Skip to main content

Macro and micro levels in politics of swaraj... as AAP seeks to break an ugly nexus

By Indraneel Mukherjee* 

Over a hundred years ago Tagore had lamented in one of his many songs, speaking of his motherland Bharat Mata in utter disenchantment, he said - "Kaino cheye aacho go Maa? Ayeraa chaahenaa tomaaray chaahe naa re, aapono Ma-ayere naahin jaanein, ayeraa tomaaye kichu debe naa, debe naa – mitthaa kawhaye shudhu kawtoh ki bhaanein - kaino cheye aachogo Maa !?!" This is part of Rabindra Sangeet I quoted in original, in English it means – “Oh Mother why do you stare in the oblivion? Your children, do not want you ! They don't even recognise their very own Mother ! They will not give you anything but keep on making tall promises year after year, over ’n over again, in so many different masquerading ways! Why do you still wait and keep on expecting, they will do something good for you?"
Yes, sons there were a many! There was a Netaji, there was a Mahatma, Jawahar, lndira, Rajiv; there was Vajpayee, and a guileless Abdul Kalaam. Much earlier a Rajendra Prasad or a Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan! Till we reached the Era of Modi, Shah, Nadda, Yogi ! But what Tagore said was crystal clear – ‘why O mother you keep expecting these son's will ever do anything for you? No they only know how to cheat you’! And today even after 75 years that lndia gained independence we still struggle for a clean glass of water, education, health, good roads, electricity, transport - we are still badly struggling for a corruption free governance ! Instead we are still fighting lakhs of crores in written off NPAs, and after the dynasts', we have to digest the love of friends in Government helping select wealthy friends and filling up their coffers to make them the richest in the world!
In this background of Tagore's first hand experience on lamentable human behaviours we arrive at the 75th year of Indian Independence and there seems to be a great twist in the turn of events. “Hazaaron saal Nargis apnay benoori pe rotee hai, badi mushqil se hotaa hai chaman mein ek deedaver paidaa”! A Kejriwal has arrived and its AAP, AAP and AAP everywhere! After smashing down the hydra headed monstrous snakes of the corruption mafia, India is slowly getting secured. The new people on board this time besides Kejriwal are, Sanjay Singh, Gopal Rai, Manish Sisodia, a Satyendra Jain, a Bhagwant Maan, Raaghav Chaddaa and besides many a gem a great humanitarian Somnath Bharti!
I have yet to figure out why people at large especially the established, are always quite silent on Arvind Kejriwal and especially at media level, they are very careful not to name him in any discussion, leave alone any support! Is it cause of his hardcore honest and incorruptible image and their awkward state of incumbency? They are trying their sinister best to implicate the greatly effective minister Satyendra Jain, but everyone can sense the futility of their findings. It is extremely important that we side with this revolutionary party who are trying their utmost to break the ugly nexus of Indian corruption prevalent in high offices through n through! It is hugely lamentable to see how some of us react negatively, insensitively and irresponsibly towards this new AAP regime!
Well these are macro levels if we could call it so, of mundane politics – I have sat down to write about the micro levels of this new Party, and politics as envisaged by our South Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti and how greatly he has harnessed modern communication / technology in his daily, untiring workaholic style of functioning! His constituency of over 300 colonies is grouped into 35 Mohalla Sabhas each consisting of 5 - 6k voters. Each Mohalla Sabha has 3 to 4 Mohalla WhatsApp groups and in total there are 83 Mohalla WhatsApp groups which are called MLA's official Mohalla WhatsApp groups i.e. 83 MLA' virtual offices through which MLA and his office are available to people 24/7 for every need. A given format needs to be filled with the name, contact, date, problem faced, which department related etc. 
What people say about Somnath Bharti
It means if you have a water problem, electricity problem, water harvesting problem, desilting of drains and sewerage related problems, crater on roads or watering of road plants / horticulture problem – whatever the problem – the Whats app office of our MLA Bharti ji is abuzz with constant activity! Be it a happy ocassion, a birthday or a sad one no occasion is complete without his presence. During covid times / the most testing times, hospital beds, medicines, oxygen, general rations, cooked food twice a day to long lines of poor people – our Vidhayak was always there. Loss of lives, old people / covid patients dying in hospitals with no one to perform last rites, our MLA has done that too; he was seen attending to each one of them, when family members abandoned the final journey – truly devastating times! The Mohalla Sabha group meetings are carried over currently to e – meetings (which earlier used to be conducted physically) with all grievances and its solutions, sought together with civic service providers once every month on Zoom. Reviews – just four of them are collected with the pic of my area MLA, which speaks for itself.
Coming back to Tagore from whence we started. This time we got to give serious chance to the current set of sons / leaders in the horizon. They are born out of a struggle, and must be trusted with power completely; and as current India passes through some harrowing experiences hitherto unseen with astronomical loots – shrewdly legalized crimes by making it legal that no legal action can be taken on their actions and duly passed in Parliament!
Barring a few we are still quite a few political illiterates. And quite candidly Brecht commented and I quote – “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know the cost of life and living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber ‘n, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations!” So from whatever little I understand I strongly recommend the AAP – its time we gave them a chance and with all Power ! Otherwise we all know what a Winston Churchill had to say about India’s independence! This is what he said and I quote – “If Independence is granted to India, power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India.” Word verbatim is coming true except a Kejriwal is proving him wrong completely … but the current Central dispensation?
---
*Celebrated singer-musician based in Delhi

Comments

Aftab said…
Beautifully written article! Absolutely loved it and couldn’t agree more with every sentiment, especially the Tagore quote at the beginning!
Anonymous said…
Excellent article. Glad to see a proactive AAP party focussed on real issues. Hope they stay focused & keep true to Their vision. Three cheers for their focus on Education & Medical.

TRENDING

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

  By Rajiv Shah   This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan*  “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative   A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah  Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

​ By Ram Puniyani  ​The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue. 

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández  The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey*  ​In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.