Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal

December 28, 2013
By

Dear Kejriwal ji,

You’ve done it. Chief Minister. From a one-man army to being the one who brought down a government of 15 years. Who would have thought!

They called you to form a party and fight elections, and you did. And how. I spent a month listening to your radio appeals for votes, i supported you, i argued for you with friends and family, but to be honest i was skeptical that you would end up with such a large number of seats in Delhi. Well done. To you and to  the people of Delhi.

You sir, are a major turning point for Indian democracy, and surely you are aware of it. The expectation from you  is immense, like Tendulkar in the 90s, stuck with a tail-ender and trying to save a world-cup final against Pakistan, with 200 more runs to be scored.

We grew up hearing about the power of democracy but became disillusioned along the way. ‘They are all the same.’ ‘Sab ke sab corrupt hain.”Nothing can change.’ ‘All politicians should be shot.’ Democracy just became a bunch of rhetorical statements expressing our disappointment with the state of affairs as we Indian people instead focused on buying Audis and sipping Starbucks coffee, while continuing to break laws with impunity and getting away with petty offences with twenty rupee bribes.

Arvind Kejriwal

We thought that the only way anything would every change was the Mayan prediction of the world coming to an end. People debated about having the army take the country over like a knight in shining T90 armour coming to the rescue of a floundering nation. People wondered if we could replicate the China model. But you sir, gave us a new model.

You know, a week before the elections i was watching that epic Anil Kapoor movie, Nayak. As i watched the movie i almost came with joyous anticipation that such a day might be near. A day when we will have Kejriwal ji as the Delhi chief minister and he will go about setting everything right. When he will suspend every corrupt official, battle everything evil, and a day will come when news channels will run out of scam stories and have to go back to stories of a bunch of stray cows abducted by aliens. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea actually. The poor things must get bored of choking on plastic trash while their children (us. the cow is our mother, after all. actually Soniaji is our mother. ok i am confused now.) go about nonchalantly.

I know you must be wondering why this guy is going all gay for you. It is anyway a criminal offense in India. But then you’ve given us that one thing we have lost along the way.

Hope.

Hope that things can be set right. Hope that the two resident evils can be given a scare so massive that they stop taking this nation’s people for granted. Hope that we can have a democracy that actually works. Hope that there is a way out of this mess.

Which brings me to my biggest fear. Now that you’ve given us this hope, please don’t let us down. Please don’t become another party that goes giddy with the prospect of power. Please don’t become a party that says something before elections, gets our votes, and then enjoys the loot while it lasts.

Please don’t give us another massive disappointment. We’ve just been through Dhoom 3. Another one would be catastrophic.

You know what - we people are far more sensible than political parties give us credit for. While we may get happy by free stuff, we’d rather you give us good governance. Don’t give us hundred kilos of free rice or daaru bottles or McDonalds vouchers, give us jobs. Don’t give us free petrol, give us sufficient traffic police to regulate the roads. Don’t give us 100% passing rate in schools, give us teachers who are accountable and dont spend they days knitting sweaters for their grandkids while students beat up kids from the neighborhood. Don’t give us new laws or fancy CCTV cameras at every intersection, but just pay the police sufficient salary to keep away temptation and do their job properly.

We probably have enough of everything, except accountability. (Of people we have more than enough, and that’s a hard problem in itself. Maybe we should negotiate with other countries to accept more of our people in return for opening more hospitals, banks, schools, and BMW dealerships.)

Now that you are in a position of power, enforcing some discipline and accountability will probably not be too difficult. All it might take is one rolling head. Surprise visits and suspended officials. You could even take a typist along to hand out the suspension letters. Anil ji did that in Nayak and people would pee their pants on seeing the typewriter.

In China, they actually executed some official responsible for adulterated milk. Maybe that’s a bit extreme. We’ll be happy if you just break his legs and send him to a government hospital to try his luck at getting treatment there.

You will probably need to play some politics too, just dont do that with us. Feel free to do that with other political parties. Beat them at their own game. Even Anil ji killed off the evil Amrish ji with some clever manipulation. We are not hung up on ideals or anything, unlike ann, well, leave it.

The one risk you run is your flock running wild. Because we human beings, and Indians in particular, are inherently corrupt. We may rant on about corruption but nothing stops us from cheating on taxes or cutting out of line at the toll plaza. You may need to rule with an iron hand and manage dissent within the party. It is just inevitable that someone will give in to the temptation, and that would be ugly. Because another of our Indian traits is to pull down anyone trying to do something positive. One mistake, howsoever small it may be, might spell doom for your movement. There’s the evil media. The evil politicians. The unforgiving people on Twitter.  Everybody will cry hoarse at even the smallest gaffe from you or any of your MLAs, and then we may just end up going back to the old days of corruption and everything bad that is going on right now. To rub it in, they might even throw in Dhoom 4.

