Considerable hope attended the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal. Its strong showing in the Delhi Assembly elections late last year, followed by its assumption of power in the state after the offer of unconditional support by the Congress party, seemed to herald the birth of a new force, one that could conceivably help to restore a degree of accountability to the political class. Sadly, recent events in Delhi seem to militate against that assumption. The point of increasing accountability is to increase the quality and responsibility of governance. But, increasingly, the AAP's incorrect focus is diluting its own agenda. What is being called vigilantism is actually, more accurately, the consequence of the AAP government's odd ideas about governance. It is this that has caused so many problems in the last few weeks. Central to this is the idea that good governance is not about institutions, but is about attacking individuals. This is the consequence of the AAP leadership's much-trumpeted belief, inherited from the anti-corruption movement, that everybody in "the system" is corrupt.
This central belief has various and problematic consequences that are now clearly on display. For one, there is also little regard for reform. If what matters is not institutions but people, why should reform be a priority? Another consequence of this focus on individuals and not institutions is that AAP leaders seem to be most adept at accusing everybody of all kinds of things. It leads to, unfortunately, a retributive form of governance. This is particularly visible in the recent imbroglio, in which the capital city of India was brought to its knees by an agitation launched by its own chief minister. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, incensed that some officers of the Delhi Police did not immediately obey verbal "orders" delivered by members of his government, launched a street agitation to demand that they be removed. The Delhi Police is not, for various reasons, part of the state government's remit but is under the Union government. But the important point is this: if the police have allowed something to go wrong, forcing the sacking or transferring of the police officers is not an attempt to address the root problem, but it is a retributive action. It is dangerous for a government to follow such a path.
This is not to say that Delhi does not have a law and order problem. It certainly does. But the best solution to this problem is not what the AAP is demanding, that the police be transferred to the Delhi government. The solution lies in, of course, the hard work of institutional reform. It would require the making of the Delhi police more responsive by forcing them to go back to the beat patrolling system, instead of monitoring through vehicular rounds of areas under their charge. The beat patrolling system builds greater accountability, prevents the police's disconnect with the local community and ensures better enforcement. But instead of lobbying for this reform, the AAP is working only to challenge the Union government - and, therefore, the Congress. It is becoming clear, as events proceed, that the AAP's game plan for the government in Delhi is little more than to push the Congress party to withdraw support and thus allow the AAP to escape from its responsibility of governance.
