Modis cult of personality (which, by the way, is very heterogeneous, comprising Hindu communalists, elite businessmen, youths wanting corporate jobs, ardent economic right-wingers supporting him in spite of their commitment to interfaith tolerance and harmony and others, including even some Muslims and Christians, taken in by his charisma and demagoguery, and having bought the idea that he can solve all our problems) venerates him like a demi-god and refuses to engage in a rational discussion or debate. They were elated at the manner in which the reputation of the Congress has been torn as under and were looking forward to their leader emerge as Indias next prime minister. However, for once, they see a threat in the emergence of another leader Arvind Kejriwal. This relatively humble man has not become a hero by virtue of having a very charismatic personality or rabble-rousing (by making grossly erroneous statements about history, economics or even his own achievements the way Modi has). This mans politics is not personality-centric, but system-centric. As an article in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/01/political-economy), while referring to the work of political economist Buchanan states-
…we all still like our politics personal, despite lots of good evidence that changing the names on the doors doesn’t have a huge effect on outcomes. Public choice suggests that politicians are influenced by the incentives around them and aren’t simply members of a priestly class dedicated to advancement of the public interest. That, of course, means that swapping one set of politicians for another without changing the institutional incentives will have a minimal effect on governing behaviour. Not no effect, of course; different parties are in hock to different interest groups. But the op-ed pages of America overflow with demands that politician x behave better or party y pay less attention to interest group z. Ultimately, if you’re unhappy with the outcomes of political business as usual you need to reflect on and argue for reform of the underlying institutional, or constitutional, arrangement. That is a lesson from Buchanan.
Indeed, Buchanan, through empirical evidence, was saying what Dahl, Schumpeter and for that matter, even Gandhi had also said. Kejriwal, however, wishes to, at least, in part, reform that institutional or constitutional arrangement in the context of corruption, thus changing the incentives for coming to power, something that the BJP has never really done or even attempted to do. What is remarkable, however, is his managing to reach out to the masses and gain electoral support for this cause, which has, to an extent, defied Buchanans logic!
Kejriwals policies may have an air of populism to them (which comes down to realism in politics, as discussed by Buchanan), which enabled him to get votes, but he has viewed the electorate through the eye-lens of economic classes, not through the eye-lens of caste or religion, and not played divisive politics. This itself amounts to social transformation.
All this gets Modis fan club running scared. They first bashed the AAP for not forming the government with Congress support and then accused him of betraying the people when he did what they were earlier accusing him of not doing!
The economic right-wingers hero-worshipping Narendra Modi, now seek to discredit Kejriwal by attacking his policies. However, a simple analysis is enough to dissect the fallacies in their narrative. I wish to do so in this piece by way of reviewing an article in First Post (http://www.firstpost.com/politics/why-the-young-shouldnt-be-misled-by-aaps-antics-1319457.html) by an economic right-winger who is a fan of Narendra Modi. I would request the readers, therefore, to first read that and then continue reading this piece.
Capitalism and socialism apart, I disagree with this sentence of the article-
AAP has often proved by its utterances and actions that those who are not with it are against it and must be fulminated upon – my way or highway attitude.
The AAP has rightly declared that all mainstream political parties are corrupt, some honest people in them notwithstanding. They have acknowledged that there are good people in other parties too and invited them to join the AAP. Kejriwal, in an interview to Barkha Dutt, was told that it is possible that many Delhites who voted for his party in the Delhi elections may vote for the BJP in the national elections. He responded saying that it was the people’s choice. Before the elections, he also appealed to Delhites to vote, irrespective of for which party. The AAP has also said We are also not claiming that every single person who joins our party will be hundred percent honest. Thus, they implicitly claim that if anyone in their party is proved de facto to be dishonest, action would be taken against him/her with immediate effect, something we don’t see in the mainstream political parties that when asked about their scams, start talking about scams in the other parties.
Moreover, what have been referred to as antics are actually his manifesto promises, which he is obliged to fulfill. Voters were free to reject his promises by not voting for him, but you can’t blame, for example, the CPI-M for being socialist, nor could have one blamed Rajajis Swatantra Party for being capitalist!
It is indeed perfectly legitimate to differ with or even criticize Kejriwal’s approach to public policy issues, but that is different from ridiculing the man for doing what his electorate supposedly expected him to do when they voted him to power!
Moreover, the article acknowledges some very important things, but trivializes them. That the AAP seeks to cleanse the political system by providing an alternative dispensation that cuts across class, caste, religion and region, the one that junks the traditional method of garnering funds for fighting elections is no small feat (as we have discussed at the very outset). Which mainstream political party has so much as even ventured in this direction consciously and in a concrete fashion?
