The audacity of hope

The audacity of hope

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 05:00 PM IST
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The party has brought back ethics to Indian politics, which is increasingly dominated by a commercial process, in which policies and leaders are sold like cornflakes and toothpaste

The New Year will bear watching. By the end of 2013, political change had become inevitable in India. Exasperation with corruption and rape, which stood for a general culture of impunity, had found expression in street protests since 2012. At the end of last year, it found electoral expression in the Delhi Assembly election, where the success of the Aam Aadmi Party could be read as a rejection of mainstream parties. According to conventional wisdom, AAP’s new form of politics will be put to the test in 2014, and the Congress and the BJP are waiting gleefully to watch it clamber through the mire of what they are pleased to call ‘reality.’
But equally, it can be argued that the test is already over, that AAP has passed, and that speculation about the lifespan of its government in Delhi is wholly redundant. While the media ponders the longevity question, the party is already thinking of the national stage, in its uniquely transformative way. AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, whose visibility rivals that of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and who was significantly absent from the list of candidates for cabinet berths in Delhi, has announced his candidacy from Amethi.
Rather, Vishwas has announced his candidacy as the Rahul nemesis, promising to pop up in whatever constituency the Gandhi scion stands from. Further, he has taunted Narendra Modi for failing to challenge Gandhi on his own turf, daring him to enter a three-cornered contest, with the hope of theCongress and the bard of the AAP. As usual, the party is trying to take control of the field even before battle has begun.
Technological developments are preceded by a ‘proof of concept’, a demonstration that it can actually work. AAP can be said to have passed the test because it has delivered a political proof of concept, demonstrating that a new kind of politics is possible. It has done this from the ground up, from the level of funding, the foundation of electoral politics. And
this is opening up avenues of policymaking which are not available to the leading national parties.
For instance, by moving away from conventional wisdom, AAP may be able to sustain delivery of one of its core promises: 20,000 litres of free water per month to all families in Delhi. The policy, made possible by the removal of the CEO of the Delhi Jal Board, makes good the revenue loss by charging in full all connections which exceed the limit, and at 10 per cent more than the present rate.
In effect, the Aam Aadmi Party is delivering a freebie to the ‘aam janta’, its electoral base, at the expense of corporates, whose factories and installations are water-guzzlers, and the excessively rich, who may have a couple of lawns to water and three or four cars to wash. The Congress or the BJP could not possibly do this because it has separate sources of votes and funding. Votes come from the common people and the money from corporates and the extraordinarily well-off. The AAP has instituted retail fundraising, to which even rickshaw-pullers and people who live in shanties have contributed. People who would be willing to fund it also constitute its voter base, giving the party the freedom to promote their needs at the expense of other sections.
he BJP has given a certificate of approval to this strategy by adopting it in toto. Its campaign for the general elections will be crowd-funded, through a mechanism by which supporters can donate from Rs 10 to Rs 1,000. The financial implications may not be very significant for the BJP, which has access to enormous corporate funds and, of course, undeclared donations. But the beauty of crowd-funding, which is probably what attracted the attention of AAP in the first place, is that donors feel like investors and are more likely to convert into voters on election day. Since Narendra Modi is a fine crowd-puller, but crowds do not necessarily translate into votes, this could be a good insurance policy for the BJP.
But the greatest change wrought by the AAP is not about tactics, but about political psychology. The movement and the party have brought back ethics and the symbolism of ethical culture to Indian politics, which is increasingly dominated by a commercial process, in which policies and leaders are sold like cornflakes and toothpaste. The return of the Gandhi
cap, now with a slogan for ‘swaraj’ printed on one side and a broom on the other, is a fine reminder that nascent Indian politics owed much of its power to symbols like a handful of salt. Khadi, the most potent symbol of Independence-era politics, gave way to the emotive power of saffron in the 1990s. Saffron, too, is fading, as the hysteria over the Ayodhya movement recedes from view, leaving behind only politics that is drearily tactical, promotional and commercial.
The void could have been filled by yet another improbable enterprise like the Ram temple movement. But fortunately, the new politics is focussed on ethical symbols promoting egalitarianism, on which any attempt at direct democracy must be based. Arvind Kejriwal’s insistence on using his own Wagon-R instead of official transport with a beacon, his rejection of Z-plus security, his refusal to take accommodation in Lutyens’ Delhi and the fact that the party still operates from suburban, very middle class Kaushambi, are signs of new times. The chief minister’s choice of transport for his swearing-in ceremony was to be read as a message – the Metro from Kaushambi to Rajiv Chowk.
After so many signs, it is a bit peevish to insist upon a miracle, too. AAP members in Delhi are quite breezily saying that they don’t expect their government to last long. Sheila Dikshit has declined to comment on how long she will extend support. But it will last long enough for AAP to put the proof of concept out there. And anyway, the real question is not whether the state government in Delhi will survive, but whether AAP can extend its model to the general election. Perhaps not to win it but, yet again, to shake up the field and demonstrate that a new kind of politics is possible.
For once, the new year holds the promise of a new system of governance and politics. And gives us a chance to dream out of the box, to hope for a clean and ethical future and to believe that everything is possible if you try hard enough. Have a happy 2014!

Antara Dev Sen is Editor, *The Little Magazine*.
Email:sen@littlemag.com

   Antara Dev Sen

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