Shruti Kapila, whose home state of Punjab has become Kejriwal's first conquest outside Delhi, tries in her feeble way to attack AAP on behalf of the INC. She is a very silly lady but Rahul is almost as silly. Thus her recent article in Print may provide some clues to the thinking of the Clown Prince of Indian politics.
AAP is a lazy and guilt-free version of the BJPFor all its talk of honesty, the Kejriwal-led party’s identity-free identity is anything but authentic
A decade after the all-out media love affair with it, the Aam Aadmi Party continues to occupy an outsized position in India’s headlines.
The party was only founded in November 2012. There had been a media love affair with Anna Hazare, but most thought the BJP not Kejriwal would benefit by it.
Although the Gujarat assembly elections are yet to be announced, excited pollsters have already begun to project upward curves for Arvind Kejriwal and his prospects there. Tied indelibly to the Indian National Congress, since its inception and to date, AAP is projected as the good cop to the bad cop of the Congress.
Kejriwal finished off Congress in Delhi. He is not 'tied' to that bunch of losers. Initially, he was taking aim at Ambanis, Adanis and Modi as their puppet. He has moderated those attacks but he is not greatly concerned with Congress because it keeps committing hara kiri off its own bat. Look at how infighting within Congress has harmed the party in Punjab. Kejriwal didn't have to do a thing. Congress collapsed by itself.
If Punjab and Delhi assembly elections are anything to go by, then as the latest pretender to the national crown, AAP is forcing the grand old party into a mortal conflict with it.
Congress is its own worst enemy. It is foolish to pretend that Kejriwal, not Rahul, has brought down the INC.
Precisely because of the media excitement and adulation, it is much harder to discover what the AAP and its ardent fans stand for.
It is very easy to discover this. Just listen to what Kejriwal is saying. It is 'due you want free electricity? We will give it to you. Vote for us.'
The standard explanation for the rise of the AAP is accounted for in three ways: One, that it is not the Congress and therefore offers novelty.
But all other parties are also not Congress. There has been nothing novel about this for forty or fifty years.
Two and relatedly, it is not perceived to be corrupt.
Some of its ministers are corrupt. That is inevitable in a new party. But Kejriwal can be pretty ruthless so this is not a big concern.
Three, it is only interested in governance.
No. Kejriwal is interested in publicity and P.R. He spends a lot on this. I think people like feeling good about themselves and the prospects for their City or Province. Kejriwal's persona is not that of a self-effacing technocrat like Manmohan. He incarnates the more urban and politically savvy 'common man' of a country which is developing rapidly.
All this somehow has amounted to the celebration of Kejriwal as an ace and astute politician. This is not only inadequate but entirely misleading. If you don’t want to read further, my main point is that AAP is primarily a lazy and guilt-free version of the BJP.
A lazy assertion from a shameless savant of silliness.
For all the multiplicity that India’s 50-plus political parties might represent, the map of political ideas is rather simple. With the capture of a popular mandate because of its ideology and leader, the BJP under Narendra Modi has overwhelmed the national storyline. In three words, the BJP script as it stands is: Strongman, Hindu First.
Which party in a Hindu dominated country offers 'Weak Man. Hindus Last'? This is a recipe for being wiped out in the polls. Kejriwal's formula is 'Common Man. Common People first'. That works well. Kejriwal does not have to compete with Modi by being received by foreign dignitaries and making impressive speeches. He has perfected the persona of an ordinary fellow with no delusions of grandeur who talks turkey and who won't get sidetracked from delivering things ordinary people actually need.
By contrast, Kejriwal’s carefully cultivated image of victimhood, modesty and, above all, ordinariness seeks to cloak his aggressive pursuit of power.
Kejriwal showed ruthlessness in getting rid of people like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav. That looked risky but, with hindsight, we feel Kejriwal's instinct was correct. Bhushan and Yadav were clowns.
If Modi is meant to be the saviour of the nation, then the aam aadmi is cast as the nation’s sufferer. The so-called ‘aam aadmi’ is meant to be the counter-cult figure to Modi.
