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5 books to help you make sense of the Delhi election results
Summary
As Delhi elects a new chief minister, here’s a reading list that looks at the legacy of the Aam Aadmi Party and the changing face of the capital over the years
The political drama unfolding in Delhi for the last few months is finally over. As votes are counted and a new chief minister is ushered into office, it’s time to take a step back from the noise and review the record of the past 10 years. There's nothing like a solid book to help you make sense of the good, bad and ugly parts of what we are leaving behind and everything that’s there to come.
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The Delhi Model by Jasmine Shah
Although written by an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) insider, it’s worth reading this account of the key areas in which, the writer claims, Delhi improved under Arvind Kejriwal’s rule. Shah focuses on education, health, air pollution, transport, electricity and water—and the bar he sets for comparison is the fabled Gujarat Model. Given the inhuman medical crisis in the city during covid and the worsening air quality each year, there isn’t much to write home, but reforms in education and electricity have been the exceptions (Penguin Random House, ₹799).
Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi’s Schools by Yamini Aiyar
If there’s one area in which the AAP government has made a positive impact in Delhi, it is school education. Public sector services in India don’t inspire faith, but the focused intervention through governance and policy change have improved the quality of education in state-funded schools in Delhi. In the process, AAP also restored some of the credibility that had eroded due to years of corruption and misgovernance by previous governments. Aiyar, a scholar, looks at this phenomenon through data-driven research (Oxford University Press, ₹1,250).
AAP & Down: An Insider’s Story of India’s Most Controversial Party by Mayank Gandhi with Shrey Shah
This is a former AAP member’s disillusioned tell-all about the rise and fall of the party—from being a votary of anti-corruption mass movement to becoming embroiled in in-fighting. Mayank Gandhi spills the beans on the transformation of Arvind Kejriwal from a public-minded politician to one who baulked no critics, including eminent party members like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, both of whom eventually left the fray (Simon & Schuster, ₹399).
Capital by Rana Dasgupta
If you are looking for a panoramic view of the evolution of Delhi into its current avatar, Rana Dasgupta’s magnum opus does the job admirably. Looking at the explosion of wealth, followed by crime and migration, in Delhi since the 1990s, he writes with the flair of a novelist about the changing face of the megacity. From documenting the lives of the uber-rich to going into the slums and shanties of the city, Dasgupta covers a wide ground and unearths some powerful stories (HarperCollins India, ₹799).
Public Policy in India by Rajesh Chakrabarti and Kaushiki Sanyal
Sometimes it’s useful to go back to the first principles—understanding public policy, for instance. It’s one of the most popular words in public discourse, the currency on which elections are won and lost, but what does it mean to have a rigorous framework for public policy? Two scholars give you an explainer of the theories of public policy, as studied and developed in the world, and their use cases in India. Not only do you get a sense of the process of policy formation, but also its implementations and the hindrances that may come along the way in a society like India (Oxford University Press, ₹395).
