THIS is not a headline to capture public attention but to describe the case of Indian politician Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Admi Party, now in prison on corruption charges and the accusation that he was using his ailment as an excuse to seek bail. It has caused an uproar in India鈥檚 political media. However, the issue has echoes all over South Asia.
The Aam Admi Party is not only in Delhi鈥檚 seat, the capital鈥檚 power but one of the stellar voices against the BJP and Modi. Unlike the Indian Congress, the AAP certainly has a cleaner public image and has not only performed well but has become a moral counterpoint to the party in power.
The issue around health issues of Kejriwal and the alleged use or not use of insulin is the cause of the latest round of controversy. Media hint that the AAP tries to demonise the BJP as a repressive party while the government is trying to portray the AAP as a liar using falsities for gaining political sympathy.
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Jail, bail and sugar levels
THE cause of the spike in the conflict is due to Kejriwal seeking bail. He accused the jail authorities of not giving him diabetes-friendly food and, thus, creating a health threat for him. Later, he was allowed to bring food from home. However, more than the jail authorities, it is the Enforcement Directorate that arrested him for corruption that has picked up the cudgel. It alleged that Kejriwal was deliberately having high-sugar food, including mangoes, to spike his sugar level to qualify for bail.
Kejriwal hit back, saying that he has had 48 meals sent from home out of which only three had mangoes and that the glycemic index of the fruit is lower than that of white rice. (It should be independently stated that mangoes, or for that matter any very sweet fruit, has a potential to be a high sugar spiker. So, it should be consumed very moderately and infrequently. And white rice is much worse and if possible replaced with the brown variety.)
The Enforcement Directorate has also said that Kejriwal went off insulin before being taken to jail while the politicians have contested that he was on an insulin replacement therapy and is using drugs. He has also questioned why the Enforcement Directorate was involved in the debate over his diet chart and insulin intake as it is a matter of conflict between him and the jail authorities, not the Enforcement Directorate. By all accounts, this resembles one of the more bizarre episodes in the recent political history of India as official agencies are being politicised.
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Politics of ailments
THE point is that sugar levels have more to do with politics than meets the testing strip. The idea that two forces, the Enforcement Directorate and the jail authorities, are discussing the sugar level of politicians in jail is not an indicator of health but the increasing use of it in politics. Such issues are common and quite frankly a South Asian ailment in its politics.
The ailment is not the issue but that health and incarceration certainly are. In Bangladesh, the health concerns of the BNP leader Khaleda Zia and her suspended jail sentence as well as going abroad for further treatment have occupied a lot of political media space. However, her application has not been granted on various grounds by the government.
In Pakistan too, health issues have played a major role in the recent political turmoil and opposition leader Imran Khan has accused the jail officials of injuring the health of his wife by giving insecticide in her food. Thus, the notion of the jail as a 鈥榥eutral鈥� space has been put under question by all politicians. No matter where politicians may be, It is always politics.
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Is politics ailing?
OF THE three states that emerged out of 1947, the similarities and differences are obvious. India was the headquarters of imperial and, later, colonial rule and its state institutions are the most robust. Yet over time, the nature of its politics has not gone beyond that stage of conflict-based governance and that holds sway. It has remained rooted to a semiotics of the past.
Pakistan was the new entrant in the imperial game and its state remains loyal to its external ruling class values of the mediaeval era 鈥� the Mughals 鈥� when the military played the main role. Even today, military insecurity serves as the primary motivation and justification of its state actions. Its political institutions remain very immature, functioning as adjunct to the army.
Bangladesh is a non-ruling class state, essentially a peasant state, where state institutions remain underdeveloped and unable to deliver services or produce appropriate forms of governance. While villages and society have expanded massively, producing its own dynamics and structure, the formal element barely exists and the informal dominates in what is a social rather than a statist construct.
The problem is not good or bad politics but the idea of a macro governance-based state when the reality of a state is not very visible. The conflict that emerges in the name of politics is, therefore, basically a problem produced by the grappling with the impossibility of its own application.
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Afsan Chowdhury is a researcher and journalist.