Open letter to Mr. Rahul Kanwal

Dear Rahulji,

Till recently I used to always watch CNN IBN but since the days you started showing the ground work of the AAP in Delhi, being its member and volunteer from Kerala and wanting to know how work was progressing there in the ground, I switched over to your channel. On behalf of all the AAP volunteers not residing in Delhi, I thank you for having done such shows.

There were many instances where you yourself were on ground zero. The shows which your channel did, especially the sabhas at Jantar Mantar with representatives from all political parties and engaging the public in the debate, were a great innovation. Your coverage of how our party did the janta poll on the question of forming the government with the Congress support was also a good one. After forming the government in Delhi, the exposes done by your channel about the corruption in Jal Board and also that of Mr. Somnath Bharti was a good one. The work that your team did to dig out the past businesses of Mr. Somnath Bharti and to have accepted that some of the points your channel had made needed further verification was very fair on your part.

Your channel had continuously acted as a watch dog which members like me appreciate. It gave us an opportunity to see and know things that had not yet reached our notice. With this constant pressure, you made us work better. I thank you for the interest you had shown in the working of our party.

Off late you and your team have proved what investigative journalism is really about.

Yesterday evening's IPL expose, especially the interview of the IPS officer, Mr. Sampath was a very good work ha you all did. But I would like to make a request to you. Your channel should conduct exposes like exposes and not block buster Hindi serials that end an episode by showing a trailer of the next episode, making the viewer desperate to watch the next.

Exposes like the ones that your channel do, need no such provocation. Your exposes are substantiated by very sound facts, very convincing to the viewer. Your news presenters need not pump their emotion and show it on the screen to make the viewers understand the seriousness of the matters that you expose.

While broadcasting you exposes and before slipping in to a break, you and your presenters often say that the next part is going to be more shocking that the one that you had just revealed. It is understandable that you all are excited to broadcast a great work that was done as a team which you had managed to cover with great difficulty, but as I said above, it looks more like a TV serial than an expose when you say that. Most importantly, I've seen that the information that your team gathers is such that even if you were to simply read it out without any emotions, it would charge our minds. Such good is your team's work. I would urge you to please reconsider before you say this during the next expose. Your show would also look more balanced if your presenters emotions are controlled a bit.

Thank you.

AAP's decision to resign

Ever since the Aam Aadmi government in Delhi announced its stepping down and tendered its resignation yesterday I have been asked by many friends, supporters and critics about the correctness of this action. Some agreed that it was right but wondered if it was the best possible action. Some were of the opinion that the government could have continued to stay in office and tried to deliver on the other promises that was made. Some who considered the Jan Lokpal as close to their hearts as many of us within the party were of the opinion that due process of law should have been followed and only then should the government have tried to take the bill to the Legislative Assembly. One wanted to know how I felt after hearing the decision - sad, happy, excited or totally disappointed. As a supporter of the party I am duty bound to reply to the queries and also put forth my view.

Before doing this and also before coming to the present situation I would like to take you to the past. This is imperative as only then will the points that I am going to make seem to make sense to you. 

No Indian can forget the Anna Andolan that began late 2011 demanding the passage of a Jan Lokpal bill by the Parliament. When the movement was seeming to lose way, the idea of AAP (the christening of course was done after its birth) emerged. Just like how a foetus grows in a mother's womb, the idea grew in the wilderness of the movement and absorbed all possible nutrition from the mother, which was being kicked and ridiculed from all sides by the experienced political parties. As the gestation period came to an end, the baby was born. The last link between the mother and the baby ended when the umbilical cord was cut off, when the erstwhile Team Anna split wide, so much that the guru Anna started openly and in the harshest of words started criticizing his protege Arvind Kejriwal. The christening of the new born happened in November 2012 and exactly a year and a month later, by December 2013 the baby contested the first election, the very first time it was on par with the other parties. How can a competition between a baby and some adults give a clear result? It was the same that happened. With no clear majority, circumstances made the baby AAP take up the responsibility of an adult, which of course was difficult, but not impossible. 

