Rise of the outsiders in Indian politics

Sunil Rajguru

Indian politics has always been dominated by the old guard, seniority and caste considerations. It is very rare that an outsider comes and upsets the applecart. However in the last odd year, the outsider has been the norm rather than the exception.

A look at the outsiders who have turned Indian politics upside down in the last one year or so and changed it permanently one would think…

Arvind Kejriwal: You don’t get a bigger outsider than him. He wasn’t even a politician till November 2012 let alone an outsider in the murky world of Indian politics.

This engineer turned bureaucrat turned activist turned crusader surprised everyone by launching the Aam Aadmi Party and contesting the Delhi elections.

In 2012 if anyone had predicted that Kejriwal would be Delhi Chief Minister then he would have been considered nuts, but that is exactly what happened in 2013.

Kejriwal showed that it was possible for the middle class to join politics and his entire team consisted of professionals who looked as far removed as Indian politicians as possible when they took oath in the Delhi Assembly.

There have been many political parties launched in India, but none with the freshness of the AAP.

Narendra Modi: LK Advani had the seniority. Parliamentary leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were waiting in the wings. BJP leaders were wary of him, the RSS leadership unsure.

Hated by TV anchors & senior editors and loathed by Civil Society. It is a miracle how the Modi juggernaut chugged along for a decade against all these odds.

It was quite astonishing how he first won the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidature and then an outright majority in the Lok Sabha.

After becoming Prime Minister, he continues to behave like an outsider much to the chagrin of the babus in the Capital and the Delhi cocktail society.

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Image: PTI