Kejri-Wall Effect, 2020 – Are We Surprised?

Bhaskar Majumder

Economists have high propensity to do post-mortem to explain why the policy failed. Not being an economist on the conventional axis and not being on the political axis by practice or learning Political Science, I have the privilege to be a little insane to explain what happened in Delhi’s capturing of political throne 2020. I abstained from predicting early not for any confusion but for the fact that such a discourse may compel me, or others, to mention names in polity that I took care to avoid so far. But time is running out and I missed the taste of writing on political games. So I do now.

The third time winner of the Delhi political game was destined to be. Why?

1. The leader avoided reaching the civil society space filled by protestors – I mean Shaheen Bagh.
2. The leader avoided reaching JNU – the assembly of Deshdrohis.
3. The leader did not make comments on Jamia Milia Islamia (University) following alleged police atrocities.
4. The leader reached temples to seek blessings of Hanuman ji.
5. The leader did not go head on vis-a-vis the Prime Minister of India.
6. The leader did not counter the malice-loaded allegations against him.

Given the infinite world of negation or what it was not, the leader and his team tried to address issues on basic needs and women of Delhi. Elastic and multiple Chakrabyuhas were laid for the leader – the leader played well – he did not try to claim leadership but waited to become leader 3.0.

All these worked wonder. The leader followed Cournot model (in Oligopoly in Economics) maximizing his uses of tools and techniques to grab the (votes) market. This was a kind of competitive Oligopoly though here a kind of latent collusion was there.

Now, wonder for whom?

1. The Shaheen Bagh protesters did not have any complain against the leader (for not reaching them).
2. Police (that follows the signal of the central government) had no role to play – it was unemployed vis-a-vis the leader and his team for how to address what did not happen.
3. The heavyweight HM acknowledged the ‘’wrong allegations’’ post-victory of the leader.
4. The members of civil society expressed happiness for the result was some sort of ‘’jhaadu’’ sub-altern.
5. A tiny layer of the civil society discovered budding Hindutta within Hinduism.

Let all these be in the dialogue-discourse, the leader was ‘Sthitodhi’ based on the conclusion that it was political power that would yield consequences. The leader decided to be ‘Sthitodhi’ for absence of any choice if power had to be maintained. What could have been the alternative in a civilization like Bharat where personal charisma works wonder. Innocent people like to find a leader who would fight for them or kill them.

The leader acquired all the experience since his participation in civil society movements, following his being assaulted and targeted and what not. Has the leader compromised? Yes and No. Yes, because inter-temporally that is the order of the day; no, because come the day he may show his face. So the leader is playing a marathon. Impatient people have also become patient with him. The institutions including the Apex Court may feel disturbed for reasons more than one, but the leader has become ‘Sthitodhi’. He experienced the strife by consequences and came out from it.

I missed if the leader mentioned anything on J&K. I missed if the leader mentioned anything on money spent on different statues and stalwarts. The leader was not in any comparison what often implies supremacy. Silence worked better – as it does in India’s civilization. That is why most of our history has remained unrecorded.

Delhi is a city-state. The leader does not enjoy power to coerce – for the mechanism is not in his jurisdiction. Voters/people know it. This reinforced the sympathy that he got.

I shall wait to see if the city-state gets full statehood by these five years if that is on the agenda of the leader. But the leader must be given his due – it was in the domain of public education, public health and public transport that the leader was ahead of many other states, city-states, and national average if the past medium period is cardinally considered.                               

Bhaskar Majumder, Professor of Economics, G. B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad - 211019

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Feb 17, 2020