The Ideology Nurtured by Aam Aadmi

Kejriwal's coming to power in New Delhi without use of money and muscle power or exploiting caste, creed and religious fault lines of our society, has been widely hailed as the begining of a reformative era in Indian politics. What remains a little less talked about amidst all the clamors and voices here and there, is probably what is going to be the new ideological base of the upcoming parties in India?

For sure, Congess and BJP along with regional parties and other national parties are going to stay in the power arena of politics in the present century, but a new current that has started to flow from Delhi is bound to descend to the low laying plains of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and go down south towards the oceans in the years to come, and while the river of change sweeps through the nation it will widen, twist and turn, become muddier, at places it will dry out, at places it would flood. What is the ideology that is going to be born out of all such twist and turn that will direct India in the years to come? Aam Aadmi's voice?

Well, ideally Democracy means inclusion of people's voices in decision making, in a way. But will it be always possible to go for a referendum before making any decision? Well, if Newton's age was the age of celebration of powers and mystries of  Mother Gravity, then ours is the age of Information Communication Technology. Referendums will surely become more popular. But then if Arvind Kejriwal changed his parties election manifesto of not taking (or giving) support from (or to) either Congress and BJP, just after conducting a survey through social media and mobile phones, then where will the foundation of the pyramid of good governance that we are building, find stability and firmness? If tomorrow the educated youth with mobile and network connections votes in favor of decreasing reservations (or seats) in Delhi University for SC/ ST/ OBC or students from outside Delhi, will the Delhi government take the demand forward to the Central Government and DU's administration? If tomorrow car owners vote to remove rikshaws from the streets of Delhi, will that be supported? Who would voice the concerns of the poor and the marginalized and those who do not vote for the government in power?

These are thoughts worth pondering over. There is need of good, corruption free and efficient administration. Politics should become so clean that educated, clean, common men of our society should also be able to fight elections and come to power to provide their services to the Nation. But we must move ahead with a studied silence amidst all the noises that the news channels make. Our's is a time of transition, and to find ourselves at right places in future, our's is a time of thorough reading of History, Sociology, Polity and mediate over what we want and through what means.

-chk

Arvind Kejriwal: A phenomenon

PV Narsimha Rao saw Mayawati as the miracle of democracy. A dalit woman, to rise to power in the ganga-jamuna belt was nothing less than that for any political analyst back then. Today, it is taken as conventional common sense that dalit vote bank play crucial role in the game of numbers during any election.  One can owe this to V P Singh’s government’s passing of ordinance for incorporating the Mandal Commission’s recommendations and the subsequent protest by the upper caste, leading to deepening of caste consciousness and self assertion by the so far oppressed section of society in the backdrop of the changing economy post liberalization.

What we are witnessing today, is no less dramatic. The astronomical figures attached to each subsequent scam during the recent past, coupled with high inflation and rising food and petrol prices, outraged one and all. The tireless efforts of civil society, helped in the enactment of RTI Act in 2005. Since then, the opacity in government works have been lowered to some extent. The public demands and gets information. The government to is making more and more information available on the websites. The numerous news channels arouse the public sentiments against corruption and social media helps bringing the educated masses closer to mainstream. All this gave momentum to Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption in 2011. Now the government is about the enact the Lokapal Act by constitutional amendment.

Amidst all this, the meteoric rise of Arvind Kejriwal can be seen as the beginning the new era of politics where people with seemingly meager resource can rise by talking about developmental issues rather than playing the caste or communal cards. Though its just a start but there are all reasons to believe that this shift that we are witnessing, is going to be permanent. The educated  people of Delhi recognised the new voice and this is a good sign.

A lot depends on AAP. If AAP candidates set up examples of good governance then the other national parties will also have to redefine their ways of working. BJP has understood this and is not seen playing the communal card now a days. Narendra Modi rallies focus on issues of corruption and good governance.

The democratic mechanism has made such a thing possible. The voice of people cannot be ignored in a democracy and people want a corruption free India.

http://chakreshblog.blogspot.in/2012/08/kejriwal-rises.html

Eyes Set On Kejriwal

Team Anna called off its fast until death move seeing that the ruling UPA party was in no mood of passing the Lokapal Bill in the coming parliamentary session. The move of calling off the fast was wise as there was no point of blackmailing the government in the first place itself. The government has been hostile towards the movement from the very beginning and had not shown the political will of doing something serious about the issue of corruption from the very beginning.

