I don't like Politics. I hate double-talk. More so, I feel that 'Honesty' cannot be subjected to twists and turns. Anyways... why this exception.. As I had blogged before (Link here) - I have been a huge fan of Anna Hazare:
"The man stood to make us whiter ourselves. None of us are white. None of us are black. We all fall in shades of grey. Some lighter. Some darker. It is our constant fight to be seen on the lighter shade of this color and confirm to the maxim - purer than thou.. this is what this guy is trying to stand up for. He is today talking about something small (Jan Lokpal).. but eventually he is trying to stand against the bad side of human nature.. he is standing to make the society a little bit more lighter.. he wants to say that all of us want to be good.. but cannot be for various reasons... maybe some day.. we will become good. Maybe our billion deities some day would provide us with divine powers to resist evil. Sooner than later. 'Hope' as they say, still burns bright in our hearts."
When Arvind Kejriwal created the Aam Aadmi Party (Mango People's Party - a nice jibe at that to Congress..), I was curiously feeling happy. Each mainstream party today has a plank to stand on. Congress has been the 'Secular' party (some would say - Pseudo-Secular.. and slowly this plank has been copied by SP, BSP, JD and many other regional parties which has eventually led to the slow decay of this once mighty party), BJP has been the 'Hindu' Party backed by RSS (some extreme form of regio-political planks were created by others like - Shiv Sena, MNS, others..). the nation needed a party to stand for the masses. We needed to take a stand against the 50%+ Black economy which has created huge imbalances in economy. On one side building up 5%+ Budget deficits (the deficit funding normally comes in 3 ways: long term loans which bring with it interest burden, FII/FDI investments - which sort of creates equity ownership in our nations jewels i.e., companies publicly traded and the big reparitions from NRI's) and on the other side drum up populist policies which take us on path of bankruptcy.. A fight against 'Corruption'- seemed refreshingly interesting. Especially for the 65%+ young Indians (in age group of 18 to 45 years) who normally tend to move away from religio-socio factors to elect leaders.
I thought - BINGO. AK has hit the bulls eye. In one shot - he has gained relevance that mainstream parties have lost out over years. A strange feeling of wanting to be politically involved came up. AK and AAP got a lot of respect from me. I am sure also from crores of people like ME. HENCE, metaphorically aam aadmi voted for him.
However, for the last month or so the AAP has been the center of attraction for wrong reasons in Delhi.. I must mention here that during the agitation led by Anna Hazare, I admired Kejriwal for his ability to connect with people and bring greater vigor to the movement. Shouldn't I then be rejoicing that the AAP has formed a Government in prestigious Delhi? Here are the reasons for my disappointment:
1. I expected new standards of political conduct from AAP when they said they would do things differently. It was shocking to see them form the Government in Delhi when they accepted the outside support from the party they abused the most as being corrupt, the Congress party. I don’t think their explanation that the people of Delhi asked them to form a Government is a good one. On the contrary, it sets a dangerous precedent because in real life important decisions cannot be taken only because a large number of people support it by sending SMS. What was the alternative? If they were as principled as they claimed to be, and I expected them to be, they should have opted for a re-election. I believe they may actually have got more than 28 seats if they had adopted this course. Anyway, they didn’t and what followed disappointed me even more.
2. Political decision as regards water and electricity smack of short-term expediency. To say they exempted a section of people from paying bills because they had not done so at their behest is most dangerous as a trend.
3. I am disappointed that the whole anti-corruption plank stands exposed as till date AAP have not taken steps to initiate any action against those like former Chief Minister Shiela Dixit who was roundly abused by them day in and day out. At one time Kejriwal said he had 300 + pages of proof of her corruption, now they are asking the BJP to provide evidence. Their website Pol Khol also no longer has mention of Shiela Dixit’s corruption.
4. Lakhs of people are said to have joined the AAP. Here’s where it becomes essential for them to have made a framework of their national policies on a variety of important issues such as defence, economics, internal security , health, education etc. They have been in power for less than a month, but they became a party formally over a year ago. This gap had led to controversies with Prashant Bhushan’s stand on nuclear power and referendum in Jammu & Kashmir.
5. While more eminent people like Meera Sanyal, Capt. Gopinath and Mallika Sarabhai have joined the party, this raises the question of who is an aam aadmi? These are very well off, to put it mildly and hardly qualify for being the typical aam aadmi in a literal sense. If you go by the earlier understanding that the aam aadmi was someone who was not the big bad, corrupt morally weak politician, this no longer holds true as they have joined a political party and have become politicians themselves. It is now emerging to be a left of centre party.
6. Controversies regarding U turns in decision-making , be it about Kejriwal’s accommodation or about Janata Durbars are not exactly adding to my confidence of the maturity of its leaders. I believe they tend to oversimplify things. Kejriwal said there was not much difference between the number of rooms in his current apartment and the new one he planned to take up. He forgot to take location into account, there being a world of difference between his current location in Ghaziabad and the apartment in question in a posh area of Delhi.
7. Policy paralysis - like opposing FDI and increasingly turning Left-Centric (in terms of ultra protectionist attitude).
8. CM or rabble-rouser? Prioritizing agitation v/s governance on side topics (which could well be taken care off by his folks in AAP - like agitating against certain policemen).
The next few months will be very crucial for the AAP. They have made it clear that the Congress is not a factor in the General Elections in 2014. How they will perform is anybody’s guess. They may shine, they may fall but as of today, I have started moving away from AAP band wagon.
Ciao till next time...Harsha
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