My tryst with Aam Aadmi Party & the anti corruption movement

It was about 2 years ago that a small frail old man Anna Hazare shook the nation with his decision to oppose the rampant corruption in India. His wagging finger galvanised an entire country especially the young who rose as one to support him. That this same  finger shook the establishment is also fact. Anna Hazare to be honest was an unknown entity except to those of us who have had a long relationship with Indian politics and history. But yet the youngsters many of them teenagers saw in him a messiah and a gandhi reborn. 

His propulsion to the national stage and capturing of the young crowd would not have been possible but for the herculean efforts of the India Against Corruption movement which leveraged the internet, social media, mobile communication to telling effect. This movement was supported and nurtured by many but 3 names stood out like the Ashoka pillar. Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Prashant Bhushan.

The reputation and capability of these 3 very worthies was high and they galvanised an entire nation to act under the watchful eyes of Anna. I also attended meetings and participated in candle light marches and donated to the movement which was brilliantly organised.

After a series of ups and downs the movement  culminated in the govt having to debate the lokpal bill or janlokpal bill whatever you may call it. This is when things started to start coming apart for me. The 3 stalwarts who I then dubbed as the troika were leading the discussions and the negotiations. They were a team and who was responsible for what was unclear so my comments were on the troika. Today I seem to know better, but more of that later.

My first sense of anguish was when the troika seemed to take as a stance that it must be their way or the highway. The suggestions, draft of a lokpal given by anyone else was defective, inadequate and not worthy of being considered. Only their version was perfect and should be passed without debate. This to me was neither democracy nor practical. 

The second was the provisions that the bill demanded. It was impractical and theoretical in a way. I say theoretical because they wanted the system to be outside the govt so to speak, did not want the govt involved and the basic assumption that a government CANNOT be trusted. That to me was pure anarchy. Also granting their demand, the people who would appoint/oversee the lokpal would have been anyway appointed by the same govt that they did not trust. And who would the lokpal report to ? No answers and one can say god and the cynics would say that it would report to IAC and the troika. 

To me when a lokpal had eluded solution for 46 years it was foolish to assume that in all these years the country has never had a honest, sincere polity and so the lokpal had not been passed. It did show that there were structural & systemic  issues given our federal nature of constitution. It was not easy. For a system that had eluded us for 46 years pragmatism suggested that we make a beginning and then build upon it, improve it and strengthen it. But it was the my way or high way that prevailed.

Finally pragmatism also suggested that no politician, no government, no political party anywhere in the world would like to cede space to a citizens movement and its demand without claiming victory for themselves. I at that time opined that inspired by the arab spring movement and the millions who supported them, the troika saw themselves as super heroes who would topple the government and emerge as leaders. This was what made them refuse to negotiate, refuse to accommodate others and soon many who were supporting them in the NGO space abandoned them. The government and the polity in general took advantage and drove wedges and finally decided to simply ride the storm out by throwing a challenge that they join politics and stop sermonising. The result was that the movement did fizzle out and when Anna came back for a 2nd innings he found the crowds missing.

I blamed the troika for this mess and the inability to seize the opportunities offered and for not being pragmatic and mostly obduracy. 

The next is history with Arvind Kejriwal in a way breaking away along with Prashant Bhushan and forming the Aam Aadmi Party. I seriously felt that Anna had not the energy to see this through given his age and Kiran Bedi was not too keen on active politics. I welcomed the new party and even if they did not win I was sure that they would get at least a few seats, establish credibility and get the opportunity to fight from within to change the system for better. I rooted for the man Arvind and hoped that his party would be different and supported and donated to the party.

While they have been different and I still do not doubt their sincerity and honesty of purpose I  slowly over time realised that my criticism of the Anna movement and the troika had shifted to the AAP since they were now displaying the same behavioral patterns. Earlier their behaviour was against the  government and now they displayed it against their fellow citizens.  No wonder then that Kiran Bedi  and even the mentor Anna are both highly critical of Arvind and AAP. 

The first inking of this I got was when they announced some radical ideas like seeking peoples referendum for decisions, freebies to people and a general antagonism towards the corporates. My concern was that the first was impractical barring for very crucial issues of national importance to be used but rarely, the second was understandable provided it was backed by a sound plan to get the desired revenues for such expenses and the third as a anachronism in 2013. Whenever such questions were asked by people the supporters of AAP finally responded with - if you are not with us, you must be corrupt - kind of responses. It is not that Arvind was not aware of this since many including me have raised this question to him on social media and social media was his movements bread and butter. I feel that at no time did he either try to address this concern or change the script at his end.

