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Taking leaf out of Sisodia education model would’ve been good politics. But BJP chose dirty path

Why go after India’s favourite education minister? Sisodia’s goodwill is evidenced by the endorsements of his reforms by M.K. Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, and the Left.

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Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia’s arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case where he has not even been named in the chargesheet is a travesty of due process of law. In the course of the investigation, the CBI raided his official residence, village residence, and bank locker but found no evidence of a money trail. Insisting on interrogating him in police custody is nothing but a means to humiliate him and malign the party’s image.

It is a transparent effort to punish Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for winning election after election (in Delhi and then Punjab) and expanding into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home turf — Gujarat — and beyond. If his arrest was not enough, Sisodia’s eventual resignation necessitated by the need to appoint new ministers is a heartbreaking moment for AAP supporters and champions of public education across India.

The AAP’s response to Sisodia’s arrest is unprecedented. Party workers have gheraoed local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) offices in all the states where the party is active. In Delhi and Punjab, AAP MLAs, councillors, and MPs have taken to the streets. Never has the AAP been united with such spontaneity around one political moment in recent memory. This mobilisation for Sisodia is a result of his unique place in Indian politics. For those who view politics as a vehicle for change, he symbolises the State’s ability to deliver tangible results against all odds. The cynical among us, regardless of personal leanings, have a soft corner for him because he is perceived to be a reluctant politician.


Also read: AAP made education a political issue. Competition will force others to take it seriously


Beginnings on 6th floor, Team 610

The son of a government school teacher from Uttar Pradesh, Sisodia got the education portfolio and made it his mission to make public education the top priority of the AAP government, along with making it the party’s core political plank. As in any other state, Delhi’s Public Works Department (PWD) is considered the most lucrative. The budgetary allocations to PWD make the posts of its minister and secretary the most sought-after jobs. But Sisodia, who took charge as Delhi’s finance minister in 2015, changed that forever. He doubled the education budget, earmarking almost a quarter of the capital’s total budget for it.

In 2016, when I first joined Sisodia’s education team as a volunteer, I saw firsthand his working style and what made him such a powerhouse in the Kejriwal government. The deputy chief minister’s room was the first on the 6th floor of the Delhi Secretariat. In sarkaridom, proximity to the minister’s room is proportional to the power of the official. And the room immediately after his secretary’s was that of his education advisor, Atishi Singh, from where ‘Team 610’ functioned — named after her room number. Team 610 comprised the nimble foot soldiers of Sisodia’s mission. Assembled by him and Atishi, they were the eyes and ears of the education minister’s office.

From top to bottom, the entire operation was a model of decentralisation. Kejriwal provided the broad direction and guidance for what he believed was his political mandate of improving government schools, but beyond that, he gave a free hand to Sisodia. The latter, in turn, envisioned the framework of the reforms and executed them through his trusted lieutenant Atishi and Team 610. Over the years, this team of volunteers and interns expanded to NGO partners that specialised in the five pillars of the reforms: Parent participation, teacher training, curriculum development, middle management capacity-building, and infrastructure development.

He tapped into some of the finest talents in the education sector for collaboration and recruited professionals to manage and monitor the progress of the reforms. His team-building process extended to three key stakeholders who he persuaded that they were a part of his team: Teachers, students, and their parents.


Also read: BJP is turning Indians indifferent and sceptical toward corruption


My firsthand experience

In July 2017, when my 21-year-old migrant self from Mumbai could not afford rent in Delhi, Sisodia opened his doors to me and let me live in a servant quarter at his residence. On my first morning, I was woken up at 6 am by one of his aides. He knocked on my door excitedly and asked, “Do you want to go on a school visit with sir?” When I stepped out into the driveway, I saw a beaming Sisodia waiting for his official car to arrive so he could go to a government school. I had only heard of his morning school visits, but now was able to witness them too. We attended three school assembly sessions that day. Sisodia did not talk at first, only circulated the mic among the students, asking them what they thought about their school and the importance of education. He delivered a short speech at the end, assuring students and teachers that there was never a better time to be in a Delhi government school. “Sarkar aapke saath khadi hai. Aapko shiksha ke liye khada hona hai. Taiyyar hai sab? (The government stands by your side. You have to gear up for education. Are you all ready?)” Sisodia said.

Within the first three years, ages-old school desks were replaced, annual maintenance of buildings was institutionalised, 8,000 new classrooms (the number went up to 20,000 in 2022), many ‘tentwala schools’ were shut down, parents of the students were invited to participate in school management through formal committees, teachers were trained at world-class institutions, middle management was provided with capacity-building programmes, and most importantly, students were provided with quality education. Sisodia had revived a dying institution through sheer grit and determination.


Also read: Don’t give clean chit to Sisodia but see the timing. A national scandal is…


What took the BJP so long?

Arresting Sisodia had been on the BJP’s wishlist for a long time. On many different occasions earlier, the AAP hinted at the CBI’s intent to arrest Sisodia. But the BJP dithered because it was struggling to convince the public that there was any wrongdoing on his part. Their hunch was borne out by the eventual victory of the AAP in the 2022 municipal elections in Delhi. Days after the AAP was able to elect its mayor, Shelly Oberoi, in the city, the BJP saw it had nothing more to lose and decided to go ahead and arrest Sisodia.

Why was it so hard for the BJP to arrest Sisodia earlier? Apart from his association with the incorruptible image of Arvind Kejriwal, Sisodia has also enjoyed the reputation of being someone who lies beyond politics, puts his head down, and just gets things done. Why go after India’s favourite education minister? Sisodia’s goodwill across party lines is evidenced by the endorsements of his education reforms by politicians of all hues — including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s M.K. Stalin, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, the Left leaders, and several others.

Kejriwal has often been criticised for being a minister without a portfolio. But in reality, it is because of Kejriwal’s ability to engage the BJP and the Lieutenant Governor in the power politics of Delhi’s multiple authorities that Sisodia got the cover he needed. With an LG and Centre bent on making every state government decision harder to implement, political management is a full-time job. Kejriwal paved the way for his ministers to achieve what they set out to by ridding the obstacles created by the Centre, sometimes through public confrontations, other times through effective use of the judicial process. The Kejriwal-Sisodia camaraderie had translated from friendship to a governance dream team.

What politics of vendetta has exposed

The two leaders set to replace Sisodia and Satyendar Jain (who was also arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in May 2022), Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, have big shoes to fill. But they are also best placed to carry on the legacies built by both former ministers. Atishi has spent years working under Sisodia, and Bharadwaj has also spent a considerable amount of time working with Jain as the Delhi Jal Board V-C.

In Modi’s India, where political leaders concentrate both power and political capital on themselves, Kejriwal repeatedly publicly credited Sisodia as the one responsible for Delhi’s education reforms. Which other state minister in India has received such an endorsement from their chief minister? Unfortunately for Sisodia, though, that has cost him his liberty in the short run. But the Modi government’s persecution of a national hero like Manish Sisodia is one of the most tragic events in recent times. Mature societies reward people like him and create examples for others. Politics of vendetta has exposed what we have always known about Modi: It is always the self before the country.

Good politics would have been the BJP taking a leaf out of Sisodia’s book, replicating his work in the states it runs, and bettering his record. Instead, it has chosen a path of dirty politics that makes one cynical about the future of the country under this dictatorial regime.

Akshay Marathe is an AAP spokesperson and a public policy graduate from Harvard University. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

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