Kejriwal And Modi: Not On The Same Plank

I was unhappy when Kejriwal tweeted his attack on Modi calling him names. It was not only not the language of a mature democracy, it also sounded inaccurate. He made it sound like Modi had personally directed the raid. I have not read up on the raid, it's not worth my time. If you feel the CBI has wronged you, go get a lawyer. Manmohan Singh did after he got out of office and was subjected to some kind of inquiry. He asked the court to dismiss it, and the court did. Not that Kejriwal is Manmohan Singh.

Such a comment mars India's image that Modi has worked so hard to cultivate ever since he got into office. He had a purpose. India has beat both China and the United States on FDI this year. Is that something, or is that something? Itna bejod kaam ho raha hai. Thos kaam ho raha hai. 

Kejriwal likes to imagine there is some kind of a personality clash going on between Modi and him: not true. There is no evidence. Yaar, size to dekho. Delhi ka size kya hai?

Kejriwal has a mandate. The mandate is to govern. To govern karo. Kaam karo. Apna political height badhane ke prayas mein desh ke PM ko gaali mat bolo.

Agar Modi mein rajnitik sujhbujh hai to wo aisa raid nahin karvayenge. That is yet another reason to believe he was not personally behind it. Because, it doesn't make any political sense. Bahut ghaate ki baat hai. 

Within minutes of the CBI raid on the Delhi secretariat on 15 December, top government functionaries — those sitting in North Block and South Block — spoke with one another to find out whether the raid had the prior approval of any of them. None of them had any inkling....... Prime Minister Narendra Modi displayed ignorance while Home Minister Rajnath Singh was not in the loop either. The Ministry of Home Affairs asked CBI director Anil Sinha and he justified the raids on procedural and legal grounds.......The collateral damage from the raids was colossal in political terms........ The carefully cultivated image of Modi as a leader who believes in the consensual approach lay shattered as the Opposition attacked his government for being “vindictive” against rivals. As expected, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal used this opportunity to launch one of the worst vituperative attacks on the prime minister and subsequently on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

DDCA row: Narendra Modi gets furious when he hears my name, says Arvind Kejriwal
During the session, Kejriwal accused the PM of “unleashing” the CBI on the government and said the recent raid on his principal secretary’s office was an “attack on the federal structure of democracy”.

The PM ordered this raid to protect Jaitley,” alleged Kejriwal ..... Questioning the independence of the CBI as an investigative body, Kejriwal said, “The day CBI becomes independent, it will send a notice to Shivraj Chouhan. It will send a notice to Modi to ask him about the money he got for his coat. Sushma and Vasundhara Raje will get notices, not Rajendra Kumar…” ...... Defending Kumar, Kejriwal said, “Hamare afsar ke locker khali mile aur 12 daaru ki bottles mili. Is world ki sabse badi democracy ke PM raid karwaye aur 12 bottles liquor mile to sharm ki baat hai…(The head of the world’s biggest democracy ordered a raid and only found 12 liquor bottles. This is shameful).” ..... Kejriwal also took a dig at the PM’s foreign trips. “He has nothing to do with the country. He has a big plane with all facilities and stays in five-star hotels… Everything runs smoothly when he is out of the country. The day he returns, the CBI is unleashed on the opposition…,” he said. ..... He also welcomed the defamation case filed by Jaitley against him and his partymen. “We will go to Patiala House on February 5… We will give our explanation and the trial will begin. Jaitley will stand in the witness box and our advocate will cross-examine him. This will go on for a year. They have harmed themselves,” said Kejriwal. ..... The DDCA… deals with sports which is under us,” said Kejriwal.