Slowly other chinks started coming out. His criticism against the ruling party at the centre, namely Congress became less muted and his vitriol against BJP more prominent. True, he can claim that he has criticised both but to me it reminded me of the USA foreign policy of the old where they hyphenated India and Pakistan together in everything they did. Everyone knew where the loyalties of USA lay which was Pakistan but you could never point it out strongly. I saw in Arvind and AAP the same strategy that USA followed. He hyphenated BJP and Congress but his sympathies were clear.  While none can prove it the BJP went its way with its own strategy but the Congress and AAP seemed to be playing out a script. Many on SM have shared statistics by literally counting his criticisms of both to show his bias and his obvious silence on certain individuals.

To me he and his party should have been taking the moral high ground by maintaining equidistance from both parties but at the same time willing to do business with them since you cannot wish away both the parties and you cannot govern without being accommodative. Politics after all is the art of the impossible.

While I was confident that AAP would do well enough to gain credibility and a counter force in politics I was equally surprised at the extent of victory which was impressive. But unfortunately they earned the sobriquet of being the Congress B team in the process. They have I think not done enough to dispel this notion.

If however the AAP for the sake of pragmatic politics wants to accept the support of Congress, that is equally fine but to put on a farcical show that they are not for it is hypocritical to say the least. I would much rather that they accepted the support with grace than make it appear that they are holier than thou. Some supporters asked me what my suggestion was rather than criticise. While it may sound idealistic I did offer the following suggestion. See also what a particular survey said about the situation. Just read what is relevant to this opinion which is that the credibility of Arvind/AAP is far lower than what Anna and his movement has, that the nexus between Congress and AAP at the top is apparent even if  the AAP supporters don't want it.

I said that the AAP must form a minority government thus maintaining equidistant from both major parties. In anycase the majority of the work, the systemic changes, the work on the ground  are administrative and executive not legislative. So AAP could have shown how to run the government, how to clean up the system, how to make people get corruption free services, how to improve security for citizens and many more for none of which they need the support of the opposition. For any legislative action where I assume that the AAP would bring in legislation that is morally right, ethically correct and benefits the country all they have to do is demand a conscience vote each time from all members without a secret ballot. That would expose the members of the house in front of the people for what they are. A party that wants to hold people referendum for  all major decisions should have followed that principle here also. When a Arvind says that Rome wasnt built in a day  why not take this innovative approach and if by chance the government falls, then so be it. Arvind and AAP would have the moral high ground and if there were then re-elections, AAP could well expect a sweep. 

Instead we have had to witness the farce of a so called referendum asking people if they should form government with congress support  as if that would wash away the impressions that many have of AAP being the alter ego of Congress party. And the allegation is not that AAP is corrupt because I as of now continue to believe in their honesty, sincerity and dedication. The allegation is that the AAP is more created to divide urbanised middle class educated votes which would help the Congress in its bid for UPA 3 rather than as a movement by itself. If in the process the AAP gets its place in the sun and 2 minutes of fame with Congress support, get some of their pet agendas implemented claim credit and when the time is ripe Congress will pull the plug and swallow AAP hook, line and sinker alongwith Arvind. 

Just see the immediate actions of AAP after the Delhi win. At one level they claim that Bangalore gave them the largest support followed by Mumbai. Both these places have huge urbanised, educated, middle class populations which is the bedrock for AAP. Mumbai has had huge scandals like the Adarsh scam while Karnataka has had the mining scam. AAP could well have chosen to announce their Loksabha ambitions from Delhi or Mumbai or Bangalore but no, they focus only on Gujarat. If this doesnt stink of a back room arrangement between Congress and AAP then nothing else does. Arvind once commented that communal forces must be kept at bay, again a Congress dialogue. Even when he criticises Congress he hyphenates it with BJP with a more stronger remark.

But for the fact that the SM was abuzz with Arvind/ AAP colluding with Congress, they would have accepted the Congress support with alacrity. I had time and again predicted on SM that Arvind will find a ingenious solution to justify accepting Congress support. They did with the so called peoples referendum. Arvind is a smart person, he will not like to sacrifice his credentials and reputations more than what he can afford to. I suspect that someone else like Prashant Bhushan or Manish Sisodia will be made CM of Delhi so when the fall comes, Arvind escapes unscathed. 

Last but not the least I continue to believe that the AAP/ Arvind are more idealistic than pragmatic, more theoretical than practical and actually believe more about themselves than the facts. I say this because when they make comments like holding a referendum on Kashmir and if the people of Kashmir desire so, hand over the state to Pakistan they appear woefully ignorant of global geopolitics, security and long term strategy. Now THAT is indeed worrisome to me. Time will tell whether the AAP will be a game changer in Indian politics or whether like many others before (more recently the Chiranjeevi phenomenon) they also succumb to the spider who said - come into my parlour - and get swallowed up and cast aside. But the fact remains that they would have been a blip on the Indian radar and it is now upto them to either grow the blip with long term strategy or fritter away the gains for short term glory.