Joyride or journey?

The Delhi Metro ferries millions from the farthest suburbs of India’s capital city to their places of work or study or amusement. In its many assignments, on the odd day, it may usher a massive political rally at the historic Ramlila Grounds.

Or it could bring in a range of protesters with less muscle power and money, to the humbler but always more effusively colourful Jantar Mantar. It has opened up the erstwhile exclusive portals of Mandi House, the city’s cultural hub, to the hoi polloi.

In keeping with the purposes of its founding fathers, the Delhi Metro links one shopping mall to another too. It also connects daily-wage workers and office-goers from Gurgaon in Haryana to Noida in Uttar Pradesh, the two upstart townships flanking Delhi that together form the National Capital Region. Many more millions may be too poor to afford a casual ride on the Delhi Metro but that’s a separate story.

Of late, most commuters have become aware of the new phenomenon in town called Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The party with a broom as its election symbol claims to represent the ubiquitous common man, whose notion was first popularised by R.K. Laxman’s cartoons. The commuters are likely to be engaged, albeit with waning interest, in the Gulabo-Sitabo-like jostling under way between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi in recent months.

If you were to watch the Delhi Metro on its crisscross journey from a height you would perhaps see a pattern in the doodle. Observe the self-absorbed arteries, and the mixed bag of circumspection and anticipation carted along to pre-determined terminals.

The murmurs along the journey indicate threatened jobs, stagnant real estate, quickly redundant consumer technologies and the undulating graph of the bourse, deified for its ruthless aloofness and for its casino-like munificence. Every topic on the journey tends to negotiate the all too familiar terrain of corruption.

Kejriwal was recently elected as chief minister of Delhi on the promise of changing that scenery in India. And towards this end he plans to launch the AAP battery of supposedly common men and women as a party of national choice in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In all probability, the daily commuters in the Delhi Metro are too overwhelmed by the grind of an unending routine to find a lively interest in what else flanks Delhi or the country they live in. Or else they could detect a different reality not far removed from theirs, one that is just as palpable as the pursuit of Kejriwal’s promised war on corruption.

Surrounding India are countries that have coped with graft and would like to seek Mr Kejriwal’s advice about why they have not succeeded in getting rid of it. It would be impossible to assess all the existential issues from inside the Delhi Metro of, say, the people of Afghanistan by using corruption as the main point of reference. It is common lore that the Taliban were and will be far less corrupt than the supposedly secular government propped up there by the powers that be.

If Mr Kejriwal were to tilt the eye lens towards Pakistan, to Kandahar’s southeast, he could detect a slightly different pattern of priorities. The region has seen how easily corruption and dictatorships go hand in hand. On the flip side its civilian rulers, when they were allowed a free hand, did not paint themselves with glory, or, shall we say, with probity.

If a group of curious Pakistanis was to visit Mr Kejriwal for his blessings will he be prepared to befriend religious militias should they promise probity?

To the east of India, Bangladesh is in the throws of an existential battle between an inclusive society and religious fanatics. The two sheikhas that have taken turns to rule (or ruin) the country are perpetually at loggerheads. Both are perceived as extremely corrupt except that one purports to represent an open society, the other woos the Jamaat-i-Islami’s brand of narrow worldview. Of course, Bangladesh is reeking with corruption, but it has to live and survive as a nation to confront the menace.

As the common man on the Delhi Metro approaches his or her destination, they will tend to regard many of these issues as being of no concern to them. This is typical of the middle class of the kind that India has thrown up since the advent of free market policies.

They are looking to quick palliatives instead of long-term solutions, and they wouldn’t mind calling in the army or even Narendra Modi to rescue them from the insuperable mess.

Mr Kejriwal made a big case out of his travelling to work on the Delhi Metro on his first day in office. The people will give him a limousine if that can help solve their problems. However, for that he needs to discard his penchant for tokenism. He has to consider why, if probity alone could solve the issues facing Indians, did the communists fail in West Bengal. Few could match their personal probity.

This is not to argue that communists cannot be corrupt. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of massive graft by party apparatchiks. It was considered initially that India was crippled by corruption because of a bad public sector. Now the Radia Tapes have shown that the trigger lies with the private sector.

How is Mr. Kejriwal going to negotiate his agenda in a climate of free market policies? The symbolic ride on Delhi Metro is over. The real journey beckons.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi. jawednaqvi@gmail.com