But for Kejriwal, this election result was impossible. Modi owes his victory to him. BJP owes its victory to him. Kejriwal channelized the voice of people, consolidated the anti-Congress opinions, and shaped the wave which Modi rode to Delhi, eventually.
He began the battle, Modi won the war!
So when now he has failed like any human can, why the demonization? Is it because his failure mirrors our failure? For years we have fought and lost against the system. So much so that we stopped believing we could win. We only hoped and prayed for miracles and suddenly, there was hope. When he erred, we felt we erred. When he got trapped, we felt trapped. When he could not deliver a promise, we felt betrayed because we had been failed on so many promises before. His inability to get a grasp of shrewd politics made us feel hopeless again. His high impact political risks seemed stupid to us while they looked marvelous a few months back.
The improbability of his dream made us ridicule him rather than dream with him!
Anna Hazare, with his Gandhian philosophy was a beacon of hope. He had been doing public agitations for years, but never did his fight-back against the system become a revolution. It never took the shape as it did after 2011. The only difference was Kejriwal. While Anna represented ideology, the translation of ideology into a message understood by masses needed ground work rather than just media hype. Kejriwal ran a campaign, without money, mind you. So in that sense, a much better campaign than the BJP and Congress ones.
He traveled far and wide without Helicoptors and planes, he got slapped, thrown ink at, shoes hurled at him. He fought street side hooliganism when he could sit in Delhi as CM and cut ribbons across city like his predecessor.
How many of us could stand up against such abuse? We would fear for our respect and give up on our self respect in the blink of an eye. But he didn’t. He deserves applause for it, not abuse. He is not a politician and he made mistakes for which we democratically punished him. But it is this democracy he fought for. He made us think. Before Modi ever became the first choice of youth, he ignited their curiosity to re-look at politics and change its face, en masse.
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