Target 2019: Kejriwal’s anti-Modi moves are rooted in his ambition

the Delhi chief minister has realised that the space for an anti-establishment leader has started growing again in India. And he is making fast and furious moves to occupy the slot before anyone else becomes the pivot of the anti-BJP politics that could become a rewarding pursuit by 2019. ..... The economy has come to a standstill. Growth forecasts have become sobre and sombre: the latest estimate has been revised downwards to 7-7.5 percent from the previous 8.1-8.5 percent. Reforms are stuck, legislative bills are caught in politics of hostility, jobs are not rising, prices — not the ones reflected on indices of data crunchers but on grocery lists of real people — are going through the roof. There is a general atmosphere of hostility and distrust. Promises of achche din have become a painful memory ..... within a year, unless something dramatic happens, a string of electoral results could change the mood on the ground dramatically. .... The party never had a realistic chance in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where elections are due next .... In Punjab, the Akali Dal-BJP alliance is facing stiff challenge after ten years of incumbency. ....... the ruling alliance is staring at a drubbing in Punjab that could be more severe than the beating in Delhi. ..... Where is the party winning next? Perhaps Assam, but every other state election appears a tough challenge. ..... For the past few days, Kejriwal has been relentlessly attacking the PM and his finance minister with the hope of becoming the leading anti-Modi voice in the country. By punching well above his weight, just like Modi did as chief minister of Gujarat, he is hoping to become the symbol of anti-establishment by the time the next election is around. ...... Kejriwal can progress in politics only if he wins Punjab, or at least puts up a strong show. It doesn't look easy. ..... In Punjab, Kejriwal is facing the challenge of warding off the might of former chief minister and Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh. The mood on the ground suggests voters are torn between AAP and a resurgent Congress under Singh. Both have equal chances of replacing the SAD-BJP government. ..... Aware of the challenge and the opportunity, Kejriwal is planning to camp in Punjab for almost six months before the elections, leaving Delhi to his deputy Manish Sisodia. If he wins Punjab, demolishes the Badals and pins down Singh, Kejriwal will immediately fancy himself as a challenger to Modi...... Kejriwal's rise, if it happens, won't be a tragic development for the BJP. It will immediately bring his ambition into conflict with that of Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh,

Nitish Kumar — the current frontrunner —

and other regional aspirants, immediately putting under strain the current index of opposition unity, the biggest threat to Modi after anti-incumbency......

Does this explain the BJP's current eagerness to provoke Kejriwal?

Whenever My Name Is Taken, PM Modi's Blood Boils: Arvind Kejriwal

Speaking at the Delhi assembly as his battle with the Centre reaches a new low, Mr Kejriwal added, "BJP leaders have told me in private, whenever my name is taken, (PM Narendra) Modi's blood boils." ..... Calling the raids a "flop", Mr Kejriwal today said the CBI questioned his principal secretary Rajender Kumar for over 50 hours after 14-hour long raids. "But they have found nothing... The raid was aimed only at helping Arun Jaitley," he said. "What the PM did is quite shameful," he said. ..... Taking the charges head-on, Mr Kejriwal said, "What remains to be seen is that whether the inquiry commission will be annulled by the L-G, who Jaitley says is 'our man'... I appeal to Jaitleyji to cooperate with the inquiry commission."

For Putin Assad Is Himself

There is some ego business going on, sure. Like he said recently to the US, you take Iraq, leave Syria to me. It is important to him that he projects to his people that they are on par with the US. The Cold War is over, but the status is on. If he can demonstrate rivalry of any kind, that is proof.

Geopolitics is a very real thing. It is concrete. Just like gravity is a property of matter, landmass oozes something. It is almost independent of the people who inhabit that landmass, only we wouldn’t know one way or the other if there were no people. Does Antarctica ooze geopolitics? Go find out. I am staying put. Maybe it is a combination. The landmass plus the people on it ooze something. So it’s not just the headcount, it’s that and the size of the landmass. Like force is mass times acceleration.

So it is erroneous to ask Russia, what is your population? What is your GDP? Do you have nukes? Because it is not about any of that, it is about the landmass. And that geopolitical pull has stayed consistent while the territory has seen major political changes. Tectonic, some would say. Lenin’s works have been circulated more than everything except the Bible.

The people, and the GDP and the nukes in one basket multiplied by the landmass: that is Russia’s geopolitical pull.

