Ramzan Khan was in tears as Arvind
Kejriwal took his oath as the Chief Minister of Delhi. He could not take his
eyes off the podium. It was also an emotional moment for all those around him.
Khan had traveled all the way from Jodhpur, more than 600 kilometers from
Delhi, to witness the moment. A carpenter, Khan describes the event as “a
historic moment in India’s history.”The atmosphere in the sprawling Ramlila
Ground, the venue of the swearing-in ceremony, was supercharged. Young and old
wore the trademark cap of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, or Common Man’s Party) and
thousands had gathered to see the mascot of the anti-corruption movement
assuming the mantle of Chief Minister, less than a year after forming a
political party.“In 1947, the country gained its
independence but today the people gained their freedom. For the first time in
India, a real democracy of the people and by the people has been established. I
feel liberated. Now people are the real rulers. This will take care of the
problem of corruption prevailing in the country,” says 44-year-old Azam Khan
who makes around $4 a day.“A revolution has started in India and
this will bring real change in the way we conduct politics in the country. The
new polity will not tolerate corruption in the country. The suffering of the
people at the hands of government officials and the system will go away with
the rise of people like Arvind Kejriwal. He is the medium for change,” asserts
Ayush, a software engineer who traveled from Gurgaon to attend the ceremony with
five of his friends.The fledgling Aam Aadmi Party, born
from the crucible of the anti-corruption movement that began in 2011, is
generating a new kind of energy and hope in the country never witnessed before.“For the first time, a civil society
movement has transformed itself into a political organization and challenged
established political parties. Similar attempts were made in the 1960s and
70s but did not succeed. This is a healthy sign for democracy,” says Nilanjan
Mukhopadhyay, a Delhi-based political analyst.It was this signature of democracy that
was on full display on December 28 at the iconic Ramlila Ground in the heart of
Delhi. Fittingly, this venue was one of the launching pads of the movement
against corruption. Kejriwal, under the leadership of the veteran
anti-corruption crusader, Anna Hazare, rose to national prominence from this
very place. The ground acted as a catalyst and transformed what was initially a
rebellion against the system into one of the major political parties in Delhi.Arvind
Kejriwal formed the political party in November 2012 after breaking away from
his mentor Anna Hazare. Nobody expected the AAP to capture the imagination of
the people of Delhi so quickly and become a thorn in the side of the political
ambitions of the established Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress.
The party came second in the recently held elections and won 28 seats out of
70, thereby restricting the frontrunner BJP to 32 seats and reducing the
incumbent Congress to third place with just eight seats. A lack of numbers
forced the BJP to sit in opposition and outside support from the Congress
catapulted the AAP to the seat of power in the city state.
What does the rise of AAP signify for
Indian politics? Will politics in India remain the same after the entry of an
unconventional party like AAP?
“I never expected this kind of meteoric
rise and endorsement of the party in a short timespan. Our success demonstrates
this strong urge for change. Otherwise with a small party like us with limited
resources and rudimentary structure, there is not much of a chance to succeed
in a such a small time,” says Yogendra Yadav, one of the founding members of
the AAP and a key strategist. In an interview with The Diplomat, Yadav further explains
that “the AAP became an instrument and an occasion for people to carry out
their wishes. There is a much greater appetite for an alternative pole in
politics than anybody had imagined.”Manish Shishodia, another senior leader and
minister in the first AAP cabinet in Delhi, subscribes to this view. Speaking
with The Diplomat, the
journalist-turned-politician says that “we came to channelize the frustration
of the people towards the system. There is so much anger among the people
against the present political establishment that the moment the people saw an
alternative in us they supported us. So, is the AAP a reactionary
anti-establishment party or does it have an ideology and vision beyond anti
agenda. Political historian Shruti Kapila of Cambridge University says that
“the media should actually take some credit, particularly for the rise of the
AAP.” In an interview with Mint,
Kapila surmises “in terms of ideology, it is certainly likely to cause a crisis
for the party to define itself beyond, especially, the Delhi city state.” She
further adds that the burden is now on the AAP “to think about a political
vision which is beyond just deliverance, growth, governance and anti
agenda.”Aditya Nigam of Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies (CSDS),
a New Delhi based think tank, argues that “even though it seemed as if the
movement had a one-point agenda – that of combating corruption, the fact of the
matter is that it had a fairly detailed critique of the actual processes of
representative democracy and the business of coalition politics that made every
party a shareholder in the loot of the people.”
Can the AAP be a real national
political alternative or can it not sustain the momentum?
“It is too early and too premature to
make such claim. We don’t know and we have to prove ourselves. This would be
our ambition and this is what we would like to become,” says Yogendra
Yadav.Professor Nigam seems to be more optimistic when he says that “the
chances of it emerging as an alternative pole across the country are fairly bright
in the short run. The same disgust with organized politics that was manifested
in AAP’s victory in Delhi is pretty much in evidence elsewhere and it seems the
party is already getting very good responses from other states.”But critics say
that without any ideological clarity or clear political vision, sustaining the
movement on a single issue of corruption will prove elusive.“For both replacing
the Congress as well as providing an alternative to the BJP, the AAP will need
to articulate clearer political positions and take ideological stands. Its
willingness and ability to do so will perhaps decide whether it will grow to
become a national force. Not doing so may have been a strength but may soon
turn into a liability,” writes the Economic
and Political Weekly. Professor Badri Raina of Delhi University, in an article
in the magazine Mainstream, warns that “in the days ahead, the AAP
may need to consider a party with only ‘honesty’ for its agenda may find it
hard to go far enough in either comprehending the nuts and bolts of a caste and
class-based democracy or realizing transformations that may have a lasting
yield for the honestly laboring citizenry.”It is uncertain what fate
awaits the AAP in future, but it has certainly unnerved India’s established political
parties. Despite performing extraordinarily well in the recent state elections,
the BJP seems to be nervous with the outcome of the Delhi elections. The party
sees the AAP as a potential threat to its urban constituency. Not long ago,
Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was riding roughshod over the
Congress, looking confidently towards victory in 2014. The BJP at its
parliamentary retreat recently discussed at length possible strategies to
combat the AAP’s growing urban influence. For the ruling Congress, the
anti-corruption political organization attacks the base of its politics and
threatens to hijack its inclusive and secular agenda.” It fixes Congress and
the BJP and threatens to affect regional parties. Modi would be affected
directly. In the urban areas where Congress is in decline, the natural winner
would have been the BJP. But the Hindu right will be affected by the rise of
the AAP thereby making Modi’s task difficult,” says Mukhopadhyay, who recently
wrote a biography of Modi, in an interview with The Diplomat.As for Ramazan Khan, he
is not worried about Delhi’s fate. He feels confident that in India’s future,
it will be the common man and the common man’s party who will be the real
rulers.
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