One Year Of AAP: Pass Or Fail

What you think about one year of AAP in power seems to be largely decided by which Delhi you live in: the Delhi of the middle classes or the Delhi of the poor.

- Amit Bhardwaj

To many enthusiasts of newness, the Aam Aadmi Party was as “new” as it gets when it emerged from the Jan Lokpal movement. Newness, indeed, was what defined its fast, two-stage journey to power in Delhi. Opting out after 49 days of the first chance, when they rode to power demolishing Sheila Dikshit’s 15-year reign, aap promised “Paanch Saal Kejriwal” (Five Years to Kejriwal) and returned to the Delhi Assembly with a near-sweep at the hustings. A year later, the newness has faded, as newness is wont to.

“At least the water situation has improved,” says an autorickshaw driver living in one of the more parched areas of Sarita Vihar in southeast Delhi. “Water tankers come regularly nowadays. It was very erratic before Kejriwal became chief minister.”

To middle-class households, used to running water in their taps most of the time, it might be a little difficult to grasp what a regular water tanker means to people living in low-income neighbourhoods. Because the idea that water is time and therefore money is very down-market, understood only from the midst of those for whom water enough to drink, cook, bathe and clean clothes means investing time, waiting in queues to fill one’s pots. And where wages are low, availability of time decides chances of survival. Because the hours you save from collecting water might enable you to work and earn a little more that could mean all the difference between life and death.

Any surprises, then, that despite all the criticism from so many quarters, Delhi’s poorest continue to have more praise than abuse for one year of Kejriwal. But what happened to the main plank of an organisation that had started out as India’s “most honest” anti-corruption party? Let’s go again to the autorickshaw drivers, who are the most prevalent media image of AAP’s support base.