India, Feb. 9 -- In 2014, Arvind Kejriwal suddenly became the third most important politician in India after Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. He had what they did not -a professional background, credibility as a civil society activist, zero political baggage that allowed him to cast himself as an anti-system crusader, a team of politically idealistic colleagues from diverse disciplines, a pool of volunteers swayed by the promise of a different kind of politics, and a people's movement propelling him. Kejriwal made mistakes but recovered, won two sweeping mandates in Delhi, and transformed from being a crusader to offering a sample of credible governance in education and health, two domains that remain crucially under neglected.

Eleven yea...