New Delhi, India – It was the center of April 2022, and spring was nonetheless giving strategy to summer time. However India’s capital was on edge.
Jahangirpuri, a neighbourhood within the northern peripheries of Delhi, was tense after an altercation between teams of Hindu and Muslim males over a Hindu spiritual procession throughout which slogans in opposition to Muslims have been chanted.
Days later, bulldozers rolled into the neighbourhood and tore down a number of buildings near an area mosque as a part of an anti-encroachment drive by the town’s civic physique, managed on the time by the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Whereas a courtroom order compelled the civic authority to cease the demolitions, three high leaders of Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Occasion (AAP) held a information convention wherein they blamed Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya – each predominantly Muslim communities – for the riots.
BJP leaders had additionally pinned the blame on the identical communities. Each the events, in any other case opposed to one another, have been seemingly in synchrony over whom they blamed for the violence: susceptible Muslim communities.
For AAP, it was legislator and spokesperson Atishi, who took the lead on the information convention. In her cotton saree, quick hair and thick rimless glasses, Atishi had emerged as a significant face of the social gathering in Delhi by then.
Many critics weren’t shocked by the AAP’s makes an attempt – solely the newest by that time – to pander to Hindu votes in a bid to compete with the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian thrust.
Nevertheless it was a defining second within the public picture of Atishi, a relative political upstart, who, by means of most of her life, had carried a curious final title: “Marlena”, a portmanteau of thinker Karl Marx and the person who constructed the primary communist state, Vladimir Lenin.
On Tuesday, the 43-year-old Atishi was named the chief minister-designate of India’s capital territory of Delhi, two days after AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal introduced he would resign from his workplace within the wake of corruption allegations in opposition to him in a case associated to his authorities’s coverage on the sale of liquor.
Kejriwal was arrested in March by India’s federal company that probes monetary crimes and was launched from jail final week after the nation’s high courtroom granted him bail. His former deputy Manish Sisodia was additionally arrested in the identical case and has been out on bail for a month now.
Proposing Atishi as his alternative at a gathering together with his social gathering’s legislators, Kejriwal stated he would solely return to the workplace after successful folks’s belief by means of a regional vote, due in February subsequent 12 months.
Third girl to steer capital
Atishi would be the third girl chief minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj of the BJP and Sheila Dikshit of the Congress social gathering.
Apart from Atishi, who’s but to take the oath of workplace, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who governs the jap state of West Bengal, is the one different girl chief minister in India in the mean time. Each Atishi and Banerjee are members of the INDIA opposition alliance, led by the Indian Nationwide Congress.
However in contrast to Banerjee, Swaraj or Dikshit, who spent years in politics earlier than they took the highest place of their states, Atishi’s has been a meteoric rise, in a brief profession spanning social work and politics.
The daughter of Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi, each former professors of historical past on the College of Delhi, Atishi’s early life, as a detailed aide put it, have been all about books she was surrounded with and the “in-house lessons on socialist revolutions” from all over the world, delivered by her Marxist mother and father.
Her elder sister Rosa Basanti, a social activist, is known as after the Polish-German revolutionary socialist, Rosa Luxemburg.
“Her mother and father come from a Marxist revolutionary background however their daughters selected their very own paths,” stated Tanvir Aeijaz, honorary vice chairman on the Centre for Multilevel Federalism and professor of public coverage and politics on the College of Delhi, who has recognized Atishi’s household for a number of years now.
After education at New Delhi’s prestigious Springdales College, Atishi joined the College of Delhi’s St Stephen’s School, whose illustrious record of alumni consists of Congress parliamentarian and India’s principal opposition chief Rahul Gandhi and former Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq, amongst others. She additionally holds two postgraduate levels in historical past from the College of Oxford in the UK, the place she studied on extremely aggressive scholarships.
On returning to India, Atishi began working within the social improvement sector in Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India. In 2007, she began a commune with Praveen Singh, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Know-how in New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Administration in Ahmedabad, to whom Atishi was then married. Their work was primarily centered on self-governance in Indian villages.
Round 2010, Atishi met Sisodia, who again then labored in a nonprofit collective with Kejriwal after quitting his job with a tv information channel. That led her to affix an anticorruption motion which focused the then Congress-led federal authorities, and, many political analysts imagine, paved the best way for the rise of Modi’s BJP within the 2014 basic elections.
The AAP was born in 2012 as an offshoot of that motion, making the battle in opposition to corruption its central plank. It’s also the 12 months Atishi began to achieve her foothold throughout the social gathering however remained largely behind the scenes.
Forward of the 2013 Delhi state meeting elections wherein AAP made its debut, Atishi was made a member of the social gathering’s manifesto committee. No social gathering received a majority in these elections, however the AAP shaped a authorities with the help of the Congress – a partnership that collapsed quickly.
