Delhi polls: The city has a dil this time
It’s a war out here in East Delhi. A microphone war. It’s the last Sunday before the city votes on February 7. And the east end of the city — home ground of the AAP and playing field of the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate — is getting it full blast. A cacophony of voices, tonalities, noise, static and bleeps renders the air explosive. Even if you can’t make out the words, you can catch the bad speakers and the good, from your balcony. Some have a voice you don’t want to listen to, some use too many umms and ahhs, some go on and on, some get brisk clapping. And some are cut down to size by meandering autos that carry loudspeakers of a rival camp.
They make you nostalgic and sad. What happened to those student leaders of your youth, who could proclaim with thunder in their voice, “Inquilab zindabad. Biplab dirghojibi hok (long live revolution),” and send your heart racing? Is sloganeering a lost art in an age of 15-second sound bites?
Mornings have become tuneful. Those who used to leap out of bed with roars of forced laughter from nearby parks, are now waking up to music: “Paanch saal Kejriwal, Kejriwal.” Occasionally, a trendy version of “Vande mataram” bathes listeners in early morning patriotism. The real politik rests, of course, with the lowly political worker, whose job it is to sing for a leader on brutally cold mornings. Across East Delhi, intense neighbourhood struggles are breaking out: to dislodge laughter club seniors from all green spots and occupy those.
Mayur Vihar has a festive feel despite leaden skies and a stiff wind. Arvind Kejriwal’s young supporters are hustling their way into metro coaches, knocking on doors, holding street corner concerts and flash mob performances — cap in place, guitar and dhol at the ready. The singing mobs come trooping in, from one multi-storied building to another, raising ear-catching slogans: “Kejriwal, dil se”.
At the other end of east Delhi, Krishna Nagar, an RSS-BJP bastion, people don’t wear their heart on their sleeve. But up and down the main road, ask anyone — the man frying samosa, at the rows of wholesale jewellers, grocers selling spices and makhana — and they all refer to one man with pride. Everyone knows blocks E and D, festooned perennially with silver streamers, where Dr Harsh Vardhan, who won five times from this constituency, has his home and hospital. It’s here they gather every morning, 8-9am, to ask for his guidance and grace. Anyone he cares to recommend, has a good chance of winning their hearts and minds.
Delhi has a "dil" this election. Surprise, surprise. Mumbai, yes. Kolkata, of course. But Delhi, the relentlessly self-conscious capital of high-powered VIPs, politicos and TV talking heads? The city that has been obsessed with power for one thousand years? The city where sins and vices brew toxic cocktails of intrigues and gossip? A city that’s so cynical that its women can’t walk in safety? A city that thrives in enclaves of incredible riches and astonishing poverty?
But, somehow, Delhi is drenched in emotions. Everybody’s appealing to the public’s heart. Delhi needs love, the BJP has decided: “Meri dilli ko thoda sa pyaar chahiye”. Arvind Kejriwal apologises to an imaginary mother on FM radio: “Mataji, I did not run away. I will be back soon to serve you. Please bless me and have faith in me. Ab naarazgi chodiye aur thoda muskura dijiye (Please don't be angry. Smile a bit)”. The BJP’s CM candidate, Kiran Bedi, once an “Iron Lady” takes swipes at Kejriwal in terms that sound alarmingly like sibling rivalry, when she mocks his reaction for not being invited to the Republic Day parade: “I think he is playing sob-sob. I think he must grow up”. Prime Minister Modi, who has started campaigning, called Kejriwal “a backstabber” at his January 31st rally at East Delhi’s Karkardooma (a sentimental word for Indians. After all, it was the historical backstabbing by Mir Zafar at the Battle of Plassey that allowed the British to rule in India). And what’s more, even the social media has forgotten to be nasty: nobody is making fun of Kejriwal's muffler or coughing spells, this time around.
One wonders why politicians are suddenly behaving like long-lost lovers, serenading Delhi with sweet words and music? Why are people, known for their toughness and cool, veering from their folksy campaign style to soppy emotional pulp? Politicians are supposed to know their constituency. Campaign strategists are known to study demographic shifts in great detail. Is it that they think they are addressing emotional voters, whose IQ levels depend on the amount of reality TV they watch? Or is it because Delhi is changing? With hundreds of dialects, people and cultures jostling for space, that might not be just a speculation.
Wait till February 10 for the answer: we will know how the public made sense of and responded to the political overtures. And also if Delhi now thinks with its heart or its brains.