Over to Delhi, but Why?

As elections come and go, delivering almost nothing to the people, it is time those concerned about Delhi sat together and figured out a way to undo the quagmire that is the Delhi electoral arena.

As expected, the bugle for Delhi Assembly re-election has been sounded following the election results from Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand. The announcement comes not from the Election Commission of India, but from the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose star campaigner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is slated to begin addressing rallies in the capital city beginning 10 January. Till now, the concern of slim attendance in public meetings was not of the BJP alone; any gathering that was not addressed by Aam Aadmi Party national convener, Arvind Kejriwal had no great crowd to write home about either. This scenario raises a disconcerting question about the people’s commitment to vyawastha parivartan (systemic change) that they have been demanding from the rooftops for the last three years or more. A society so enamoured with personalities, not giving two hoots to policy, hardly deserves a change in the system that rules (or misrules) the country or a province thereof. It is this philosophical illiteracy of our countrymen that has ensured that the National Democratic Alliance government, more than six months in office now, is under no pressure to turn less socialistic than its predecessor United Progressive Alliance; and it is this public apathy to ideology again that has ironically created a freebies-distributing party out of a nationwide movement against corruption largely managed by the upwardly mobile middle class. For the Central government, there is the excuse of the old, inertial bureaucracy and intractable trade unions, which simply refuse reforms; for the AAP, irony stares more in the eye as its supporters now largely comprise migrants from socialist-ruled states that now want socialism imposed on a relatively capitalist capital of the country to which they had moved in because socialism couldn’t provide them with employment in their home states!

A Delhi government is rather inconsequential for the people no less for the territory’s status of a ‘half state’. Delhi Police reports to the Union Home Ministry; the Delhi Development Authority is again under Central subjects, and this land does not produce foodgrains and vegetables. Thus, a Delhi administration is, by its sheer constitution, incompetent to handle law-and-order and land disputes while it also cannot control price rise in the food sector — the three prime concerns of the 70 Vidhan Sabha constituencies that are tentatively poised for yet another poll in February 2015. That does not stop the political parties in competition from promising the moon to the electorate, nevertheless, and that is what makes this entire hustings and polling exercise nothing short of a farce meant only to capture the Indian mindspace by engaging television cameras and newsprint of all the big media houses based out of the National Capital Region. The only visible change that Delhi has seen since it got its first local government is a network of flyovers that sprung up all over the city, thanks to former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s drive, but that could not have been achieved without the cooperation of the Congress’s Union Urban Development Ministry either.

That said, there is an equally strong argument against making Delhi a full state. Local politics cannot be allowed to hold national policy-making to ransom. As the Union Government has been caught in the dilemma of balancing pan-Indian concerns with the local needs, both the country and the city have suffered. The capital has become a worse place to live in: from the boulevards and upmarket downtowns, it was known for till the 1980s as a Union Territory, the state of Delhi has more slums and resettlement colonies than planned authorised habitations. As elections come and go, delivering almost nothing to the people here, it is time those concerned with the nation and those worried about this province sat together to take stock of the gains, if any, Delhi got by dragging itself to electoral contests, and figure a way out of this mess.