So, I guess, the message is, Syria chaos is ISIS. But Russia chaos is not ISIS, it is nukes. Do you want that on your hands? I don’t know if Putin is being threatening or prophetic. But to Putin Assad is himself. He is saying, don’t challenge my power inside Russia. Let me be.

This makes for a tricky situation. Assad bombed Damascus like the Bushes bombed Baghdad. Assad is not a ruler, he is an occupying force. The Bushes got out of Iraq. When will Assad get out? That is a valid question.

A lot of people miss out on the Russia-India friendship. It exists. And it is at the people level. Russians know and worship Bollywood figures like non Indian Americans might not be aware of, for example. In India Putin is not this nuke-breathing monster. He is a friend who might have stepped on a landmine or two. There is some armor damage. Indians might have some qualms about the people in Pakistan, or the people in China, but with Russia it’s all clear. No issues, no blemishes.

I don’t know Ukraine. But if ethnic Russians have grievances in countries like Ukraine, I can totally relate to that. Like, deeply, personally. Look at what is going on in Nepal right about now. Only India will not engage in military adventures. Putin is more impulsive. When you constrain democracy like he has, you can afford to. Modi has a robust opposition and media. You can argue Indian origin minorities have been wronged in many countries: Sri Lanka, Burma, not to mention the Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh. And it’s not just Indians. When there are ethnic riots in places like Indonesia, ethnic Chinese get targeted. Why did Lee Kuan Yew break away from Malaysia? He was an ethnic Chinese who refused to accept second class status in a united Malaysia. Good for him. He went on to do the work and inspire Deng Xiaoping. This seems to be a big country problem. For China, for India, for Russia. Americans don’t understand because white guys don’t face that problem in Mexico. But give Donald Trump enough news cycles, and you never know.

Democracy is a force on its own. It is not dependent on a superpower push. It will work its way through ultimately, everywhere, that is my belief. For instance, the recent Saudi elections where women both voted and were elected, in however small a place, was news to me. I was thrown off balance. I did not see it coming. The Saudis be like, welcome Hillary.

But Russia is nowhere close to Syria. Syria is utter chaos. It went off my personal radar a long time ago. The magnitude of it all is so, I mean. If anything, Russia is law and order. Maybe too much so.

The Chinese have this thing called non-interference. On Tibet they say “splittism.” On the world they say non-interference. As in, we are too busy taking care of our own. We have too many poor people. It will be two more decades before we can afford to get our head above the water. For example in a small country like Nepal, they deal with whoever is in power. While the Nepali Maoists combusted the Nepali countryside, the Chinese dealt with the ruling king, exclusively. When the Maoists came to power, the Maoist premier got a front row seat at the Chinese Olympics. Non-interference. We will deal with whoever is in power. Americans are more nosy. It is half about spreading democracy, half about selling guns. It is good for business. “Strong on defense” sells better than anything else Donald has said. It is a well oiled machine. It has been put into the political culture, deeply embedded. And it is not just bad manners. Before there is rule of law between nations, there will be room for a force or two or three. Even after there is rule of law, the law will have to be enforced. Liberty seems to have a price. Life and property need protection. That makes room for more amorphous things like free speech and creativity and the arts and tech startups. And America has this thing where it necessarily has to be private companies manufacturing and supplying arms. It is a good arrangement. That church state separation is very respectful of private enterprise.

While I watch elections, from one country to another, like astrophysicists watch the stars. India is the most interesting. There is always yet another major election just round the corner. Bihar is over, Uttar Pradesh is on. And then there is the behemoth. I mean, who runs for office for a year? Two years? Every place else, it is a month. They also like to spend time actually governing. Give it to the Americans. They never stop running. It is one grand conversation. It is galactic. Like it or not, Trump is a star. Trump was doing reality TV before he figured out he was missing out on the real reality TV. Trump 2016. Putin should let Zhirinovsky have some of the limelight. I guess Russia is not that stretched of a democracy. Instead Putin does a three hour “press conference” where he is sitting on stage and 1500 journalists are down there in the auditorium. The guy does both elections and press conferences. How bad can he be?



My political journey identical to that of President Vladimir Putin: PM Narendra Modi