The Aam Aadmi Party’s victory may seem like a game-changer today, but India has a long history of new outfits, born of protest movements, ousting established political parties, only to dissipate themselves
Just imagine if the Delhi election result had been reverse of what they are now. let’s say that the BJP had won more than 60 seats in the Assembly and the Aam Aadmi Party had less than 10 MlAs. How do you think the leaders of the AAP and their pals in the media would have reactedIJ
Just about a week before the polls, the AAP leadership, fearing a drubbing, had repeatedly alleged that the electronic voting machines had been tampered with. Obviously, the ground was being prepared to question the entire electoral process in the eventuality of a defeat. AAP leaders would have have alleged that the polling mechanism, under BJP rule, was corrupt. Hence, no social or political changes were possible through democratic and peaceful means.
Does this not sound familiarIJ This is exactly what the Maoists have been saying, while justifying the destruction of property and the killing of innocents in areas under their influence. So, the AAP pack (an assortment of foreign power agents, masquerading as human right activists, missionaries, leftists of various hues and Islamic fundamentalists of different shades) would have painted the town red and screamed from rooftops how the values of secularism and democracy were being trampled upon, under a ‘communal’ and ‘fascist’ BJP rule.
There would have been Press conferences and seminars galore to ‘demonstrate’ how the EVMs had been manipulated. Now, that the AAP has won with unprecedented numbers, there is no mention of all of this. A collateral damage of the Delhi poll outcome has been the class war theory, a favourite of our ‘intellectuals’ who study development issues. To these academics, the BJP is a party of the upper castes and the rich. When vote counting started on February 7, smug anchors in various television studios claimed (with a know-all glint) that the BJP was winning only in rich areas and the AAP in poor and lower middle class localities.
However, when the final results came, BJP losses were spread across all classes and constituencies. In fact, out of the three seats that were won by the BJP, two were in low income constituencies. Obviously, the media is dominated by those who are prisoners of clichés and believe in stereotypes. If the BJP was a party of the rich, how come has secured huge electoral victories in relatively poor States such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and BiharIJ
Back in Delhi, the question is: Now that the BJP has been completely vanquished and the AAP has a massive mandate, will things change for the betterIJ Public memory may be short but history finds many parallels to the jubilant crowds, hailing the AAP’s victory, only to be disappointed later. Scene One: Hyderabad, 1983: Huge crowds hails filmstar-turned-politician NT Rama Rao as his one-year-old Telugu Desam Party sweeps the Andhra Pradesh Assembly poll, promising resurrection of ‘Telugu pride’ after Rajiv Gandhi had humiliated his own party Chief Minister at the Hyderabad airport in full public view.
Scene two: Hyderabad, 1989. An angry Telugu crowd bundles out NTR and his Telugu Desam Party leaders from the Assembly and brings back the once hated Congress regime. Meanwhile, NTR has gone through one split in his party. Instead of being the promised corruption-free regime, the former filmstar’s administration is embroiled in several corruption allegations. later, NTR’s son-in-law leads a revolt against him, cleanses the TDP, and comes to power for a 10-year tenure.
Such scenes have been played out in Guwahati, Patna, New Delhi and elsewhere though with some regional variations. For example, Jayaprakash Narayan led the students movement in Bihar, the All Assam Students Union spearheaded the movement against illegal immigration from Bangladesh in Assam, while the Navnirman Andolan was a major anti-graft movement in Gujarat. All of them had their moments of glory after a few years of struggle.
The AASU-led movement, for instance, gave birth to the Asom Gana Parishad which wiped out the deeply-entrenched Congress regime in 1985. But its leader PK Mahanta was isolated when the party split in 2005 (and re-grouped in 2008). That’s when the Congress returned to power and since then, it has won three consecutive elections till date.
In Gujarat, the Navnirman Andolan succeeded in ousting Chimanbhai Patel from his chief ministership. But the movement dissipated soon after, while Patel returned to power. There are others in this category — two- or three-year-old protest movements being voted to power and well entrenched political parties being crushed by newcomers.
The political roller-coaster is a risky and unpredictable animal. A defeat today is no guarantee of disgrace forever. Indira Gandhi, defeated in her traditional pocket borough of Rae Bareli in 1977, along with her party that lost 300 seats in the lok Sabha, was back in power in 1980. Rajiv Gandhi won a two-third majority in Parliament within a month of succeeding his slain mother, only to find that parliamentary majorities can be lost as well with the batting of an eyelid.
It is not only now that peoples’ expectations from politicians they voted to power to implement specific promises find themselves walking on the knife’s edge. Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his cap-flaunting army of ‘volunteers’ will have to fulfil a host of promises, many of them contradictory. For instance, power charges can be halved only by raising power subsidy. But how is this possible at a time when the cost of power generation is going up across the countryIJ Power subsidy can be raised only if the State Government finds resources to increase its revenue.
In our current urban situation, improvement of living conditions will only attract more migrants from rural areas. In the case of Delhi, it means migration from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and even distant Tamil Nadu. So, levels of public satisfaction will continue to be far below expectations, however efficient a Government may be. It is in such situations that the grit of political leaders is tested. Hopefully, AAP has experts to handle these complexities.
Delhi is a small State but with complex problems, which need serious study and in-depth solutions. Theatrical antics can help a party to win an election but politicians cannot sustain that tempo in the long run. Populist politic has limitations and a finite life.