The latest ad of AAP, featuring a housewife purportedly happy that her electricity bill has been reduced, is a study in flagrant & blatant lies; and in ongoing campaign to create the Cult of His Holiness the Honest One, Shri Arvind Kejriwal.
First the lies. The ad claims that subsidy for the electricity consumption by Delhi households has been funded by the savings effected by reduction in corruption. If corruption of bribe taking has been reduced, how can that increase the savings of Delhi government? That may lead to savings for the citizens, not for the government. If the officers of government in-charge of supplies and works have stopped taking bribes, that will also not save any money for the government, that will only lead to more income for the suppliers and contractors, in case of existing contracts. If in last 100 days of its existence, Delhi government has awarded new contracts, and corruption has indeed disappeared, the rates would in fact increase for all contracts, meaning more outgo for the government. Because if officers are not to receive any bribes, they won’t compromise on quality, and to give better quality, contractors will have to increase rates. So that will also not lead to any savings for the government.
The only saving for the government would have been in tax collection. Ad doesn’t say so. And it is highly unlikely that corruption in tax collection would reduce in a hurry, or at all. Because both, the bribe giver and taker benefit, and if correct taxes are to be deposited, that would open a pandora’s box for the tax payers. Because then all taxes in upstream and downstream would need to be paid honestly, and would lead to huge complications for the past tax returns. A risk no tax payer who has been paying bribes would take. But if at all its income has increased, the Delhi government should publish its income figures. And also should not withhold salaries of municipality staff.
But even more glaring is the thread that runs through the ad: creating the cult around Arvind Kejriwal. Arvind has done this, Arvind has done that, Arvind is great, Arvind is the saviour we were waiting for, God Save Arvind.
This in a party that came into existence specifically to end the Cult of Personalities from Indian Politics.
Cults are dangerous. Cult members become blind to reality, become impervious to reason, to logic, and to all evidence contrary to the narrative created by the Cult Leader. Cults are evil in that they kill the Spirit of Freedom in which all human beings are born equal. In cults, cult leader is the shepherd and everybody else is a sheep.
Of course Kejriwal is succeeding handsomely at this. After all ours is a population steeped in mai-baap culture for at least one thousand years. Kejriwal is just the newest mai-baap on the block.
Victimhood is also consciously created in cult members, because a sense of victimhood keeps the flock together and always in a state of nervous excitement. So the Ad specifically harps on the victimisation of Arvind Kejriwal by the opposition that has ganged up against him. And cults built on victimhood are also always rife with rumours. So almost daily we see one or the other AAP leader claiming on TV that his sources in media or Central government have told him that the next attack on Arvind is imminent.
And like all cults, the ad ends with prayer to God: Keep His Holiness the Honest One Shri Arvind Kejriwal, our Lord Saviour, safe from the demonic forces of corruption out to get him.
Luckily so far the membership of the cult is limited to Delhi only. It would be a real tragedy if Arvind Kejriwal, the dhimmi, Leftist, budding vote bank manager, appeaser of worst kind, and doing the politics of doles and freebies; gains followers outside Delhi. Country will be pushed back by many decades, if not into abyss itself.
