The enthusiasm and fanfare which greeted the establishment of India’s new anti-corruption party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is fast evaporating. It has only itself to blame. Social and political mobilisation against entrenched oppression and rampant corruption invariably impart an attractive flavour. Unless carefully crafted and managed, such a protest invariably degenerates and results in unintended conclusions.

The use of a mob as an instrument in political negotiations is risky at the best of times. The mob led by Delhi state’s Law Minister Somnath Bharati, seeking vigilante-type justice, and the agitation mounted by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seeking either full statehood or control of the police, add a still more dangerous dimension because both were elected representatives who had taken the oath of office. They had sworn to operate within the co-ordinates of the law and the constitution.

It is unforgivable that the law minister asked the police to take unlawful action. If he does not know that residential premises cannot be searched without a warrant or that women cannot be arrested at night, at the very least, he should step down and be sent back to law school. The fact that he has now been identified by a Ugandan woman as the person who led the mob that subjected her and others to inhuman treatment makes his continuation completely untenable.

The racial stereotyping and profiling of foreign nationals and subjecting them to vigilante-type justice are entirely condemnable. No civilised country can afford to behave in this manner. The attempt to justify the intellectual promiscuity of prominent AAP leaders as reflecting the freedom of expression and internal party democracy borders on the absurd. Party activist Kumar Vishwas apparently has a very poor view of women in general and those from a certain part of the country, in particular.

The other party activist, Prashant Bhushan, wants to play football with national security by seeking a referendum on the presence of the armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir. This approach to dealing with problems of Maoist violence-affected areas also deserves honourable mention.

The middle class, by definition, is not revolutionary by nature. It is self-righteous, places a premium on expanding its rights and is easily encouraged by non-violent mobilisation against oppression and corruption. There is, however, another character of the middle class, more pronounced and more dominant. It is fickle and displays an increasing propensity to quickly become disenchanted if the established order is threatened by chaos and anarchy. Kejriwal’s 36-hour street protest in the national capital came close to doing precisely that. If Kejriwal had persisted with the agitation a little longer, it is entirely possible that the central government may have been left with no option but to use security forces to evict the squatters who, in this case, were led by the elected chief minister.

All this, however, raises a more fundamental question. The anarchist streak within the AAP has been in evidence for some time. What is the Congress Party’s threshold for tolerance? It is, after all, Congress support which gives the AAP the oxygen to continue in power. Surely, to pull the plug now would be less costly than before this irrational outfit mounts another and more dangerous agitation. Equally, if the next agitation focuses on the 10 years of corruption by the Congress government in Delhi, the public opinion fallout for those supplying the oxygen will be more costly.

This should be a wake-up call for all Indians because what has distinguished India from so many other countries in the world is the ability of its democracy to resolve differences in a peaceful and harmonious manner.