The street demonstration that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and cabinet colleagues of the Delhi state government launched this week demanding suspension of five police officers who refused to act against a “prostitution and drug racket” the state’s law minister identified during a night patrol he and followers did a week before, has thrust to the fore the autonomy of the city state which houses the country’s capital. It will seem bizarre that the chief minister should lead an agitation defying prohibitory orders imposed in the run-up to Sunday’s Republic Day parade in light of terror threats, even disregarding intelligence warnings that terrorists were looking to kidnap him to bargain for the release of an Islamist militant leader in custody. Not if it is understood that Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) which blazed on the national stage through street agitations in Delhi with a cry of “swaraj” or power to the common people and won the election to govern the state, cannot countenance the anomaly of the Centre controlling the security of the people whose welfare his government is responsible for.
Mr Kejriwal’s predecessor Sheila Dikshit of the Congress which rules the Centre, had sparred in public with then Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar over accountability for the murderous gangrape of December 16, 2012. While Mrs Dixit was amply embarrassed by the public mood of that time – a product of which the AAP is – Mr Kumar refused to own up and lathicharged unarmed protesters and used teargas and water cannons against them. She complained to Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde who backed Delhi Police, much to her chagrin. Even during terror attacks in Delhi earlier, chief minsters of the day were left to express annoyance and helplessness. The argument that stands since Delhi was given statehood in 1991 for the police being under the Centre was that the security of the functionaries and institutions of the national government and international organisations in New Delhi was too much to be left to the state government. Mr Shinde repeated that on Monday.
This is an exception for Delhi, because policing is a state subject under the division of responsibilities in our constitution. The title National Capital Territory that came with the 69th Constitution amendment to give statehood to Delhi symbolises this duality. Delhi/NCT is bound by Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and many of the 2.3 crore Delhiites live in these border states and commute to work. It can be asked why the Centre can’t mark a limited area (Lyuten’s Delhi where most national institutions are) and secure that real capital territory like a cantonment and delegate public order, crime investigation and traffic management in the rest of Delhi — which comprises some 300 villages and 62 semi-urban towns in 12 districts — to the state administration. Institutions and areas requiring special security in these semi-urban parts of Delhi can also be covered by central security as being done for military and aviation installations.
In fact “full statehood” with policing powers has been demanded during the rule of BJP and Congress in Delhi/NCT. It’s just that AAP which proved mass agitation gets things done (passage of the Lokpal Bill) has chosen to take it to the streets, risking collapse (if the Congress withdraws support) or dismissal by the Centre, depending on how events play out. If the politics of crippling AAP and make it fall off the podium of high morality overrides a sensible resolution, who benefits at the next parliament election is the question.