Initially, Kejriwal did try to attack Modi and suggest he was a tool of the Ambanis and Adanis. Then he saw this would not wash so he changed tactics. Modi is the older man. Kejriwal can bide his time.
If Hindutva defines Modi, then the clarion call against corruption has charted Kejriwal’s rise to power.
Initially, yes. But what kept him in power is freebies and PR. It also helped that he could recite Hanuman Chalisa and that he kept clear of the stupid anti-CAA protests.
But really, who is this aam aadmi?
a more urban and 'middle class' person with aspirations but on a tight budget.
Kejriwal’s party painstakingly projects the common man as a populist victim. Stripped of his social inheritance, be it caste or religion, to say nothing of its open appeal to the Indian male, the aam aadmi could be your low-income salariat or business magnate.
Low-income people in 'service- okay- but business magnates aren't 'common people'. Some entrepreneurs who have done well may, on the other hand, identify with the common man because the size of their own market depends on policies which help such people. In particular, 'freebies' can reduce risk-aversion and increase effective demand. Modi may be right to warn of some States going off a fiscal cliff and then suffering as Sri Lanka suffers because of entitlement collapse. But, in Gujarat, his party will have to match Kejriwal's offer to the voters.
Either way, rich or poor, the point of their bond is their common grind against a powerful and bureaucratised State defined by corruption.
That may have been true of the original Anna Hazare movement. Now the focus has shifted to scams which defraud Nationalized Banks of billions. But that is a more technical matter.
This makes it all too appealing. After all, who has not suffered at the hands of Indian bureaucracy? But the moot question is, how is it that very different kinds of Indians—wealthy, middle class and the low-incomed—can all vouch to be ordinary and oppressed?
Because of dynasticism. That's a simple but effective answer. A ruling family which protects its own sycophants licenses those sycophants to plunder whom they please. That's what brought Rajiv Gandhi down. Kejriwal came of age against that background.
Unlike many other countries, India’s corruption is both vertical and horizontal.
If it is horizontal, it must also be vertical otherwise it would have been curbed by those with more authority.
It is not that the Indian State is uniquely or pathologically corrupt. But its form of corruption is distinctive.
Not really. It is what we would expect in a Democracy.
Advanced and wealthy economies, as the insightful scholarship on corruption tells us, are marked by horizontal corruption in the form of kickbacks and cuts for big deals and that takes place between equals, as typified in the interface between corporates and government lobbyists elsewhere.
That is not horizontal. It is vertical. A corporate lobbyist is seeking to influence, perhaps by corrupt means, those with greater legal authority. Horizontal corruption is represented by conspiracies in restraint on trade- e.g. shop keepers agreeing to share profits while price fixing. The moment money passes to someone with higher authority, you have vertical corruption- e.g. if the retail trade pays off legislators or the Office of Fair Trade so as to continue to enjoy per se illegal cartel privileges.
Poorer countries with big bureaucracy have a vertical relationship whereby disempowered citizens must pay from their meagre pockets to access public goods. If in any doubt, do read Akhil Gupta’s brilliant book Red Tape, which provides a thick description of everyday corruption in the working of India’s public distribution system.
Gupta should have stuck with engineering. Instead he became a Foucault and Agamben spouting nitwit of an anthropologist. He gasses on about 'structural violence'. The plain truth is that in parts of rural UP and Bihar, there was a caste struggle. Voters would tolerate more gangsterism and corruption provided people of their own caste displaced the older elites. But, by 2012- the year 'Red Tape' was published- things had begun to change. 'Last mile delivery' became more important than caste. 'Hindu consolidation' was also a factor in this.
India is unique in that it has extensive vertical and horizontal corruption thus binding its citizenship in a fake similarity.
No country that has horizontal corruption doesn't have vertical corruption. Equally, if there is vertical corruption, people will do deals so as to disintermediate official channels- e.g. diverting transactions to the 'black economy'.
This common enemy of vague but pervasive corruption has allowed AAP to become populist and in its classic textbook definition:
Which party isn't populist? You would have to go back to the Thirties and the time of 'Zamindar parties' to find any such thing.
The AAP has cut across traditional Left and Right directions or even class that marks party affiliation.
