Mayank Gandhi has been on the front lines when it comes to fighting for his nation.
It started in 2003, when he, along with Anna Hazare, were an integral part in drafting the Maharashtra Right to Information. In 2011, when the country was sick and tired of corruption and stood hand-in-hand against the widespread corruption at the center, Mayank Gandhi joined the team that launched the India Against Corruption movement, and was a part of the core committee. In 2012, when the movement transformed into the Aam Aadmi Party, he was a part of the National Executive body of the same, along with the head of the Maharashtra wing of the Aam Aadmi Party.
In 2015, sick and tired of the egos involved in politics, Mayank Gandhi quit politics once and for all, determined to help his nation in other ways.
When the 2016 drought in Maharashtra attracted nationwide attention, Mayank Gandhi decided to do his part in making the lives of the farmers better. Armed with water tankers, he decided to visit villages in Marathwada and offer them water for their own utilization, and for their crops.
However, he understood that water tankers were just a temporary solution to a systemic problem, and unless the villagers were provided with more permanent solutions, the drought, famine, and suicides would continue.
This led to the start of the Global Parli movement, a rural transformation mission aiming to provide every farmer in India with a minimum earning of Rs. 1 lakh per acre per anum.
In 2018, Mayank Gandhi co-authored Aap and Down, his account of his journey and experiences as a part of the Aam Aadmi Party.
AAP And Down
AAP & Down is an in-depth account of the emergence and sudden unspooling of one of India’s most closely watched parties.
The story of AAP is one of troughs and crests. After capturing the imagination of over a billion Indians, and winning a landslide victory in the 2015 Delhi elections, a seemingly indestructible party began to dangerously teeter. What just happened? How did a party—born of the idealistic India Against Corruption (IAC) movement—get ravaged by in-fighting and accusations of wrongdoing? What provoked the abrupt ouster of two party veterans, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan? What accounted for the wave of ignoble defeats across not just Punjab and Goa but also AAP’s own home, Delhi?
Here is a book that reveals all—from the clashes and intrigues that beset the IAC movement to the goings-on during the closed-door meetings of AAP. But beyond chronicling events, thus far undisclosed, AAP & Down analyzes the dispositions of the leaders who had once promised a better India—from a volatile Anna Hazare to an autocratic Arvind Kejriwal—to highlight how the party’s undoing was linked to the flaws of its leading men.
