
BY
JAMES TRAUB-APRIL 28, 2014

VARANASI, India —At Indian political rallies, singers and minor officials typically warm up the crowd until the candidate arrives — typically quite late. At an event in mid-April in a slum neighborhood of Varanasi, one of the great cities of the “Hindi heartland,” the local talent extolled the virtues of Arvind Kejriwal, the head of the upstart Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or Common Man Party. “This economy is for the elites and the rich,” he crooned. “The policymakers are in the pockets of the World Bank and the IMF. You’ve been left with no job, so you might as well pull a rickshaw.” It might have sounded better in the original Hindi.