NEW DELHI — Some might assume that he had lost a bet and as a consequence has to walk around in a white cap that has “I am the common man” written on it. But Arvind Kejriwal is a very serious man not given to mirth, and the cap he has been wearing is intended to be a brooding message to India’s politicians that the average citizen will not tolerate the corrupt rulers for much longer.

Since April last year, when he was at the forefront of a citizens’ uprising against politicians, and particularly in the last few weeks after he reiterated that he soon would establish a political party made up of honest people, of whom one-third would be honest women, Mr. Kejriwal has shaken the political class with his confident allegations of corruption against some of the nation’s most powerful figures, often holding apparent documentary evidence in both hands.

Mr. Kejriwal, by general opinion, is a new kind of Indian politician. But in fact he is operating in the realm of journalism.

Journalism is the art not merely of telling a story, but also of finding permissible vehicles for telling that story. By holding Mr. Kejriwal up as a revolutionary public figure, Indian journalism has devised such a vehicle. The stories that journalists cannot tell — or cannot tell the way they wish out of fear of libel suits or their promoters’ fear of politicians — are now told through coverage of Mr. Kejriwal’s accusations, which may have some holes in them but retain enough substance to set off a brisk news cycle. Also, political corruption is not big news anymore in India. Rather, it is how the news is broken that is. To that end, Mr. Kejriwal, who is both messenger and message, has become a one-man news agency to whom the entire Indian media have seemingly subscribed.