In 2015, after the social gathering stormed again to energy successful 67 of 70 meeting seats, she was appointed adviser to Sisodia, the then deputy chief minister who additionally held the schooling portfolio.
Atishi’s first brush with electoral politics occurred within the 2019 basic elections when AAP fielded her in opposition to the BJP’s cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi parliamentary constituency. She misplaced and was elected a state legislator in Delhi the subsequent 12 months.
By then, Atishi was repeatedly addressing information conferences, talking on essential political points, and aggressively defending her social gathering in TV debates with BJP and Congress spokespersons.
“She is extraordinarily certified. It’s good that somebody with such a sound tutorial background and coaching has change into a chief minister. She will set a very good instance for others,” Ashutosh, a journalist who was previously related to the AAP and goes by a single title, advised Al Jazeera.
Delhi’s schooling reforms
Atishi is commonly credited with taking part in a big function in upgrading Delhi’s crumbling public schools, not simply by modernising their infrastructure but additionally within the high quality of schooling imparted to them.
“The highest management of the social gathering noticed her as a helpful asset, and the general public additionally began to know her,” a senior social gathering chief who didn’t want to be recognized advised Al Jazeera.
AAP chief Akshay Marathe, who labored with Atishi between 2016 and 2019, advised Al Jazeera she was “instrumental in spearheading tasks geared toward bringing again to life Delhi’s public colleges”.
“She can be very expert in recruiting the appropriate folks and coaching them the appropriate approach,” he stated.
Improved public colleges and healthcare, and welfare schemes, resembling water and electrical energy subsidies – and free bus rides for all girls – have helped AAP construct its reputation within the metropolis of 20 million residents.
“Atishi’s personal strategy in politics, as I see it, is welfare-centric. She believes within the upliftment of public establishments for transformation in society and making them aggressive with personal establishments. Technically, it’s not a Marxist or a standard socialist strategy,” historian Aeijaz advised Al Jazeera.
In her early years in AAP, Atishi was thought-about near psephologist-turned-political activist Yogendra Yadav, one of many principal founders of the social gathering. Yadav was expelled from the social gathering in 2015 over ideological variations with Kejriwal.
“It’s a constructive factor for Delhi and the nation {that a} girl with such a robust background in folks’s motion and constructive work has taken over because the chief minister,” Yadav advised Al Jazeera.
Dropping surnames and ’embracing Hindutva’
As Atishi’s stature inside AAP grew, so did her obvious discomfort at her given final title – Marlena. She nonetheless often makes use of Singh as a final title – the Rajput caste identifier from her father’s title. However she largely makes use of solely her first title – a choice over which her colleagues within the AAP appear to be divided.
Some AAP leaders imagine she was compelled to take action because of the assaults by her political opponents on grounds of caste and religion – amid rumours that critics unfold that Marlena was a Christian title. Others assume a surname like Marlena made little sense politically and was not serving to her in connecting with the lots.
However there’s a third set of AAP leaders who assert that it was a purely opportunist transfer she made as a survival technique in politics. “AAP isn’t a celebration that endorses Marxism or socialism. AAP had room for Atishi to develop, however not Marlena,” stated a senior AAP chief, requesting anonymity.
In August 2018, she as soon as stated at a public occasion: “Marlena isn’t my surname. My surname is Singh which I by no means used. The second title was given by my mother and father. I’ve determined to make use of simply Atishi for my election marketing campaign.”
In her marketing campaign for the 2019 nationwide and 2020 regional elections, Atishi didn’t use Marlena and recognized herself with the primary title, often utilizing Singh. In her affidavits for the 2 elections, nonetheless, she wrote her full title: Atishi Marlena. Since she grew to become a minister within the Delhi authorities, the secretariat data solely say Atishi.
However her shifting strategy on names was additionally accompanied by her political transition – together with the AAP as a celebration – in direction of what consultants name ‘delicate Hindutva’. Hindutva is the Hindu majoritarian ideology of the BJP and its allies.
In a number of public occasions between 2019 and 2020, the years she entered electoral politics, Atishi was seen taking part in Astra Puja (worship of weapons) throughout Navaratri, a significant Hindu pageant. She additionally led protests in opposition to demolition drives of Delhi’s municipal firms – then dominated by the BJP however below AAP’s management since December 2022 – that concerned Hindu temples.
On the identical time, Atishi and her AAP have been accused by Delhi’s Muslims – who had supported the social gathering en masse in latest elections – of staying silent on points affecting the neighborhood. In the direction of the tip of 2019, the Modi authorities handed the controversial Citizenship Modification Act (CAA), which successfully added a non secular check to citizenship by means of naturalisation.
The legislation fast-tracked citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority international locations – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – who entered India as refugees till 2014. The United Nations and rights teams referred to as the legislation “essentially discriminatory”.
The passage of the CAA, and a proposed Nationwide Register of Residents that was supposed to enrich it, triggered outrage amongst India’s 200 million Muslims. A weeks-long avenue sit-in, primarily led by Muslim girls, at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood, grew to become the epicentre of the anti-CAA protests. In early 2020, proper earlier than the coronavirus pandemic shut the world down, one among these protests was attacked by Hindu mobs, triggering one of many metropolis’s worst spiritual riots wherein greater than 50 folks, most of them Muslims, have been killed. Dozens of Muslims have been arrested for the violence, lots of them nonetheless languishing in jails below critical prices of terrorism and sedition.
Kejriwal blamed “outsiders” for the riots and attacked the BJP, blaming their “politics of hate”, whilst he criticised Modi and Dwelling Minister Amit Shah for not visiting the riot-hit areas. However Kejriwal himself took greater than per week to go to the violence-hit localities in northeast Delhi, although his authorities began a number of aid and rehabilitation centres for the victims.
Prime AAP leaders Al Jazeera spoke to stated the choice to tilt in direction of Hindu nationalism was taken on the social gathering’s high degree.
“If AAP needed to do its development-based and welfare-centric politics, which might assist folks of all social lessons, castes, faith and communities, it must stay in energy and develop its footprints. For that, it needed to develop a robust protect in opposition to assaults from the BJP,” stated an AAP chief requesting anonymity. “Atishi and others clearly understood the technique.”
“Sticking to sure values and shedding energy to the BJP would have helped no one – neither the AAP nor the folks,” the chief added.
One other AAP chief stated Muslims in Delhi stay robust supporters of the social gathering as a result of most Muslims are poor and marginalised and have benefitted considerably from AAP’s politics, which stresses on schooling, healthcare and different welfare measures
Historian Aeijaz, who’s a Muslim, nonetheless, disagreed with that argument. “AAP can not take Muslims without any consideration any extra. The Muslim votes appear to be swaying in direction of the Congress en masse as a result of Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a much bigger chief than Arvind Kejriwal as somebody who can defeat the BJP,” he stated. “Now that Atishi would be the chief minister of Delhi, she ought to rigorously calculate the dangers concerned in her methods.”
However Aeijaz stated that Atishi’s political positions differ from the private values she holds. “So far as I do know, Atishi, in her private life, has fairly a secular outlook,” he stated.
Journalist Ashutosh, who’s a vocal critic of the AAP’s embrace of “delicate Hindutva”, agreed. “I’d not blame her [Atishi] for that. Such choices are sometimes taken by the highest management. Atishi is a disciplined foot soldier. Politically, she had no different selection than to toe the road.”
By 2022, the AAP’s footprints seemed to be increasing past Delhi. That 12 months, the social gathering got here to energy within the northern state of Punjab, successful 92 out of 116 seats within the legislative meeting polls. Its candidates received two seats within the coastal state of Goa and 5 in Modi’s house state of Gujarat, the place the AAP secured practically 13 p.c of the full votes – a surprising efficiency for a younger social gathering.
However inside a 12 months, the social gathering was in disaster. Federal businesses managed by the BJP initiated probes into Delhi’s excise coverage, accusing the AAP of accepting kickbacks from personal gamers and allegedly utilizing the cash to fund election campaigns. Sisodia was arrested in February 2023, parliamentarian Sanjay Singh in October 2023, and Kejriwal in March this 12 months.
Satyendar Jain, former well being minister of Delhi, has been in jail since Might 2022 in reference to a separate cash laundering case. Earlier this month, Amanatullah Khan, the AAP legislator from the constituency Shaheen Bagh falls in, was additionally arrested by federal businesses for alleged cash laundering.
The sequence of arrests seems to have created a disaster of management. It was after Sisodia’s arrest that Atishi was inducted into the Delhi cupboard. By July final 12 months, she held 12 essential portfolios, together with schooling, finance and public works, virtually making her the quantity two within the Kejriwal authorities.
When Kejriwal was despatched to jail in March, her tasks elevated manifold, in line with AAP insiders.
As the brand new chief minister of Delhi, can Atishi flip the tide for the AAP?
In her first information briefing, after Kejriwal proposed her as his successor, Atishi stated: “I wish to guarantee the 20 million residents of Delhi that Kejriwal is their actual chief minister … I, because the chief minister until the upcoming elections, shall work with just one goal: making Arvind Kejriwal the chief minister of Delhi as soon as once more.”
Whether or not she will persuade Delhi to try this, by means of her work over the subsequent six months, may decide Atishi’s personal political future. The Marlena a part of her life? That’s now outdated historical past.
