP has  set  a precedent of taking a debate that at least in part is about how women should conduct themselves to the Rail Bhavan roundabout for two days and told me that it is being done for security of women like me. Much like khap panchayats who have nothing but the protection of women’s “honour” in mind, do. Yesterday it may have been African women but what is going to stop eager guardians of morality who now have the chief minister’s “anarchist” support for their policing, to widen the net to everybody else in the city.

Prostitution does not endanger women’s security, moral policing does. And while I may be able to live with an odd incident of corruption – haven’t I done so all these years – I cannot vote for a party that seeks to institutionalise moral policing and call it a “movement”.

Modi and Muslims: each other’s worst dilemma

Whether Muslims will ever “forgive” Modi for the 2002 pogrom isn’t just the stuff of op-eds. Neither it is as much of a foregone conclusion as Congress and its minions would have us believe.

It is a living breathing dilemma Muslims across the country have been grappling with since the time Modi swept Gujarat for the third time in a row. From before that, in fact.

Former Deoband Mohtamim Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi lost his job in 2011 for endorsing Modi’s development agenda – only to retract a few months later and do a complete volte face sometime before the Gujarat polls to become a Congress man - little short of a Congressman.

Lucknowi Shia cleric Maulana Syed Kalbe Sadiq’s endorsement of Modi’s development agenda is déjà vu. Whether he does a Vastanvi or not only time can tell but what is more important is that despite the precedent Islamist hawks managed to make out of that Gujarati cleric someone from the heartland mouthed identical lines. 

And it is more than a stray act of courage from a man whose reformist ideas are not always in line with the conservative mores most Muslim religious leaders choose to follow. Because it is the articulation of a subliminal sentiment that has been waiting for years now for that one elusive “sorry” to jump onto the MaMo bandwagon.

Close to three years ago at the peak of the Vastanvi controversy, on a winter afternoon in a Lutyens’ Delhi bungalow, another Muslim cleric – scion of a well respected religious/political family - had wondered about the consequences of issuing a statement in support of the beleaguered then head of one of the second largest Muslim seminary in the world. He was not equal to taking that calculated risk then.

Cut to 2013. Days before the Shia cleric’s statement, Jamiat ulama I Hind general secretary Mahmood Madani talked about how the NaMo bogey is being used to scare Muslims. It struck at the nub of political discourse over the past few months – more or less stated the obvious. Yet given Vastanvi’s persecution, this one too must have taken some deliberation on the part of the wily Madani thought to be close to the Samajwadi Party  which its own people now say may not quite recover from the fallout of the Muzaffarnagar riots in time for the Lok Sabha elections.

Bottomline in all this is that after years of toeing the Congress line of Modi is anathema and living from Sachar Commission to Amitabh Kundu committee, Muslims are not averse to trying out the man who is being touted as the messiah of development. And proponents of the “Modi-as-son-of-Shaitan” theory are hoping that the man himself will give them an hounourable exit by apologising.

Trouble is, he does not seem to be in the mood. Intriguing considering that it seems to be the miracle cure for his Achilles’ Heel. Trouble also is that India is NOT a secular country and nobody knows it better than the man whose communal image is Congress’s last hope to kill the corruption taint on it. 

Us vs them works in regions and in religions – I grew up in Kolkata that prides itself on its broadmindedness but has derogatory nicknames for people from all other states . That was also Modi’s ticket for entry into the national political consciousness and it’s an image he is clearly loathe to shed.

Much like Scarlett O Hara aware of the effect of her fluttering eyelashes on the twins even when she is married to Charles Hamilton, Modi may be harping on good governance and Shehzada bashing but he knows till he denounces it officially and clearly, the Hindutva halo around him will not disappear. He is not wedded to the cause any more but having been affianced to it once still makes him the Hindu Hriday Samrat.

He’s not above fluttering a few eyelashes

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