New Delhi. In the heart of India’s political landscape, where promises by our governments often fall short and where cynicism often overshadows political hope, the people of Delhi voted in Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2015 with an unprecedented mandate in the history of independent India on the promise of ‘vyavastha parivartan’ i.e. transformative change in governance. There were naysayers aplenty: some called it foolish, others naïve idealism. Today, almost a decade later, it’s time for reckoning. Did the AAP achieve what it set out to? What truly is the model of governance that has been AAP’s trump card in all its electoral battles—The Delhi Model? Most importantly, how has the Delhi Model transformed the lives of millions living in the national capital—across multiple sectors?
A story of radical change
Renowned policy expert, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and the former head of Delhi government’s policy think-tank, Jasmine Shah, in his remarkable new book ‘The Delhi Model: A Bold New Road Map to Building a Developed India’, chronicles the stunning rise of a governance model that is redefining the future of India’s democracy. The Delhi Model, for the first time in independent India, brought the issue of transforming public education and healthcare from the margins to the centre of Indian politics. It prioritizes investments in human capital development and better service delivery for all citizens, while ensuring a social safety net for the most vulnerable. This book is the first such account of what the Delhi Model truly is, detailing its economic foundation and how it compares with other governance models in India, especially the Gujarat Model.
Jasmine Shah, in this authoritative and research-backed account, unpacks the reforms undertaken by the AAP government in Delhi in six key sectors—education, health, air pollution, transport, electricity and water—and the outcomes they resulted in. Analysing the policies laid down in the past decade, Mr Shah draws out an ambitious road map for building a developed India by leveraging principles of the Delhi Model. Mr Shah takes us behind the scenes, offering an insider’s perspective of the journey that transformed the capital city from a symbol of inefficiency and hopelessness to a beacon of innovation and change.
Whether you’re a policy enthusiast, an activist, or a concerned citizen looking for answers to India’s endemic governance failures—The Delhi Model is a must-read. This book is not just for political pundits and policymakers; it is for every citizen who cares for India’s future and believes that the answer lies in building a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable society where governance can be based on delivery, not ideology.
Delhi Model vs Gujarat Model
The book decodes the key principles underpinning the Delhi Model, contrasting it with the dominant thinking of economic growth being pursued by the two established parties in India, the BJP and Congress, over the past three decades. It takes the reader through a whirlwind tour of contemporary economic thinking to argue how the traditional trickle-down model of economics—with its fixation for GDP growth at the cost of everything else—has failed the common man and worsened inequality.
Among the many unique contributions of the book, it makes a hard-hitting comparison between the performance of the Delhi Model and the Gujarat Model – the poster child of trickle-down economics – to show how India cannot dream of becoming a developed nation by 2047 or even 2147 if it continues along the path of a flawed economic model and ignores the most fundamental issues of human development. It presents the Delhi Model as a template of possibility and promise for the nation as a whole that an alternate approach exists and that it works.
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