Jasmine Shah – “AAP is the only party that has initiatives to tackle pollution”

Why did you choose to become a politician?

I had a good middle-class upbringing. Aspiring to get a good degree, I went to IIT Madras. Then I got a good private sector job. But when I started travelling a lot within India, especially Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, my middle-class bubble burst. Even within cities, I saw two Indias coexisting. The inequality we see in India kept eating me at me for a long time. I realised that our country would not progress in a fundamental way if issues were not tackled at the policy level. It seemed that either we do not have the political will to work on these issues or maybe the right people are not part of the government. After cribbing for a long time, I thought maybe I should do something at my own level or stop complaining. Using policy as a lever to change the country excited me from my younger days, especially because of my ten-year experience with non-profits like Janaagraha and J-PAL (short for The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) that work at the forefront of policy formulation and design based on evidence. I felt that we needed good, right-minded, honest, well-educated people in governance and politics. I also got a Fulbright fellowship to do my Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University in New York. While all this was happening, the Aam Aadmi Party was formed. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress did not excite me. The idea of a government that really wanted to shake up the system appealed to me at a personal level. That’s how my transition from the private to non-profit sector to politics happened.

What was it like to grow up in Silvassa, far away from Delhi where you are currently located?Silvassa was a small, sheltered industrial town where everybody knew everyone else. I had a wonderful childhood. I used to spend my summer holidays in Bombay because I had family there. I experienced life outside these bubbles only when I went to study at IIT Madras. But that was another kind of bubble. I come from a business family. In my entire extended family, nobody has even volunteered for a non-profit let alone joined politics. I was the first to go to IIT. Everybody was so gaga about it. When I left it to join Janaagraha, everybody thought that I had lost it. When I was doing well in my career at J-PAL, I left to join the Aam Aadmi Party. People thought I was crazy but I believe I made the right moves.

How would you explain what you call “the Delhi model” to a lay person with no background in economics or public policy?It is a model of governance that is dedicated to improving the day-to-day quality of life of an average person. Increasingly, governance and politics in India have become divorced from the daily quality of life issues that a middle class or poor family faces. What does the typical family want? They want a good education for their children, and reliable health care support. They don’t want to exhaust their bank balance when someone falls ill. They want 24x7 cheap electricity and water supply. They want a strong public transport system. The Aam Aadmi Party came to power because it articulated its appeal around the idea of vyavastha parivartan (systemic change) rather than large ideological debates.

Over the last 10 years, under this Delhi model, we have managed to bring about a drastic transformation rooted in an economic outlook that is fundamentally different from what other parties have been following. Our party prioritizes human capital. We are firm believers in the idea that the country will not develop unless we make education and health care the central pillars of governance. Everything else will follow. Neither the Congress nor the BJP can claim to have transformed the public health care or public education system of a single state. But they have thrown lavish incentives at big corporates, written off loans, and done all kinds of things in the name of stimulating growth. No country in the world has become a developed nation without a world-class education and health care system. We have to accept that.

Many people who voted for AAP are hugely disappointed with the air pollution in Delhi. What do you propose to do about that?I think it is largely the perception of people outside Delhi that the Aam Aadmi Party has done very little on pollution. Because the reality is that AAP today is the only political party that talks about pollution and has implemented a range of initiatives to tackle pollution. First of all, the data clearly shows that over the last 10 years, the three-year average of PM2.5 levels in Delhi has reduced by 45 percent. Pollution is not increasing; it is reducing. However, we have not been able to bring it to 90 per cent reduction. That’s what the goal is. By the way, it’s not just Delhi. The bulk of India has polluted air. If you really want to bring Delhi’s air quality much closer to international standards, the answer does not lie in Delhi. Today, Delhi is doing everything that experts are recommending. We have shut down our thermal power plants. We provide 24x7 electricity. There are no diesel generators that run in Delhi. We have moved industries from coal and polluting fuels to piped natural gas. We have the largest fleet of electric buses in the country. We have 2000 buses now. We are going to touch the number of 8000 by the end of this year. We have the highest registration rate of electric vehicles because we have a very progressive state EV policy in place. Multiple steps have been taken in Delhi but not a single one has been adopted by our surrounding states.

Are you saying that air pollution is a problem of perception, not a ground reality?Delhi’s air pollution is a problem. It has reduced over time but the reduction has not been as huge as we would have liked because there is no regional action plan, no seriousness at the central government level and in the surrounding states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan to do what Delhi is doing. Study after study shows that only 30 per cent of the pollution in Delhi comes from local sources. 70 per cent comes from regional sources. It does not take rocket science to understand that, if 42 out of the 50 most polluted cities in the world are in India, and all of them literally are in north India, then pollution is a north India problem. Delhi occupies only a fraction of the landmass of north India. How can Delhi alone solve the problem?

Moving from health to education, how do you look back at AAP’s Degree Dikhao campaign? Why do you think that it is important for politicians to make their educational qualifications public?Our ask is simple. If somebody does not have a degree, they should not claim that they have one. Politicians in our country say that they have degrees but refuse to show them. Candidates contesting for elections file an affidavit before the Election Commission, so it is only fair to expect them to make their education qualifications public and show their degrees. It is not okay to fool the public because elected officials are there thanks to taxpayers’ money. We are only asking for transparency. What is the harm in showing one’s degree? It is ridiculous that defamation cases are filed against people who ask politicians to show degrees.

Speaking of degrees, how would you describe what you gained from studying at IIT Madras and Columbia University?Whatever I am today is because of my education. IIT Madras is where my analytical rigour comes from. I think like an engineer, am very good at numbers, and I am able to get to the heart of any governance problem by thinking about the science behind it. Then I proceed to find solutions. Being at Columbia was more about the world view that I developed. My purpose there was to learn development economics. I also took courses at Columbia’s journalism school. My writing improved substantially. That’s how I was able to write the book.

To what extent are you banking on this book to earn an electoral victory for AAP in the upcoming Delhi elections?My purpose behind writing this book was not an electoral victory. I feel like it had to be written because there’s nothing like this out there. The Aam Aadmi party has done good work in Delhi. The trustability of this claim gets diluted because the mass media does a very poor job of explaining the reforms that have taken place. One can communicate only so much through political speeches and social media. A book is different. It is rigorous from the academic and policy point of view. My book has around 50 pages of citations. Every data point has been validated. We needed to put on record the basic progress Delhi has made. Today Delhi has 550 mohalla clinics that see a footfall of two crore patients every year. More than two lakh children have moved from private to government schools. More than 2000 children clear IIT-JEE and NEET from Delhi government schools. Delhi provides the cheapest electricity in India. This should happen all over India. These issues should be brought back into our national discourse about governance. I hope that the life of this book is much longer than an election cycle.

Chintan Girish Modi is a Mumbai-based writer, journalist and educator who has been involved in various India-Pakistan peace initiatives and advocacy efforts for LGBTQ rights. His prose and poetry have appeared in books like 101 Indian Children’s Books We Love, Bent Book: A Queerish Anthology, Fearless Love, Clear Hold Build, and Borderlines. He can be reached @chintanwriting on Instagram and X.