Sweeping Changes

This woman wearing striking colours is assigned the job of sweeping the streets with her big broom.

Until coming to Delhi, I had only seen this type of broom in stories as the preferred means of transport for a witch.

This lady in purple sweeps every day yet merely manages to move the piles of dust from one spot to another in this city of 24 million people which continually creates clouds of dust, gets blanketed in its haze and rarely sees rain outside of the July monsoons.

In recent years a political party has emerged in India called the Aam Admi Party (translates to the common person's party) which chose the broom as its symbol. Disenchanted like much of the country with India's two major parties (Congress and the BJP) and their distance from the concerns of everyday folks, widespread corruption and nepotism, the AAP promised sweeping changes, hence the broom. Led by Arvind Kejriwal, a former bureaucrat, the AAP had a landslide victory in the 2015 elections for the Delhi State Assembly and formed local government with Kejriwal as Chief Minister. Unfortunately for the AAP, the federal government led by Narendra Modi's BJP is still stinging from their humiliating loss in the state elections and blocks most of their moves.

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