AAP Trilogy: A Phenomena called “AAP Begins…

Not Really

A young IRS officer left his lucrative job in Income tax department and started an NGO for a change in the system. It's almost a decade since he actually started on this mission even being on job. Then he met an old man who too a staunch Gandhian,  a champion of many social reforms and a political crusader. They had many things in common what they called their vision for India i.e. an India free from Corruption and ruled by principles of  Swaraj.

Eventually, the duo had some common ground on the issue of Lokpal Bill and agreed to start a protest against the incumbent system. Initially it looked more like a symbolic protest at Jantar Mantar by the veteran Gandhian supported by a small number of people. However, there was very sparse presence of people from across different sections of society. They were the people otherwise very anguished on the current political system.

Ignorant of the ground reality, Sangha, otherwise dissatisfied with the Incumbent political leadership, directed the members to join the old man, which eventually saw surge in the number of people. Fact is Parivar was so disillusioned about their political outfit that, they were looking for such an opportunity to tap the popular sentiment, "resentment against the govt". It went to the extent of even patronising the same protest in a bigger scale. Opponent side "The Govt" was too equally clueless,  "whether that's a Sangha program as the stage arrangements suggest". As a perfectly tyrannical ruler, tried in every possible way to discredit them. In the meantime the young man, made it very clear that the protest was an apolitical one by refusing few otherwise hapless, deserted leaders looking for some asylum.

Nevertheless, the protest ended with a very positive response and also a hope, can this be scaled up? Few months later the Ram Leela Ground  hosted the same fasting to attract a bigger crowd. This time around, things were more structured and well-managed with regular volunteers and finance. But the script was already written, so the grand old party and nationalist party disagreed to agree to reach the consensus and a competition slewed to claim credit. The fasting old man survived with a parliament passing a resolution to consider the public demand.  Worth mentioning, the whole fasting 'drama' was a well covered and well publicized program resulting in a national event and units of Anti Corruption wings soared all across India. The very interesting fact here was most of the Anti Corruption unit members were erstwhile Sangha sympathisers and Delhi event was particularly sponsored by their local body corporators as if their own Parivar's event.

Eventually with the new surged support base, the young man publicly distanced themselves from Sangha support.  No sooner Sangha realised that's a strategic mistake but it was too late to reconcile. Their hope to ride on the anti corruption movement did not work  and they too displayed their displeasure when the Mumbai Chapter had a lackluster episode without much public fanfare read as Sangha support, this forced the young man to remain content with Delhi only.

Well now the players of the game were very visible as their game plan, the dummy monk fell victim of his own conspiracy theory. Political outfits fitted well within realm of political opportunism and wider national objectives. Few objectives were achieved by now with some acceptability among key stakeholders except  few cosmetic ones. But the drama continued, fasting, meeting with political party leaders and the dog fights to claim some meat out of the bone, as if the matter was best afloat than shelved.

All hell broke loose when election held in 5 states and the young man chose to sit idle rather than supporting the nationalist party, hoping to ride on the earlier to an electoral victory. The young man was cunningly looking for a face saver than a suicidal mission, ended up in Haryana against a corrupt leader from the grand old party where the results were quite obvious even before. Well the battle lines were drawn now the smart police officer voiced her dis-agreement with the young IRS officer over support to the nationalist party. The young man in a haste formed a political outfit against the wish of  the wise old man.

He was now part of the same system that he cursed day in and day out. All along a lot of skirmishes reported with victims from both grand old party and the nationalist party. The modus operandi of the crime was, hit and run without a clue but seriously damaging the target, well there can't be smoke without fire. But they call it system. The new common man's party splitt-ed vertically, wise old man was isolated with few loyalists.

In spite of the  suspicion about the underlying  political ambition of the young man, the intent to unsettle the system and uproot corruption gained some ground.

Mission Delhi 2013.