The unprecedented electoral victory of the Narendra Modi led BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and the spectacular triumph of Arvind Kejriwal led AAP (Aam Aadmi Pary) in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections represent a clear break from the past. Both are significant in their own separate ways and should not be seen as contradictory to one another or mutually exclusive. The ‘Big Broom’ and the ‘Little Broom’ promise to usher in a new era of rapid and sustained economic growth at the national level; and corruption free and responsive self-governance at the grass roots level, respectively. The two leaders are responding creatively to global trends in macro-development strategies, and the growing disaffection of the impoverished millions across the world, respectively.
Putting the country back on the path of rapid and sustained economic growth is overdue. The nation lost several years under the rule of the UPA-II. Economic revival calls for concerted and urgent measures to nurture a business friendly environment so as to attract domestic and foreign investment on a vast scale. The development agenda of Modi had won a clear and massive mandate from the people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari in July 2014. The “alternative politics” spearheaded by the Kejriwal-led AAP won a stunning victory (67 out of 70 seats) in Delhi in February 2015. Both the mandates are equally legitimate and reflect the will of an overwhelming majority of the people. Just because the AAP victory came along subsequently does not mean a negation or diminution of the earlier popular verdict. The two operate at different levels (national and local), and are not at cross purposes as is made out by some analysts.
Modi and Kejriwal face many obstacles
The electoral reality in a continental sized country like India comprising myriad subgroups of all hues and sizes is very complex, and calls for a more nuanced understanding than the conceptual carpenters seek to box it in! Citizens and voters have a hierarchy of concerns and needs. Both Modi and Kejriwal have come on the scene in response to the felt needs of the times, which are not amenable to the narrow confines of logic. “Life is larger than logic,” as Gurudev Tagore observed wisely.
The two leaders should succeed in their distinct missions for the good of the nation. However, it is important to recognise that massive mandates do not automatically translate into realities on the ground. Honest commitment, determined effort, and favourable institutional dispensation are necessary for success. At present, both leaders face difficult challenges in delivering on their tall promises.
Modi is faced with the insurmountable hurdle of the lack of necessary votes in the Rajya Sabha, and the opposition parties are hell bent on derailing his development agenda. Furthermore, the rightwing radicals of the Hindutva brigade are making it politically difficult for Modi to build the necessary non-partisan legislative consensus in support of his massive mandate.
On the other side, Kejriwal and AAP are confronted with distinctly different, though equally difficult hurdles to overcome. Kejriwal announced a reduction of power bills by half, to consumers of less than 400 units a month from March 1, 2015. He also assured supply of 20,000 litres of water free to all families living in Delhi. The big challenge before him is how to pay for such populist measures over the long haul. Furthermore, it is natural for people to keep asking for more freebies all the time. The temptation to yield is irresistible in an electoral democracy. The second and equally difficult challenge is lack of unity at the top in AAP. The manner in which Yogendra Yadav and Prashanth Bhushan were thrown out of the Party by a determined coterie of Kejriwal’s, symbolises the malaise within the party. Instead of concentrating on governing Delhi and delivering on his promises, if Kejriwal lets himself distracted by power politics within the party, AAP will become another lost cause. That will be a sad and undeserved end to the nascent popular movement for “alternative politics”.
At another level, the mohalla sabhas as agencies of democratic selfgovernance at the grass roots level are yet to be tried out. The experiment has a lot of significance for the future of the “alternative politics” advocated by AAP. We have to watch out and hope that the essentially clumsy process will somehow succeed.
Furthermore, governance of Delhi is faced with built in structural, institutional and legal obstacles with a long legacy. While the Chief Minister of Delhi has the responsibility to govern and deliver on his/her promises, the Government of India and all the central Ministries actually rule Delhi through the Lt. Governor. This constitutional anomaly will not be untangled for a long time.
Failure at the implementation level is a national malaise of long pedigree, which afflicts everything irrespective of who is in power. Let us hope that Modi and Kejriwal will prove to be exceptions to the rule!
Growing global inequality
It is important to see the rise of Modi and Kejriwal in the context of global trends. Since the collapse of communism and the demise of the Soviet Union, capitalist globalisation ruled the roost all over the world for a quarter century or more. In its wake, the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening precipitously in all countries. The rising tide of global inequality (between countries and more significantly within countries), resulted in an enormous increase in the number of poor people, marginalised millions, and the “underclass” of the unemployed and the unskilled in cities, towns, and rural areas all over the world, including India. About 2% of the people have cornered 98% of the wealth across the globe, reliable data reveals.
Naturally, such greed at the top and deprivation at the bottom is an explosive combination. Consequently, popular movements demanding justice and meeting the basic needs of the people became the foundation of what is now called “new politics” in several countries in South America. Most successful and famous among them was the movement led by Luiz Inacio da Silva in Brazil, which symbolised the ‘left-off-centre bottom up kind of participatory democracy’ in Brazil. This formula soon spread to many other countries in South America. The success of Castro’s Cuba in taking care of the common people, despite the endless American efforts to subvert the revolution, has been a continuing inspiration across the continent and beyond. Aam Admi Party’s “alternative politics” belongs to the same genre of democratic self-governance, with active citizen participation at the local level.
“Inclusive Politics” should include women
If the goal is to widen and deepen self-governance, why should the process stop with the so called common man, the ‘aam admi’? Kejriwal could have called his party ‘Aam Aurat Party’ or better still ‘Aam Insan Party’, Kalpana Sharma, a senior journalist remarked aptly. As an eternal optimist, I do hope that Indian democracy will cross the gender gap sooner than later. Meanwhile, success of Modi’s development agenda at the national level and Kejriwal’s movement for justice for the poor at the local level, are crucial for the future of the country. The best that could happen for India today is that the two movements would complement and competitively reinforce each other.
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B. Ramesh Babu
The writer is a political scientist. He was formerly the Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Professor of Civics & Politics, University of Bombay.[/column]