 "Arvind Kejriwal, Sr Sri Ravi Shankar, Art of Living")
Should Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, known for his unconventional views and infallible belief in saving the environment have been on the same stage as Sri Sri Ravishankar whose Art of Living function got him a fine from the National Green Tribunal (NGT)? Kejriwal’s presence and his warmth towards “pujya guruji” has disappointed many followers. Others just shrug. After all, Kejriwal and Sri Sri have a history that cannot be forgotten.
In 2013 and 2014, Kejriwal, who was Anna Hazare’s understudy in the movement to implement the Jan Lokpal bill, managed to bring on the same stage, a number of ‘spiritual’ leaders such as Sri Sri and Ramdev. Even at that time, none of the leaders camouflaged their affection for Narendra Modi and in a signed column, Sri Sri wrote: “When the Aam Admi Party emerged on the Indian political horizon, the country was stirred by the prospect of young and dynamic leaders serious about cleansing the system. Although it began as an apolitical movement, I concurred with Arvind Kejriwal’s view that to cleanse politics, one must move into politics. For this reason, I have been telling the Naxals to move from bullets to ballot. I was happy to see many young people participate in the last Assembly elections in Jharkhand.
The coterie culture of established political parties has left the common man with little scope for participation in the system other than casting votes. The new party created high hopes in millions of Indians who were tired of corruption and criminalization of politics”.
Wonderful.
Sri Sri did not participate in the election himself nor did he campaign overtly but did endorse Kejriwal - and Modi. When Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party government resigned in 2014, Sri Sri was blunt in his criticism of the move and said Kejriwal had left people “choiceless” to satisfy his own ambition.
Don’t know who Sri Sri’s political advisors were but he proved how utterly wrong his political understanding was. Kejriwal returned to power with a thumping majority. That silenced Sri Sri for a while but Kejriwal tweeted he was ‘deeply hurt’ by the remarks of ‘poojya guruji’.
Cut to 2016. Both Kejriwal and Poojya Guruji have come half way to compromise. As Chief Minister of Delhi, Kejriwal could hardly have stayed away from a function of the scale and size organized by AoL. Doing so would have earned Poojya Guruji’s odium while giving others, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, to get a foot in the door. On the other hand, Poojya Guruji needed the patronage and good wishes of every important personage whether the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister of Delhi as he announced in a mock Gandhian tactic that AoL had broken no rules by holding a function on the Yamuna floodplains and would pay no fines.
The fact is, Kejriwal does not want to tangle with the highly popular AoL – going forward it could be bad politics; and AoL is ready to forgive Kejriwal for past transgressions because the world loves a winner.
Meanwhile, maybe if the plans of successive governments (also mentioned in the BJP manifesto) of having a world class convention centre had materialized, maybe the birds and the fauna on the floodplains would not have been so rudely chased away by the floodlights, loudspeakers and tents of AoL.