So has the BJP. Congress, at one time, was a big tent.
This gives the AAP the aura of a popular if superficial unity.
No. Its unity arises from Kejriwal's complete dominance and the ruthlessness with which he dumps trouble makers or those who attract negative publicity. Let us see whether this approach succeeds in Punjab.
Crucially, by focusing on corruption as a victim narrative, the party has abdicated responsibility to do anything substantial about corruption. Look no further than the fate of the Lokpal Bill that had catapulted it into power in Delhi.
That was the Bhushan's brain-child. The thing was always a joke. The plain fact is that Kejriwal offered the people of Delhi a chance to be ruled by one of their own- rather than some sycophant of the Dynasty or a guy who wore khaki knickers and had sworn fealty to the RSS. It remains to be seen whether AAP can offer Punjab better governance than Congress.
Shorn of a political project barring the capture of power, AAP has further created an effective sameness between different demands and issues. Corruption, energy and household bills, education, and now the media, all incite the same kind of rage and sanctimony from Kejriwal.
Nothing wrong with rage against inflation and eroding living standards. But Kejriwal is not sanctimonious. He is pugnacious. His 'bania' blood gives him credibility. He is saying 'the State can afford to make your lives more livable.' People believe him because he looks like the kind of guy who understands money.
AAP is a sign of our 21st century times where the lingo of governance, efficiency, and transparency trumps more traditional political concerns.
Like what? Anarchy? Inefficiency? Opaqueness? Traditional political concerns may have had to whether this branch of of a dynasty gets to rule rather than that branch. Indeed, ten years ago, some thought that Indian politics would become a contest between Rahul Gandhi and Varun Gandhi with their respective mothers taking potshots at each other.
AAP’s political utopia seems to be administrators, both low and high, as political agents.
No. Elected politicians must take responsibility for the actions of administrators who in turn should work hard so that the politician's can fulfil their manifesto commitments.
If you mention political virtues or even values such as equality, freedom, or justice to the party’s many urban and voluble fans you would be accused of being ‘ideological’ or worse ‘privileged’.
No. You will be considered a bullshitter. Then people find out you are a Professor of a non-STEM subject and they look at you pityingly.
The idea of the aam seeks to project ordinariness as common cause and identity.
It is the same idea as that of 'awam' or that of the 'janata' or the 'lok'. There is nothing new about this at all.
This has allowed Kejriwal’s party to strategically skip and shy away from the big social questions of caste and religion.
There is no point banging on about such 'questions'. Leave it to cretins who teach shite subjects.
It is as though there is no such thing as society for the Aam Aadmi Party. Just pure civic consumerism. ‘Give me free electricity, as I live in X city and will vote for you in turn!’ seems the bottom line of political association. BR Ambedkar who finds favour in AAP’s symbolics, would not only baulk but also despair at this dangerous absence of society.
Nonsense! Ambedkar was a pragmatist with PhDs in Fiscal policy and Monetary theory. The question is can AAP policies work? Yes, if there is a virtuous circle whereby less uncertainty for those on low incomes leads to less risk aversion and higher factor mobility and hence higher productivity which in turn means higher tax revenue. Kapila is a kretin. Ambedkar was an economist who was also a barrister and expert on constitutional law.
In an age of ascendant Hindutva and resurgent riots,
riots stop when the police open fire. Hindutva means ecumenical, anti-casteist, Hinduism. It is good for everybody if hereditary discrimination disappears from Society.
only the deliberately ignorant can declare this phenomenon as the end of identity politics.
Only the ignorant write such nonsense. Identity politics is measurable. Do voters of a particular identity group show statistically significant difference from voters of another group even after compensating for socio-economic factors? I think, identity politics has strengthened for some groups and declined for others. There is a sectarian dimension to this.
Kejriwal’s strategic silence on reservations and lack of clear steer on the Delhi riots of 2020 makes this all too apparent.
He is a sensible man. Delhites know that the Police are under the Home Ministry. What caused the riots was the pussillanimity of a soon to retire Police Chief. Kejriwal was free of blame though maybe some of his people were involved. But a new party is bound to have a few bad apples. What is important is that Kejriwal will ruthlessly abandon them.