It was a treat to see the retired army general V.K. Singh sitting besides Anna ji on the Anshan stage. His short speech was energizing and must have made every Indian proud to see a courageous solider, Anna Hazare, and the humble general coming on one stage to raise their voice against the problems of the nation. The heart gets filled with respect when one sees a diabetic Arvind Kejriwal fasting for nine days and then coming on stage to recite one of Dushyant’s poem: ho chuki hai peer parvat si pighalni chahiye, is himalay se koi ganga nikalni chahiye…

Arvind Kejriwal talked about how they have decided to come to politics and give the Indian public a political alternative. Also, in his brief speech, he gave an inkling of how the party will look like. But amidst all this, one can see that Kejriwal, who is known to be the mind behind the movement, is going wrong in some of his calculations. In the equations of politics, corruption has never been a much talked of issue. Roti, kapada aur makan with a mix of communal, caste and varga politics has been the success mantra for most the political parties so far, not forgetting the money spent to buy votes and MPs. It has been accepted by the Indian masses, more importantly the ones’ who go to vote, as an inevitable evil of the system. A Bill against corruption is one thing and public perception about corruption is another.

There is no doubt that Team Anna, will act as an anti-congress, anti-BJP faction during the 2014 elections and both the parties can expect a shift in their vote banks, though one can’t say who will actually get the benefit of such shifts in general. Congress surely faces a tough task ahead of belittling the Anna movement and undermining each and every flaw in the team to make the whole movement look like a farce when it goes to election campaign. Being a party with great experience in politics, it has actually started questioning the sanctity of the IAC movement, by saying that they already knew that team Anna had political aims and the movement was just a means of fooling the people.

Anna ji says, that an effective Lokpal Bill can bring down corruption by 60%. What is 100% corruption? Is there any way in which the any country can even give an estimate amount of money that is lost due to corruption every year? Arvind Kejriwal counted two three major scams in his speech and reached a number four lack seventy thousand crore, by adding up the estimated loss to the exchequers in those scams. Let us start with the number assuming it to be the sum total of all the money lost to corruption (obviously it is just a poor approximation). There are twenty eight state (let’s leave the union territories for now). Let’s say each state has an equally corrupt political-bureaucratic nexus. Dividing the figure by twenty eight gives us sixteen thousand crore per state. Well, recently CBI made it public that the exCM of Uttar Pradesh has an asset of worth rupees one hundred and eleven crore against her name. Such a small number! By all logics she can be proved to be innocent and a politician with a clean record. She was the CM of for five years of a state which was entitled to rob its people by sixteen thousand crore an year (again reminding its just and understated approximation). Where probably is the rest of the money? Undeclared?

Where ever the money may be, it’s so neatly hidden that even the CBI could not bring it on paper. It is a matter of belief that we should go with the figures that the CAG gives us about 2G scam or alike. The art of hiding the act of corruption is not mastered overnight. Probably we can apply the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest to explain the jungle raj and its workings here. But coming back to the equations of politics and corruption, team Anna seems to be too simplistic in thinking that framing of a strong Lokpal Bill will attain some miraculous feet in bringing down corruption. The politicians, including the fifteen ministers of cabinet who were earlier alleged of being corrupt, will neatly hide their corrupt acts and escape in most of the cases. Well, some will obviously be too thick to escape the nets of a strong bill, but bringing down the corruption by 60% is nothing but a tearfully laughable joke.

Team Anna’s view has made corruption synonymous the ruling UPA party. There is no doubt that the UPA government is left answerless to most of the charges of corruption and mismanagement of public fund in various schemes and policies is widely accepted. But can congress be made to leave the power politics in near future? If yes, then will it mean an end to corruption in India? Well, as of today both the questions will have to settle down with negative answers.

All that a pro-Anna, anti-corruption Indian can hope for today is that the movement that Anna started should not go in the gutters and should become more popular with people in near future so that the chances of new political alternative becoming stronger strengthens with time. Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal will have to do some homework in sorting out a meaningful agenda for the upcoming party and will have to rethink his understanding of the corruption that India is facing today.

-ckh