Whether one is an economic right-winger or a socialist, one has to accept that the foundations of any economy lie in a very strong law-and-order mechanism (which doesn’t exist in, to borrow the writer’s favourite example, Modi’s Gujarat, where ministers have engaged in fake passport rackets and illegal limestone mining, and where there have been real estate extortion rackets running in crores, a rise of rapes and where an RTI activist Amit Jethwa has been murdered in spite of his having had publicly declared that his life was under threat, for which a BJP MP from Gujarat has been booked, without any murmur of protest from the BJP, and while Kejriwal is out to strengthen the existing lokayukta of Delhi, the lokayukta story of Gujarat is dismal with the office being one of a paper tiger and Gujarat has not even had a lokayukta except for a very short while; to know the ground reality of the judiciary in Gujarat, let me tell you that at as someone who lived there as a law student for half a decade, at least till 2011, they used MS DOS in their trial courts, which may still be the case!) and solid public infrastructure (again, if you want to know about the condition of the same in Gujarat, have a look at this - http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/prime-time/video-story/258349, and though I do know that some people would say that the channel is NDTV and it is politically motivated, it is showcasing the ground reality and I have seen some of this in Ahmedabad with my own eyes and Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, is even worse, and did not have a municipality for decades even under Modi, till a PIL was filed; ask any current student of Gujarat National Law University about the road from the highway leading to his/her college!). To look at GDP growth rates, ignoring these dimensions, is a perilous expedition, as Indias experience demonstrates. Gurcharan Das’s book ‘India Grows At Night – A Liberal Case for a Strong State’ focuses on this rather beautifully. That the AAP has sought to make politics purely development-oriented (‘development’ not being synonymous with ‘growth’) and perfectly clean is something for which even economic right-wingers should appreciate it. If they do not do so, it is they and not the AAP who are resorting to the ‘my way or the highway’ approach, something characteristic of Modi. Modi has sought to have an image make-over but has yet to surrender his Hindutva agenda or his over-inflated Gujarati pride, for fear of not alienating that section of his voters. This is not irrelevant for the economy, for a lack of social cohesion can cause various short-run and long-run violent and non-violent damages to economic growth.
Indeed, a public intellectual who has appreciated the positive side of Kejriwal while being critical of his economic policies is the noted libertarian-leaning economist Dr. Subroto Roy (not to be confused with the chairman of the Sahara group). To quote him-
“Kejriwal has done well…. principally because he feels authentically, and while he is muddle-headed on many technical things as may be expected, he is intelligent and open to learning…”
“At this point, the 17 points right or wrong are less important than the political symbolism… He is clean, they are not… He has them squirming… He is a game-changer…”
Kejriwal sure does have them squirming when Harsh Vardhan says – “There have been many scams in 15 years of Congress rule. I heard Mr Kejriwal saying if Dr Harsh Vardhan had any evidence, he should share it with us. I want to ask the Chief Minister, why did he claim to act against the corrupt people in Congress if he had no evidence?”
This is as ridiculous as it gets. Kejriwal never said he had no evidence, but what is the harm in asking the BJP if it has any?!
Equally, the economic right-wingers in Modi’s fan club should criticize Modi for his silence over the defects in the new Land Acquistion Act and his criticism of the Goods and Service Tax that will help prevent tax evasion. Modi’s fans should have questioned why Modi allowed his party to support a weak Lokpal Bill, in spite of expressing solidarity with Team Anna for the Jan Lokpal Bill earlier? Questions like the latter help Kejriwal.
