Left
AAP as an experiment needs to be carefully watched because it defied the established language of politics
Even in its seemingly certain failure, AAP as an experiment needs to be carefully watched because it defied the established language of politics AAP was formed in the context of an anti-corruption agitation but its promise touched upon a menu of many broader matters. One was the possibility that ordinary citizens can engage with politics more easily. Another pertained to breaching the elite-mass division in matters of governance, so that democracy would mean citizen engagement in decision-making. These ideas had the subversive potential of changing the nature of elite-dominated politics in which professional politicians alone call the shots.
New party, old tactics
AAP also offered a vision of pro-people policies as represented by its promises about Delhi’s water supply, electricity bills and so on. These ideas did not have any firm ideological lineage but the reference to the nexus between political class and corporate interests gave an impression that the party was interested in reining in corporate capitalism.
After nearly four and a half years of its existence, the party has more or less stopped talking about most of these issues. True, its campaigns during the Delhi Assembly elections of 2013 and 2015 were remarkable for large-scale participation by new entrants to politics. But since then, the party has neither channelised those energies systematically nor has it come up with any new model whereby ordinary citizens can easily engage in party work. Two, after the fiasco of its first government in Delhi and the drama of holding open house meetings with citizens, the party curiously stopped experimenting on the modes of citizen engagement in decision-making. But most notably, its acerbic attacks on corporates became mute very soon.
Moreover, the infamous conflict among its founding members and the uncivilised way in which dissent was handled in 2015 suddenly made the party look like any other party. With its disproportionate reliance on the image of one leader, concentration of power in the hands of Arvind Kejriwal, the many scandals and controversies that surrounded its Delhi MLAs, the shine of AAP wore out. The disastrous rout in Delhi’s municipal elections has added to the gloom surrounding the grand promise of the party.
But there is a sense of betrayal rather than mere electoral failures. The party came into being with the claim that it would usher in alternative politics. That possibility of alternative politics is becoming dim by the day and the lion’s share in this development goes to AAP itself. It promised something that it never was prepared for. And yet, many — scholars, hard-boiled observers and lay citizens — invested faith in AAP, perhaps because the promise of alternative politics and imagination lay in the eyes of the beholders.
For long, party politics appeared to have hit a dead end. New parties emerged but never offered a new menu, leading to the situation of ‘more of the same’. Since the 1990s, the possibility that BJP’s Hindutva would hijack democracy led to tactical considerations instead of qualitative improvements in the form and substance of politics. Hence, when Congress appeared to be clueless about popular aspirations and also became unaccountably unresponsive during UPA-II, AAP held the promise by riding the 2011 wave of public protests. But the sudden rise of the personality cult of Narendra Modi swiftly overshadowed the shine of AAP. That development disrupted the calculations about the propitiousness of the moment when AAP was formed.
But as an experiment, AAP needs to be carefully looked at and watched because it defied the established logic and language of politics based on caste, community and region.
Suhas Palshikar taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University
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Right
Instead of taking the road less travelled, AAP is widely perceived to have slipped into ‘business as usual’
The Aam Aadmi Party emerged out of a popular anti-corruption campaign that demanded the establishment of an independent and empowered Lokpal. Top leaders of the party were associated with the right to information movement before donning their politician avatar. It was therefore a natural expectation, when the people of Delhi gave the party a resounding mandate in 2015, that AAP would be a party with a difference, setting the standard for probity in public life.
The last two years, however, have left voters in Delhi disenchanted. Instead of taking the road less travelled, the party is widely perceived to have slipped into ‘business as usual’. The first blow came even before the elections, when the party gave tickets to several candidates with questionable integrity, solely on considerations of winnability. Dissenting voices objecting to the selection of such candidates were unceremoniously removed from the party.
Shady dealings
The departure from alternative politics became even more apparent when after the Assembly elections, like all other parties, AAP refused to come under the ambit of the Right to Information Act. Even the limited initiative, of disclosing details of funds received and list of donors, was hastily discontinued reportedly because the donors were being harassed for contributing to the party. But then, running a political party transparently was never likely to be an easy task — unfortunately, instead of showing the way, the party chose to succumb. The AAP website persistently shows their donor list as being “Under Construction”.
Transforming Delhi
The hope that the AAP government would transform Delhi into the ‘transparency capital’ of the country has also not come to fruition. A national assessment of websites of the offices of Chief Ministers revealed that the Delhi CMO, in violation of Section 4 of the RTI law, failed to suo motu provide requisite information.