In just little more than two years, the movement, though not in toto, becomes the government. It would be pertinent to compare the time taken by other parties. For example, the DMK party of Tamil Nadu took birth from the Dravida Kazhagam movement that came into being in 1944. The protege C.N. Annadurai split form his guru EVR and formed the DMK which contested elections all by its own slowly in 1962 and could form the government after waiting for five more years in 1967. In essence it took 23 years to evolve as against 2 years that the AAP took, or rather got. The injustice at birth has to be hence taken into account.  

You may ask what was this hurry for? Was it needed? It was absolutely needed. Our country had been prey to various power centres and each of these ate its chunk of wealth from us. To not hurry and wait and watch would have led to complete loss of our national wealth.

In this contemporary world of politics marked by a ceaseless struggle to cling on to positions of power that resulted in masking of the principles laid down by the Mahatma in our freedom struggle - that of truth and honesty, the politics of the AAP may seem to be 'anarchy', 'unconstitutional', or like a 'drama'. It may take a lot of time for many who feel so in order to understand what AAP is trying to do. And anyone who compares the working of AAP with conventional political parties may find the actions of the former difficult to digest. I would therefore urge you to not embark in such an activity at all. Instead one must compare the politics of AAP with the Congress party that existed during the freedom struggle days. 

Let me cite two instances from our freedom struggle that can be compared to Arvindji's and AAP's decisions. 

When Rajaji was the Premier (Chief Minister) of the Madras province in 1937, he introduced prohibition of alcohol in some parts of the province. Like the Jan Lokpal which is Arvindji's pet legislation, prohibition was Rajaji's. Many in the government assailed the move citing huge revenue loss to the government in terms of reduction in excise duty. But Rajaji remained defiant. Even if all the leaders of the Congress, said Rajaji, oppose the move and ask me to withdraw it, I will forego my Premiership but not this legislation. Fortunately, events of the time, some tailored and others unexpected, helped gain revenue from other sources and he did not have to quit. Such was the love and conviction that a leader had for a legislation that was sure to bring good to the people that he wouldn't even mind losing his position of power while battling for the cause. Arvindji did just that. 

Another instance is of 1939 when all the Congress ministries tendered their resignations to the British because the Congress demand for independence immediately after the second world war in return to the Congress' support in the war efforts was not acceded. Would you call the Congress ministries irresponsible for having resigned? 

Such instances are in legion in our past. Post independence after getting used to the benefits of power, the rot began. The cancer of corruption has now spread everywhere. Cancer affected politics of today cannot be compared to the divine and pure politics, which AAP is trying to emulate and implement. 

This said, I feel that the decision of the government to resign is certainly good. But if you are to ask me if it is the best, sorry, I am not in a position to answer that. In fact when it comes to politics no one will be in a position to answer such questions. It is only with the benefit of knowledge of hindsight that one can say if a political decision like this was the best or not. 

To those friends who say that the government should have remained in power and delivered on other things that was promised, I would urge them to read the prohibition instance of history cited above once again. Also given that the Anna movement and the AAP was born with this most important agenda, i.e., the passage of Jan Lokpal Bill, we would be unfair to our birth if we continue in office.

To those friends for whom the Jan Lokpal is as close to their hearts as to many of us from within the party and they who feel that the due process should have been followed(that the assent of the Lt. Governor should have been taken before bringing in the bill into the assembly, which means he sending it to the President and the latter seeking the advice of the Home Ministry), I say the following. It took 44 long years for the centre to pass the Lokpal Bill following due process of law. Not to the least do I wish to say that the due process should not be followed. But what if the law itself is improper? Permit me again to go back to the days of independence struggle. Improper laws were dealt with a strong device, satyagraha, which meant defying the unjust laws in peaceful and non-violent ways. This is just what AAP did. Yes, we defied the unjust and improper law, non-violently tried to break it by introducing the bill in the assembly. Currently we are not in a position to set right what is clearly improper and unjust. We are heading in that direction where we may get to a position where we can set things like this right, which of course cannot happen without your support. 

And yes, to that one person who wanted to know how I felt after hearing the decision - my joy knew no bounds!

Jai Hind!