This week, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the weapon of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to crush any Opposition, arrested my democracy. It was coming, we knew. The arrests of Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh — it was just a matter of time before Arvind Kejriwal would also get arrested. On Thursday (March 21), they came and took him away. They searched his home and found nothing. They have been searching for evidence for two years, and found nothing. But that was never the point.
While many in the country believe that all is ok, that India is moving ahead with great speed and power, the reality is that the soul of freedom and democracy is being sucked out of India systematically. The reality is that our liberty is being held hostage to the power of one person. Agree to his supremacy, and you can go about doing what you want. Disagree, and face consequences of the whole country’s official resources coming to crush you.
Kejriwal and people like him — Sisodia and Jain — represent a new kind of politics, where it doesn’t matter where you are from, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter that you are not a hard-core politician. All that matters is that you love your country and what it stands for and you are going to stand up for it and work hard and honestly for it, along with everyone else.
Kejriwal, Sisodia are in many ways ordinary people. Like all of us. Like us, they could have had a good life, a safe life. A steady job. A regular income. A security that even if the country was being held hostage to corrupt and divisive politicians, they and their families would be ok, as long as they kept their heads down.
But in one way, Kejriwal and his team turned out to be not-so-ordinary. Or they got the ordinariness taken out of them when they dared to challenge the political “system”! The need to DO something, not just watch helplessly, led them to join politics, a place no one in their social set would touch with a mile-long pole. They were not so ordinary when they decided to participate in politics on their own terms. On principles of true justice, equality, liberty and fraternity. On promises of honesty, of truly protecting the principles of our Constitution, on caring for the last person in the line and of setting world-class standards in everything that needs to be done. On proving their mettle through their work.
Also read: Kejriwal Arrest: This Coup Against Our Constitutional Setup is a Wake-Up Call
Kejriwal has proven that elections can be won on performance, not on money-power nor caste nor community. Kejriwal has proven that, after winning, radical change, innovation and development can happen, not by centralisation of power, which is the BJP-Modi style, but by decentralisation to thousands of local leaders like school teachers, as has happened in the schools in Delhi. Kejriwal has proven that caring for all and especially for the disadvantaged does not mean the government going bankrupt or being indebted in the process. Kejriwal has proven that government services doesn’t mean basic-class, it can mean WORLD-class.
Isn’t this the kind of country and society we want to be? Isn’t this the kind of work that any patriot and India-lover should totally support?
Instead, what Kejriwal got was constant meddling, harassment and every attempt to thwart his efforts by Modi’s BJP government. Political competitiveness during elections should not come in the way of collaboration and support to develop the people and the country after the elections are over. Unfortunately for India, Modi has always been in “election mode”. And every step to crush a competitor was a good step for him.
So, when the BJP government’s ED arrested Kejriwal, I felt, like many felt, that my country, its hope, its freedom, its wings got arrested. For a moment, it made my heart sink. But just for a moment. And then the feeling came back that Kejriwal and my country are too strong to be arrested, in spirit. That we will fight, we will counter, and we will win!
The idea of Kejriwal, like the idea of India that was put forth by our freedom-fighting leaders, is immortal and resilient. It is grounded in the certainty of eventual justice and it soars with the light spirit of equality and liberty. In India, it will spring back more strongly, the more it is pressured.
So you can arrest democracy today. You can arrest Kejriwal today. But you cannot hold the spirit down, you cannot take the fight away. This country’s destiny cannot be held hostage to one person’s need and greed for absolute power.
Jai Hind!
Prakash Nedungadi is a former chairman of Madura Garments and was a candidate for the Aam Aadmi Party in the 2023 Karnataka assembly polls.