An audit of proactive disclosure of expenditure of Delhi MLA Local Area Development funds has shown that, in violation of orders of the Central Information Commission, the Delhi government is not displaying boards in constituencies giving information on how the funds are being spent. A recent report by organisations working on the issue of food security in Delhi found that in about 60% of the ration shops audited, information boards that should have been displayed were missing.
The raison d’etre of AAP was the resistance of other political parties to submit themselves to scrutiny by setting up an independent and empowered Lokpal.
On the Lokpal
In fact, in 2014 the AAP government resigned from office ostensibly because it had been prevented from introducing a powerful Lokayukta bill in the Delhi Assembly. Ironically, the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill, 2015 passed by the Delhi Assembly fails to provide sufficient powers and independence to the Lokpal, which is neither financially independent nor empowered to appoint its own staff. The Bill does not even provide the Jan Lokpal a dedicated investigation wing.
Finally, AAP’s promise of ensuring peoples’ participation in formulating legislation and policies has not materialised. In fact, the Delhi government has failed to even adopt the requirements laid down in the existing national policy on pre-legislative consultation. Important bills, including the Delhi (Right of Citizen to Time Bound Delivery of Services) Amendment Bill, 2015, were not made available in the public domain prior to being introduced in the Assembly, thereby precluding any possibility of public consultation.
The 2015 victory for AAP was a clear vote against widespread corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in the working of political parties. The onus is now on AAP to urgently act and ensure that the unprecedented electoral mandate for alternative politics is not decimated.
Anjali Bhardwaj is a member of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information
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Centre
Electoral defeat, even in succession, is never ever sufficient cause for the destruction of a party
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is being written off as a political party by ‘apolitical’ pundits and parties across the spectrum after the recent losses in the Assembly elections held in Punjab and Goa followed by the municipal elections in Delhi. There are credible media reports about the party facing internal dissension both in Delhi and in Punjab. Are the obituaries being written in haste? Is their grim prognosis referring merely to the electoral fate of the party? Or, are they predicting an end to the seductive promise of an ‘alternative politics’ when AAP entered the political arena after the Anna Hazare-led ‘India against corruption movement’ and decimated two of the most powerful/resourceful parties in their own backyard within two years of its inception? Sifting through these prognostic obituaries in electronic and social media, one finds both strands of thought.
Several handicaps
As for the first, electoral defeat, even in succession, is never the sufficient cause for the destruction of a party. Besides, in Punjab and Goa, the fledgling party managed to secure 24% and 6% vote share, respectively, and held its own against two well-entrenched parties. In fact the pessimism about the long-term electoral fate of AAP has always been there to the extent that its few electoral successes have been considered aberrations and for good reasons.
In an electoral democracy like India with its diversity, a party in order to be electorally successful needs to have a strong organisational structure, a clearly identifiable ideology on key social and economic issues and also a core socioeconomic constituency.
Then, a party having national ambition needs also to have a set of credible State/regional-level community-based leadership. AAP has faltered on all these counts, and so is prone to electoral failures. That AAP represents some form of an alternative mode of politics lies in its very ‘exceptional’ origin and existence. First, AAP owes its inception to a movement that was led by and supported overwhelmingly by the rising urban middle classes, a rarity in contemporary India. Second, AAP is also an ‘original’ party in the sense that unlike other ‘new’ parties neither was it the result of a split from an existing party nor was it set up by an ambitious leader leaving his larger party, more often than not from a powerful community. Third, it is also difficult to bracket AAP into neat categories of national; secular /religious; conservative/radical. Fourth, AAP stands apart for its conscious attempt to reach out to larger electorates cutting across long-established patterns of partisan social alignment or cleavages in India.
Anti-establishment stance
The party has done it by projecting itself as anti-establishment, taking on some of the most powerful segments of society on the issue of corruption in high places. It has relentlessly run a campaign against the corporate sector, big business groups and media and business tycoons, something no other party has dared or would dare to do, given the political economy of electoral finance. As a trade-off, the party has faced the wrath of the media, especially the electronic media that is increasingly controlled by powerful interest groups.
The significance of AAP, despite its limited electoral presence and chequered successes, lies in its insistence on probity in public life. The AAP has clearly been a trendsetter of a ‘new ‘ mode of politics, forcing rival establishment parties to take note and follow.
Ashutosh Kumar is professor of political science at Panjab University
