New Delhi, India – It was the center of April 2022, and spring was nonetheless giving approach 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 constructions 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 Celebration (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 Celebration (AAP) held a information convention by which 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: weak 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 serious face of the get together in Delhi by then.
Many critics weren’t stunned 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.
But it surely was a defining second within the public picture of Atishi, a relative political upstart, who, by way of most of her life, had carried a curious final identify: “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 substitute at a gathering together with his get together’s legislators, Kejriwal mentioned he would solely return to the workplace after profitable folks’s belief by way of a regional vote, due in February subsequent yr.
Third girl to guide capital
Atishi would be the third girl chief minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj of the BJP and Sheila Dikshit of the Congress get together.
Aside 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 adolescence, as an in depth aide put it, have been all about books she was surrounded with and the “in-house lessons on socialist revolutions” from world wide, delivered by her Marxist dad and mom.
Her elder sister Rosa Basanti, a social activist, is known as after the Polish-German revolutionary socialist, Rosa Luxemburg.
“Her dad and mom come from a Marxist revolutionary background however their daughters selected their very own paths,” mentioned 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 identified 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 Faculty, whose illustrious listing of alumni contains Congress parliamentarian and India’s primary 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 Expertise in New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Administration in Ahmedabad, to whom Atishi was then married. Their work was primarily targeted 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 consider, paved the way in which for the rise of Modi’s BJP within the 2014 common elections.
The AAP was born in 2012 as an offshoot of that motion, making the struggle in opposition to corruption its central plank. It is usually the yr Atishi began to realize her foothold throughout the get together however remained largely behind the scenes.
Forward of the 2013 Delhi state meeting elections by which AAP made its debut, Atishi was made a member of the get together’s manifesto committee. No get together gained 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 get together stormed again to energy profitable 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 common 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 following yr.
By then, Atishi was recurrently addressing information conferences, talking on essential political points, and aggressively defending her get together in TV debates with BJP and Congress spokespersons.
“She is extraordinarily certified. It’s good that somebody with such a sound educational background and coaching has develop into a chief minister. She will set an excellent instance for others,” Ashutosh, a journalist who was previously related to the AAP and goes by a single identify, advised Al Jazeera.
Delhi’s schooling reforms
Atishi is commonly credited with enjoying a big position 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 get together noticed her as a useful asset, and the general public additionally began to know her,” a senior get together 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 faculties”.
“She can also be very expert in recruiting the correct folks and coaching them the correct means,” he mentioned.
Improved public faculties and healthcare, and welfare schemes, corresponding to 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 method 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 non-public establishments. Technically, it’s not a Marxist or a conventional socialist method,” historian Aeijaz advised Al Jazeera.
In her early years in AAP, Atishi was thought of near psephologist-turned-political activist Yogendra Yadav, one of many primary founders of the get together. Yadav was expelled from the get together in 2015 over ideological variations with Kejriwal.
“It’s a optimistic factor for Delhi and the nation {that a} girl with such a powerful 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 identify – Marlena. She nonetheless often makes use of Singh as a final identify – the Rajput caste identifier from her father’s identify. However she largely makes use of solely her first identify – a choice over which her colleagues within the AAP appear to be divided.
Some AAP leaders consider 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 identify. Others assume a surname like Marlena made little sense politically and was not serving to her in connecting with the plenty.
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 shouldn’t be a celebration that endorses Marxism or socialism. AAP had room for Atishi to develop, however not Marlena,” mentioned a senior AAP chief, requesting anonymity.
In August 2018, she as soon as mentioned at a public occasion: “Marlena shouldn’t be my surname. My surname is Singh which I by no means used. The second identify was given by my dad and mom. 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 identify, often utilizing Singh. In her affidavits for the 2 elections, nonetheless, she wrote her full identify: Atishi Marlena. Since she grew to become a minister within the Delhi authorities, the secretariat data solely say Atishi.
However her shifting method on names was additionally accompanied by her political transition – together with the AAP as a celebration – in direction of what specialists name ‘mushy 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 serious Hindu pageant. She additionally led protests in opposition to demolition drives of Delhi’s municipal companies – then dominated by the BJP however underneath AAP’s management since December 2022 – that concerned Hindu temples.
On the similar time, Atishi and her AAP have been accused by Delhi’s Muslims – who had supported the get together en masse in current 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 take a look at to citizenship by way of naturalisation.
The legislation fast-tracked citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority nations – 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 meant to enhance 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 in all these protests was attacked by Hindu mobs, triggering one of many metropolis’s worst spiritual riots by which greater than 50 folks, most of them Muslims, have been killed. Dozens of Muslims have been arrested for the violence, a lot of them nonetheless languishing in jails underneath critical expenses of terrorism and sedition.
Kejriwal blamed “outsiders” for the riots and attacked the BJP, blaming their “politics of hate”, whilst he criticised Modi and House 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, despite the fact that his authorities began a number of reduction and rehabilitation centres for the victims.
High AAP leaders Al Jazeera spoke to mentioned the choice to tilt in direction of Hindu nationalism was taken on the get together’s high stage.
“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 powerful protect in opposition to assaults from the BJP,” mentioned 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 person – neither the AAP nor the folks,” the chief added.
One other AAP chief mentioned Muslims in Delhi stay sturdy supporters of the get together 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 mentioned. “Now that Atishi would be the chief minister of Delhi, she ought to fastidiously calculate the dangers concerned in her methods.”
However Aeijaz mentioned that Atishi’s political positions differ from the non-public values she holds. “So far as I do know, Atishi, in her private life, has fairly a secular outlook,” he mentioned.
Journalist Ashutosh, who’s a vocal critic of the AAP’s embrace of “mushy Hindutva”, agreed. “I’d not blame her [Atishi] for that. Such selections 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 gave the impression to be increasing past Delhi. That yr, the get together got here to energy within the northern state of Punjab, profitable 92 out of 116 seats within the legislative meeting polls. Its candidates gained two seats within the coastal state of Goa and 5 in Modi’s house state of Gujarat, the place the AAP secured almost 13 % of the full votes – a shocking efficiency for a younger get together.
However inside a yr, the get together was in disaster. Federal companies managed by the BJP initiated probes into Delhi’s excise coverage, accusing the AAP of accepting kickbacks from non-public 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 yr.
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 companies 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 yr, 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 mentioned: “I need 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 way of her work over the following six months, may decide Atishi’s personal political future. The Marlena a part of her life? That’s now outdated historical past.