DK Ravi's death: Why are you not protesting Arvind Kejriwal?

With 67 seats in its kitty, governing Delhi should be a cinch for the Aam Aadmi Party. But when India's pre-eminent anti-corruption crusader is found battling internal dissent rather than speaking for the rights of a dead IAS officer, one begins to hanker after those pre-victory Kejriwal days.

Sure, Kejriwal tweeted about DK Ravi's death, asking that justice be done. But this sort of lame business-as-usual tweet from Kejriwal is singularly out of character. Here is a man who sat on a dharna as chief minister during his last stint demanding that the Delhi police be brought under his administration's control. Pictures of a shivering Kejriwal sleeping on Rajpath in the severe Delhi cold are still burnt in the collective conscious. Everyone thought that was extreme given his poor health, but it was not unexpected from a man who had decided to enter politics to change the system from within. Where is that man today?

The DK Ravi case gets murkier by the day. The man most in harm's way from the multiple enquiries that Ravi had instituted, KJ George, runs the Karnataka home ministry under whose aegis the CID is conducting its inquiry into Ravi's death. The Bangalore police did not seal the crime area when news of Ravi's death by hanging spread and its Commissioner was eager to brand the death a "suicide". More, KJ George said on the floor of the Karnataka Assembly that Ravi had killed himself for "personal reasons".

When Akhilesh Yadav's government went after Durga Shakti Nagpal in 2013, the reasons were similar. Nagpal had, like Ravi did in Kolar, gone after the sand mafia in Gautam Buddh Nagar. But the UP government had not stooped so low as to make personal allegations against Nagpal. Its act was high-handed but it did not try, as the Karnataka government is doing, to shroud its high-handedness with a shoddy whisper campaign. Besides, and fortunately, Nagpal is very much among us today.

Clearly, much was going on behind the scenes in Ravi's case. If the state government refuses to hand over the case to the CBI, chances are it will be handled in the same cavalier manner that it has so far been, and the outcome will exonerate everyone but Ravi.

The case, any which way one looks at it, stinks to high heaven. What we need right now is for someone like Kejriwal to be in Bangalore protesting the government's refusal to shift the case from the CID to the CBI. But the man is nowhere on the scene. Sure, he is a chief minister now but since when has an official position stopped him from doing anything?

Truth be told, the danger of Kejriwal being co-opted was always a real one. The backlash that he faced after quitting his first government was so severe that it was certain that he would do everything in his power to hold on to his chair the second time around. Already, he seems to be turning into a seasoned politician. A remote control culture seems to be gaining ground in AAP. Look at how Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were ejected from the party when he was not even in Delhi.

But Kejriwal should be careful. Sure the people of Delhi were upset with his quitting in February last year but they gave him another chance because he promised to uphold the ethos of the India Against Corruption movement. Delhiites accepted his apology because they had seen firsthand how petty corruption had come down during the 49 days he was in power. Might Kejriwal now have "gone rogue" and might he run a mild administration to stick to power? Chances are he may not confront the central government the way he did the first time and he may lessen, if not altogether eliminate, his pan-India activist role.

This would be a tragedy because if there is one thing Kejriwal is known for, it's his crusading instinct. People flocked to Anna's movement in 2011 because it was manned by the likes of Kejriwal. Yes, there is something to say for joining politics and trying to change the system from within. It might also be true that Kejriwal is looking to build bridges with the Centre and other political parties in general in preparation for the long haul. While all these reasons hold merit, they also uphold Anna's warning against forming a party because the party system, by its nature, engenders compromises.

All's not lost though. Kejriwal can still wrest the debate by being more vocal in the DK Ravi case. Remember, he was helped in his exposes against Vadra and Ambani by friends in the civil services. The death of DK Ravi must therefore carry an extra resonance for him. I am certain it saddens him immensely. If only he would raise the bugle once again and not care about chief ministerial propriety. India would be thankful to him and he will regain the respect he has frittered in the last few days due to internal party affairs.