A Political Experiment in Decline

How the Aam Aadmi Party rose as a revolutionary force against corruption but fell to internal strife, scandals, and electoral setbacks.

- Ruchira Talapatra

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was not born in the closed chambers of political power but on the streets, in the echoes of mass protests. Emerging from the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement led by activist Anna Hazare in 2011, AAP was formally launched on November 26, 2012, under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal. The party positioned itself as an alternative to the entrenched political class, advocating clean governance and systemic reforms to end corruption.

The India Against Corruption movement had gained national prominence due to a series of high-profile corruption scandals, including the 2G spectrum scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, and the coal block allocations scandal. Public outrage was at an all-time high, and citizens across the country demanded accountability from politicians. "By now, it's been compared to Tahrir, to 1968, even to Woodstock. For those who have never experienced the energy of a mass movement, the Anna Hazare-led movement over the Lokpal Bill feels like catharsis, like revolution, a tidal wave that will sweep away the entire venal political class and replace it with those who feel their pain," noted The Indian Express in 2011.

However, within a year of the movement's peak, internal contradictions emerged. While Anna Hazare and his supporters were against electoral politics, Arvind Kejriwal and his followers saw elections as a necessary step toward systemic change. Kejriwal argued, "We have tried everything, and the political class refuses to listen. The only way to bring change is to be inside the system." This divide led to Kejriwal's break with Hazare, culminating in the formation of AAP.