Yet it would be a fundamental mistake to interpret this as a lofty ideal that seeks to transcend conflict or distinction.
Nobody cares about 'lofty ideals' though, no doubt, Modi can make them appear utile and attractive. But then, he is a remarkable man who has achieved a lot.
Instead, the AAP smacks of malevolent hypocrisy as it avoids being openly Hindu.
Kejriwal is openly Hindu because he is actually Hindu. Had he been Muslim or Sikh or Christian he would be openly of that religion. Still, I agree that the fact that Kejriwal is openly masculine is deplorable. Why does he not dress like a hijra?
Simply put, the party’s increasing appeal is also owed to those who are too squeamish to openly own up to the Hindu
Are there such people in India? Perhaps. But they would be a tiny minority of nutters who teach worthless shite.
First drift of India’s democracy.
is what? Shruti or her editors don't bother reading her shite. They just publish it while chuckling to themselves.
Arguably, the call on identity can be burdensome and even extractive of passions and loyalties.
but if passion and loyalty are 'extracted' then there would be no identity. Shruti may teach at Oxford but her Inglis is dehati.
To this extent, the AAP offers an easy, and lazy option out of the relentless calls of Hindutva,
but so does being in the BJP- which is how come that party has plenty of Muslims and Christians.
without having to own or abandon any of its principles.
Nonsense! If you join AAP you can continue to adhere to the principles of your religion. Kejriwal is welcome to recite Hanuman Chalisa. Imran Hussain can recite kalima. Our respect for them increases if they show themselves to be pious and devout.
For all its talk of honesty, this ordinary identity-free identity is anything but authentic.
Says an authentic cretin. Kejriwal's genius is to have crafted a persona which is authentically Delhi. Initially, some thought he was over-egging the cake. The reality is that he is a very smart guy who could have become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. But power hasn't changed him. We feel he is genuinely at home with ordinary people. I'm a 'Madrasi' who lived in Delhi for 3 years. I can never forget the kindness and helpfulness of the 'ordinary' Delhite. They did not speak much or show super-fine etiquette but they would always help people- especially those from other parts of India who looked confused or bewildered. Delhi has had heartless Emperors and Viceroys. But its people have always been good-hearted. Authenticity arises by matching your actions to your words- or, better yet, saying nothing but doing the needful with no expectation of thanks. Punjab did not vote to come under the control of Delhi's master. It voted for good and kind hearted administration such as arises from the salt of the earth.
Perhaps, voters will want their politicians to be jumped-up civil servants while they continue to remain ordinary consumers of free electricity and whatnot in a bid to depoliticise the country.
Shruti lives in England. She can see that civil servants obey politicians. That's how Democratic Societies function.
I seriously doubt, not least because India remains a most political society.
Only in the same sense that Britain does. Sadly, India suffered from dynasticism but that chapter seems set to close.
Gujarat, as the prized state of Hindutva, will not only test loyalties and attachments. It may also force the Aam Aadmi Party to openly own and embrace its true identity.
So, AAP has no authentic identity but it does have some occult 'true identity'. Moreover Gujarat has some magic power which will force AAP to discover this identity. Why? Kapila won't tell us. She started the article by saying Kejriwal is fighting Congress in Gujarat. Perhaps she means that AAP will show its anti-Congress cloven hoof in Gujarat. But that's crazy! It is the BJP that they have to square up to. They need to say 'we can form the next administration. We aren't interested in displacing some other party to become the opposition. We want to rule. Vote for us and we will reward you'.
Will Kejriwal pull it off? Maybe, if the BJP is complacent. Governments all over the world must protect the working and vulnerable section of the population. Careful 'mechanism design' is required so that there is a 'virtuous circle' of rising revenue rather than an entitlement collapse- as has happened in Sri Lanka. The good people of Punjab and Gujarat definitely deserve the former outcome which is more than feasible because India is a growing economy. Good luck to both Kejriwal and Modi and other professional politicians who are 'in it to win it' rather than just because it is a family tradition or they have some bogus 'vichardhara' or ideology.
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