You are our nayak. Please don’t spoil the vision you have created in our minds.

(Image courtesy: Forbes)

Tags: , , , , , ,

8 Responses to “ Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal ”

  1. Sonit Garg on December 28, 2013 at 8:39 am

    You can share this article at http://www.arvindkejriwal.co.in with your credentials.

    • ullas bhatia on December 30, 2013 at 9:49 pm

      @kejriwal_arvind Dear Mr. New chief minister have you ever thought about people who do not have Water Meters. Your personnel on a news channel very well discarded the fact by saying this was to be handled by congress. I believe that you do not have any humanity in you and atleast people prior to you were atleast human enough. What kind of illogical approach you guys have followed by saying that you would provide 666 lts of free water per day to people who have legal meters. You should first study the infrastructire of Delhi Mr. Kejriwal. By wearing a cap like Gandhi and stealing our votes you cannot merely think that this is 1950s India and you are Gandhi. You and your staff I think are people who want people to leave delhi so that you can become a dictator. Where is your email and what kind of stupid site you have for CM. No one can report anything on http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/doit/Delhi+Govt/Meet+the+Government/Chief+Minister as there is no link to contact the CM.

  2. hemen parekh on December 28, 2013 at 11:12 am

    Great Expectations

    People of Delhi have ” Great Expectations ” from AAP government

    And people of India will be watching how well AAP delivers on those expectations before 2014 general elections

    Will AAP manage to deliver on its promises ?

    Here is when great expectations turn into ” Unreasonable Expectations ” !

    TV anchors are asking this question to every single AAP leader - all the time

    And , they are also asking this question to sundry BJP / Congress leaders as well

    Asking persons who are taking vicarious pleasure in predicting that AAP will fail miserably

    Other than a random AAP leader ( notably , Arvind Kejriwal himself ), no one is saying ,

    ” Of course , AAP will fail to deliver on some of those promises - especially
    those promises which require a YES nod from Central Government

    Of course , AAP may have made some miscalculations

    Of course , AAP has no experience in running a government

    Of course , AAP will make some mistakes

    Of course , AAP has no solutions to ALL the problems of Delhi

    So what ?

    In 2009 , didn’t Congress promise to ,

    > abolish poverty ( as it has been promising for past 66 years ) ?

    > bring inflation under control within 100 days of coming to power ?
    - and then repeating that promise , every 100 days ?
    - and even forcing Planning Commission and the RBI governor to say
    the same thing at every quarterly review ? ”

    Obviously , the vanquished are in a tearing hurry to write an epitaph on AAP’s tombstone !

    I am reminded of the vultures circling in the sky when they see an animal dying on the ground !

    Are you surprised that the political vultures are waiting for AAP government to die / fail ?

    Are TV anchors allowing these vultures to use their powerful media to bring about , a ” Self - fulfilling Prophesy ” ?

    Have we become an ant crawling on a M F Hussein painting , which cannot step back and see it in perspective , in all its glory ?

    On midnight of 15th August 1947 , I walked with the crowds of people ( all of them Aam Aadmi ) , from Shivaji Park to Gateway of India , in Mumbai

    It took me 12 hours to walk that distance

    But I was lucky to have witnessed history in the making

    And now , after a lapse of 66 years , I am lucky once again , to be witnessing , another glorious moment of history !

    Let us celebrate the arrival of our second freedom - the Surajya

    Let us celebrate the beginning of the end of Cancer of Corruption

    Let us celebrate the re-birth of the Common Man - the Aam Aadmi

    * hemen parekh ( 28 Dec 2013 / Mumbai )

  3. Narendra Vikramsingh on December 28, 2013 at 11:46 am

    Very well written as usual in your typical style I wait & love reading your articles.Your blogs not only cobvey to person a direct message yet have the subtle humour that compels the reader to read the piece word by word

  4. mohit on December 28, 2013 at 1:59 pm

    beautifully and ofcourse comically captured the emotion of a AAP follower (not fanatic)!! well written!!
    Nayak will be default movie for 28th december on zee cinema now on!!

  5. An Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal · Global Voices on December 29, 2013 at 2:18 am

    […] blog AmreekanDesi writes an open letter to the newly elected chief minister of Delhi, anti-corruption crusader Arvind […]

  6. Srihegde on December 29, 2013 at 10:50 am

    He has started with pani and bijli. There are other mafias to be tamed. E.g. Parking, sabji, etc

  7. […] too long ago, i risked going against the Supreme Court’s verdict on article 377 by going fully gay for you, the messiah of hope, the man who was to end all corruption in the […]

Leave a Reply

Facebook

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog

Disclaimer

All content on this site is the personal opinion of the writer. It is in no way related to their employer or their official policies. Most of what is written here is in a satirical tone. If it hurts your sensibilities, I sincerely apologize.
%d bloggers like this: