From Marxist upbringing to ‘soft Hindutva’: The rise of new Delhi CM Atishi

New Delhi, India – It was the mediate of April 2022, and outpouring was inactive giving mode to summer. But India’s superior was connected edge.

Jahangirpuri, a neighbourhood successful the bluish peripheries of Delhi, was tense aft an altercation betwixt groups of Hindu and Muslim men implicit a Hindu spiritual procession during which slogans against Muslims were chanted.

Days later, bulldozers rolled into the neighbourhood and tore down respective structures adjacent to a section mosque arsenic portion of an anti-encroachment thrust by the city’s civic body, controlled astatine the clip by the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While a tribunal bid forced the civic authorization to halt the demolitions, 3 apical leaders of Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held a quality league successful which they blamed Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya – some predominantly Muslim communities – for the riots.

BJP leaders had besides pinned the blasted connected the aforesaid communities. Both the parties, different opposed to each other, were seemingly successful synchrony implicit whom they blamed for the violence: susceptible Muslim communities.

For AAP, it was legislator and spokesperson Atishi, who took the pb astatine the quality conference. In her fabric saree, abbreviated hairsbreadth and heavy rimless glasses, Atishi had emerged arsenic a large look of the enactment successful Delhi by then.

Many critics weren’t amazed by the AAP’s attempts – lone the latest by that constituent – to pander to Hindu votes successful a bid to vie with the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian thrust.

But it was a defining infinitesimal successful the nationalist representation of Atishi, a comparative governmental upstart, who, done astir of her life, had carried a funny past name: “Marlena”, a portmanteau of philosopher Karl Marx and the antheral who built the archetypal communist state, Vladimir Lenin.

On Tuesday, the 43-year-old Atishi was named the chief minister-designate of India’s superior territory of Delhi, 2 days aft AAP main Arvind Kejriwal announced helium would resign from his bureau successful the aftermath of corruption allegations against him successful a lawsuit related to his government’s argumentation connected the merchantability of liquor.

Kejriwal was arrested successful March by India’s national bureau that probes fiscal crimes and was released from jailhouse past week aft the country’s apical tribunal granted him bail. His erstwhile lawman Manish Sisodia was besides arrested successful the aforesaid lawsuit and has been retired connected bail for a period now.

Proposing Atishi arsenic his replacement astatine a gathering with his party’s legislators, Kejriwal said helium would lone instrumentality to the bureau aft winning people’s spot done a determination vote, owed successful February adjacent year.

Third pistillate to pb capital

Atishi volition beryllium the 3rd pistillate main curate of Delhi aft Sushma Swaraj of the BJP and Sheila Dikshit of the Congress party.

Other than Atishi, who is yet to instrumentality the oath of office, Trinamool Congress person Mamata Banerjee, who governs the eastbound authorities of West Bengal, is the lone different pistillate main curate successful India astatine the moment. Both Atishi and Banerjee are members of the INDIA absorption alliance, led by the Indian National Congress.

But dissimilar Banerjee, Swaraj oregon Dikshit, who spent years successful authorities earlier they took the apical presumption successful their states, Atishi’s has been a meteoric rise, successful a abbreviated vocation spanning societal enactment and politics.

The girl of Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi, some erstwhile professors of past astatine the University of Delhi, Atishi’s formative years, arsenic a adjacent adjutant enactment it, were each astir books she was surrounded with and the “in-house classes connected socialist revolutions” from astir the world, delivered by her Marxist parents.

Her elder sister Rosa Basanti, a societal activist, is named aft the Polish-German revolutionary socialist, Rosa Luxemburg.

“Her parents travel from a Marxist revolutionary inheritance but their daughters chose their ain paths,” said Tanvir Aeijaz, honorary vice president astatine the Centre for Multilevel Federalism and prof of nationalist argumentation and authorities astatine the University of Delhi, who has known Atishi’s household for respective years now.

After schooling astatine New Delhi’s prestigious Springdales School, Atishi joined the University of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, whose illustrious database of alumni includes Congress parliamentarian and India’s main absorption person Rahul Gandhi and erstwhile Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq, among others. She besides holds 2 postgraduate degrees successful past from the University of Oxford successful the United Kingdom, wherever she studied connected highly competitory scholarships.

On returning to India, Atishi started moving successful the societal improvement assemblage successful Madhya Pradesh, a authorities successful cardinal India. In 2007, she started a commune with Praveen Singh, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology successful New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Management successful Ahmedabad, to whom Atishi was past married. Their enactment was chiefly focused connected self-governance successful Indian villages.

Around 2010, Atishi met Sisodia, who backmost past worked successful a nonprofit corporate with Kejriwal aft quitting his occupation with a tv quality channel. That led her to articulation an anticorruption question which targeted the past Congress-led national government, and, galore governmental analysts believe, paved the mode for the emergence of Modi’s BJP successful the 2014 wide elections.

The AAP was calved successful 2012 arsenic an offshoot of that movement, making the combat against corruption its cardinal plank. It is besides the twelvemonth Atishi started to summation her foothold wrong the enactment but remained mostly down the scenes.

Ahead of the 2013 Delhi authorities assembly elections successful which AAP made its debut, Atishi was made a subordinate of the party’s manifesto committee. No enactment won a bulk successful those elections, but the AAP formed a authorities with the enactment of the Congress – a concern that collapsed soon.

In 2015, aft the enactment stormed backmost to powerfulness winning 67 of 70 assembly seats, she was appointed advisor to Sisodia, the past lawman main curate who besides held the acquisition portfolio.

Atishi’s archetypal brushwood with electoral authorities happened successful the 2019 wide elections erstwhile AAP fielded her against the BJP’s cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi parliamentary constituency. She mislaid and was elected a authorities legislator successful Delhi the adjacent year.

By then, Atishi was regularly addressing quality conferences, speaking connected important governmental issues, and aggressively defending her enactment successful TV debates with BJP and Congress spokespersons.

“She is highly qualified. It is bully that idiosyncratic with specified a dependable world inheritance and grooming has go a main minister. She tin acceptable a bully illustration for others,” Ashutosh, a writer who was formerly associated with the AAP and goes by a azygous name, told Al Jazeera.

Delhi’s acquisition reforms

Atishi is often credited with playing a important relation successful upgrading Delhi’s crumbling nationalist schools, not conscionable by modernising their infrastructure but besides successful the prime of acquisition imparted to them.

“The apical enactment of the enactment saw her arsenic a invaluable asset, and the nationalist besides started to cognize her,” a elder enactment person who did not privation to beryllium identified told Al Jazeera.

AAP person Akshay Marathe, who worked with Atishi betwixt 2016 and 2019, told Al Jazeera she was “instrumental successful spearheading projects aimed astatine bringing backmost to beingness Delhi’s nationalist schools”.

“She is besides precise skilled successful recruiting the close radical and grooming them the close way,” helium said.

Improved nationalist schools and healthcare, and payment schemes, specified arsenic h2o and energy subsidies – and escaped autobus rides for each women – person helped AAP physique its popularity successful the metropolis of 20 cardinal residents.

“Atishi’s ain attack successful politics, arsenic I spot it, is welfare-centric. She believes successful the upliftment of nationalist institutions for translation successful nine and making them competitory with backstage institutions. Technically, it is not a Marxist oregon a accepted socialist approach,” historiographer Aeijaz told Al Jazeera.

In her aboriginal years successful AAP, Atishi was considered adjacent to psephologist-turned-political activistic Yogendra Yadav, 1 of the main founders of the party. Yadav was expelled from the enactment successful 2015 implicit ideological differences with Kejriwal.

“It is simply a affirmative happening for Delhi and the state that a pistillate with specified a beardown inheritance successful people’s question and constructive enactment has taken implicit arsenic the main minister,” Yadav told Al Jazeera.

Dropping surnames and ’embracing Hindutva’

As Atishi’s stature wrong AAP grew, truthful did her evident discomfort astatine her fixed past sanction – Marlena. She inactive occasionally uses Singh arsenic a past sanction – the Rajput caste identifier from her father’s name. But she mostly uses lone her archetypal sanction – a determination implicit which her colleagues successful the AAP look to beryllium divided.

Some AAP leaders judge she was forced to bash truthful owed to the attacks by her governmental opponents connected grounds of caste and religion – amid rumours that critics dispersed that Marlena was a Christian name. Others deliberation a surname similar Marlena made small consciousness politically and was not helping her successful connecting with the masses.

But determination is simply a 3rd acceptable of AAP leaders who asseverate that it was a purely opportunist determination she made arsenic a endurance strategy successful politics. “AAP is not a enactment that endorses Marxism oregon socialism. AAP had country for Atishi to grow, but not Marlena,” said a elder AAP leader, requesting anonymity.

In August 2018, she erstwhile said astatine a nationalist event: “Marlena is not my surname. My surname is Singh which I ne'er used. The 2nd sanction was fixed by my parents. I person decided to usage conscionable Atishi for my predetermination campaign.”

In her run for the 2019 nationalist and 2020 determination elections, Atishi did not usage Marlena and identified herself with the archetypal name, occasionally utilizing Singh. In her affidavits for the 2 elections, however, she wrote her afloat name: Atishi Marlena. Since she became a curate successful the Delhi government, the secretariat records lone accidental Atishi.

But her shifting attack connected names was besides accompanied by her governmental modulation – on with the AAP arsenic a enactment – towards what experts telephone ‘soft Hindutva’. Hindutva is the Hindu majoritarian ideology of the BJP and its allies.

In respective nationalist events betwixt 2019 and 2020, the years she entered electoral politics, Atishi was seen participating successful Astra Puja (worship of weapons) during Navaratri, a large Hindu festival. She besides led protests against demolition drives of Delhi’s municipal corporations – past ruled by the BJP but nether AAP’s power since December 2022 – that progressive Hindu temples.

At the aforesaid time, Atishi and her AAP were accused by Delhi’s Muslims – who had supported the enactment en masse successful caller elections – of staying soundless connected issues affecting the community. Towards the extremity of 2019, the Modi authorities passed the arguable Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which efficaciously added a spiritual trial to citizenship done naturalisation.

The instrumentality fast-tracked citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – who entered India arsenic refugees until 2014. The United Nations and rights groups called the instrumentality “fundamentally discriminatory”.

The transition of the CAA, and a projected National Register of Citizens that was intended to complement it, triggered outrage among India’s 200 cardinal Muslims. A weeks-long thoroughfare sit-in, chiefly led by Muslim women, astatine Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood, became the epicentre of the anti-CAA protests. In aboriginal 2020, close earlier the coronavirus pandemic unopen the satellite down, 1 of these protests was attacked by Hindu mobs, triggering 1 of the city’s worst spiritual riots successful which much than 50 people, astir of them Muslims, were killed. Dozens of Muslims were arrested for the violence, galore of them inactive languishing successful jails nether superior charges of coercion and sedition.

Kejriwal blamed “outsiders” for the riots and attacked the BJP, blaming their “politics of hate”, adjacent arsenic helium criticised Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for not visiting the riot-hit areas. But Kejriwal himself took much than a week to sojourn the violence-hit localities successful northeast Delhi, adjacent though his authorities started respective alleviation and rehabilitation centres for the victims.

Top AAP leaders Al Jazeera spoke to said the determination to tilt towards Hindu nationalism was taken astatine the party’s apical level.

“If AAP had to bash its development-based and welfare-centric politics, which would assistance radical of each societal classes, castes, religion and communities, it would person to stay successful powerfulness and grow its footprints. For that, it had to make a beardown shield against attacks from the BJP,” said an AAP person requesting anonymity. “Atishi and others intelligibly understood the strategy.”

“Sticking to definite values and losing powerfulness to the BJP would person helped cipher – neither the AAP nor the people,” the person added.

Another AAP person said Muslims successful Delhi stay beardown supporters of the enactment due to the fact that astir Muslims are mediocre and marginalised and person benefitted importantly from AAP’s politics, which stresses connected education, healthcare and different payment measures

Historian Aeijaz, who is simply a Muslim, however, disagreed with that argument. “AAP cannot instrumentality Muslims for granted immoderate more. The Muslim votes look to beryllium swaying towards the Congress en masse due to the fact that Rahul Gandhi has emerged arsenic a bigger person than Arvind Kejriwal arsenic idiosyncratic who tin decision the BJP,” helium said. “Now that Atishi volition beryllium the main curate of Delhi, she should cautiously cipher the risks progressive successful her strategies.”

But Aeijaz said that Atishi’s governmental positions disagree from the idiosyncratic values she holds. “As acold arsenic I know, Atishi, successful her idiosyncratic life, has rather a secular outlook,” helium said.

Journalist Ashutosh, who is simply a vocal professional of the AAP’s clasp of “soft Hindutva”, agreed. “I would not blasted her [Atishi] for that. Such decisions are often taken by the apical leadership. Atishi is simply a disciplined ft soldier. Politically, she had nary different prime than to toed the line.”

By 2022, the AAP’s footprints appeared to beryllium expanding beyond Delhi. That year, the enactment came to powerfulness successful the northern authorities of Punjab, winning 92 retired of 116 seats successful the legislative assembly polls. Its candidates won 2 seats successful the coastal authorities of Goa and 5 successful Modi’s location authorities of Gujarat, wherever the AAP secured astir 13 percent of the full votes – a stunning show for a young party.

But wrong a year, the enactment was successful crisis. Federal agencies controlled by the BJP initiated probes into Delhi’s excise policy, accusing the AAP of accepting kickbacks from backstage players and allegedly utilizing the wealth to money predetermination campaigns. Sisodia was arrested successful February 2023, parliamentarian Sanjay Singh successful October 2023, and Kejriwal successful March this year.

Satyendar Jain, erstwhile wellness curate of Delhi, has been successful jailhouse since May 2022 successful transportation with a abstracted wealth laundering case. Earlier this month, Amanatullah Khan, the AAP legislator from the constituency Shaheen Bagh falls in, was besides arrested by national agencies for alleged wealth laundering.

The bid of arrests appears to person created a situation of leadership. It was aft Sisodia’s apprehension that Atishi was inducted into the Delhi cabinet. By July past year, she held 12 important portfolios, including education, concern and nationalist works, practically making her the fig 2 successful the Kejriwal government.

When Kejriwal was sent to jailhouse successful March, her responsibilities accrued manifold, according to AAP insiders.

As the caller main curate of Delhi, tin Atishi crook the tide for the AAP?

In her archetypal quality briefing, aft Kejriwal projected her arsenic his successor, Atishi said: “I privation to guarantee the 20 cardinal residents of Delhi that Kejriwal is their existent main curate … I, arsenic the main curate till the upcoming elections, shall enactment with lone 1 objective: making Arvind Kejriwal the main curate of Delhi erstwhile again.”

Whether she tin person Delhi to bash that, done her enactment implicit the adjacent six months, could find Atishi’s ain governmental future. The Marlena portion of her life? That’s present aged history.