The Congress does talk of the flaws in Modi’s governance model, but that often falls on deaf ears of our sentimental public, for they would rightly not buy the holier-than-thou pretence of the Congress, but since the AAP has started to get vocal on these issues, there is reason for the BJP to worry, as even without justifiably criticizing Modi, the AAP has a cleaner image than the BJP in the eyes of a large section of the educated, middle class that is fed up of the Congress, and whose votes the BJP has been banking on. Add to that the fact that a large chunk of this vote-bank turned to Modi out of anti-Congress resentment but dislikes communalism of any hue (and irrespective of whether or not Modi is proved guilty for the riots in 2002, his calling relief camps housing riot-affected Muslims “child-producing factories”, despite ironically being the third of his parents’ six children himself, appointing Maya Kodnani as a minister in spite of her having made provocative speeches and wielded swords live on television in 2002, Modi’s saying that Ambedkar embraced Buddhism rather than Christianity or Islam for Buddhism is of Indian origin and refusing to have his government compensate for the damage caused to Muslim places of worship during the riots in 2002, though having to compensate later on a court order, but offering to pay for the repair of a Hindu temple in Uttarakhand from government funds, and last but not the least, attacking respected bureaucrat JM Lyngdoh for his Christian faith – something for which Vajpayee condemned Modi – demonstrates his communalism beyond any reasonable doubt) and contributed to voting the BJP out of power in 2004, owing to what happened in Gujarat in 2002, and the electoral defeat of the BJP in 2009 (in spite of the emergence of the Indian Mujahidin which had killed innocent civilians in major urban centres to which this vote-bank belongs, followed by the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai which had involved some degree of local support), owing to the anti-Christian riots in the Kandhamal district of Odisha in 2008, Varun Gandhi’s alleged anti-Muslim hate speech in the same year and Modi being made the star campaigner of the BJP in those elections, in spite of his development credentials. This vote-bank (which, unlike the ultra-right wing Hindu section of the Indian electorate, is not shrill and abusive, and is even less vocal, on the internet, but still, a major chunk of the urban Hindu electorate, which has contributed to electoral outcomes as mentioned above) switching to the AAP may not make Kejriwal prime minister, but might just prevent Modi from becoming the same.
Also, while Modi-supporters try to paint Modi as a “tough” leader who can check terrorism, the fact is that the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar was attacked during his tenure, and on 26th July 2008, there was a series of bombings by the Indian Mujahidin, even in hospitals. And on the foreign policy front holistically, Modi has hardly been vocal enough to be taken seriously. Indeed, the two of our prime ministers who have been the toughest against Pakistan, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, don’t have any record of anti-Muslim prejudice, and when Vajpayee was in power, he started the peace process with Pakistan by way of the Delhi-Lahore bus service but did not act on as many as 43 intelligence reports suggesting an instrusion by Pakistan, which led to the Kargil war!
Indeed, the more Modi’s cult of personality unjustifiably bashes Kejriwal, the more it will lose credibility and would find it difficult to suppress informed, meaningful policy debate, and would fail in its harmful agenda of reducing Indian democracy to hero-worshiping their leader.
That said, I do indeed accept that Kejriwal, in spite of not being a demagogue like Modi, has a cult of personality which does refuse to accept that the man is not above criticism, as one saw when they refused to accept that the complaint of the BJP to the election commission of Kejriwal having three voter ID cards could even be true (though in this case, they proved right, since the complaint was false, but that they refused to have an open mind wasnt appropriate, but Modis cult of personality is no less intolerant of criticism of their leader), and Kejriwal should indeed be criticized for lying about having been commissioner of income tax rather than joint commissioner, but if you want to know about Modi’s lies, have a look at this - https://www.facebook.com/groups/217879248375912/permalink/253177774846059/. And yes, at least Kejriwal is trying to fight demagoguery, expressing aversion to slogans hailing him, which Modi has never really done.
Another ground on which the BJP-supporting crowd has sought to attack the AAP is by citing Prashant Bhushan’s views on Kashmir, appealing to the chauvinistic nationalism inherent in most Indians (as also most Pakistani and Chinese people). While I personally disagree with Bhushan, I would not wish to write off his views, labelling them as “anti-national” (to get a clearer insight on this, please see these articles – http://wordpress-200526-602825.cloudwaysapps.com//we-want-cameron-to-apologize-will-the-indian-state-apologize-for-its-own-crimes/ and http://wordpress-200526-602825.cloudwaysapps.com//prashant-bhushans-views-on-the-kashmir-issue-co-authored-with-devaditya-chakravarti/). Furthermore, why did the BJP accept Jaswant Singh back if they found his views on Jinnah objectionable and why was Advani not expelled from the party for the same reason?
What I fail to understand, however, is why so many people ,who are not in active politics and do not have any close relatives or friends in any political party, wish to so ardently defend certain politicians or political parties and so much as delegitimize their criticism. Democracy is about moving forward taking together people of diverse voices, and the interest of the nation (not meant in a chauvinistic sense) should be at the forefront, and any positive step taken in that direction should be appreciated (and I, for one, have absolutely no hesitation in praising Narendra Modi for getting the electricity board of Gujarat out of bankruptcy by effectively checking electricity theft or wooing investors), while any negative step criticized. Personalities can never be equated with the nation at large, and hence, to have a strong affinity to any of them to the extent of prejudice is only harmful to the national interest.