Has Indian democracy finally come of age? Upstart Common Man Party sweeps to power in Delhi city-state
Yesterday, I was stunned to see the sweeping victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in New Delhi city-state polls. Sure, AAP was clearly a front-runner but winning 67 out of 70 seats leaving BJP and its allies just 3 seats and the Congress none, was a huge shocker! This party is only slightly more than two years old and has leaders from the Indian educated middle-class. Arvind Kejriwal, its charismatic leader, burst on the scene as an anti-corruption activist supporting Anna Hazare in or around April 2011. Around one and a half years later (Nov. 2012) he and others launched AAP, which got a respectable 28 out of 70 seats in the previous New Delhi city-state polls in Dec. 2013, just a year later, and formed a minority government which lasted only 49 days. AAP govt. resigned as its Jan Lokpal (an independent citizen ombudsman body to investigate corruption cases) bill, they claimed, was blocked by the other political parties.
After this dramatic resignation of AAP in Feb. 2014 it seemed that Arvind Kejriwal and his party had captured the imagination of the common people of Delhi but did not have it in them to really govern. A tag of 'bhagode' (runaway/quitter) got applied to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP, and one felt that it was going to be really difficult for them to overcome this perception.
Then we had the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls where BJP swept all the Delhi seats as well as many other states in India, coming to power in the Lok Sabha (Federal seat of power, lower house of Indian parliament) in a landslide victory. AAP got badly humiliated as it not only lost all Delhi seats but it won only 4 seats (all from Punjab) out of the 434 seats it contested across the country. One felt that it showed that AAP was not only nowhere as a national party but even in urban centres where AAP seemed to attract a lot of interest, it did not seem to be good enough to take on the big national and regional political parties. However, one view is that AAP may not have got enough votes in Delhi and elsewhere as it was a Lok Sabha election and so voters may have felt that AAP did not have much chances to form a govt. in the Lok Sabha, and so preferred to vote for other parties.
This time, Feb. 2015, even before the polls, national TV news channels coverage of the election campaign showed that AAP had recovered some prestige. Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal had apologized for his/their mistake of resigning from power, and said that he would not do it again. More crucially, the Congress party lost the faith of the voters (as shown by its vote share going down by around 15%) and all these votes seem to have gone to AAP (whose vote share went up by around 25 %), http://www.thehindu.com/elections/delhi2015/aaps-delhi-win-a-landmark-in-poll-history/article6879392.ece. The BJP's vote share went down marginally by 1 to 2%. As one BJP leader acknowledged after the election results, AAP was able to attract former Congress voters which BJP failed to do. Anyway the result is that AAP has been swept to power with an incredible majority of 67 seats in a house of 70.
OK, but how does this relate to Indian democracy coming of age? Well, for one, this political party's leadership is composed of mostly middle-class activists for good governance, anti-corruption, transparency etc. Short info. about some of its leaders:
* Arvind Kejriwal "is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and worked for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) as a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal.
* "Yogendra Yadav is an Indian politician and academic whose primary interests are in the political and social sciences. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi since 2004.", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogendra_Yadav.
* "Manish Sisodia was awarded a diploma in journalism by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and worked for Zee News and All India Radio prior to becoming involved in social activism related to the Right to Information", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manish_Sisodia.
* "Prashant Bhushan is an Indian lawyer, activist and politician. He is noted for his use of public interest litigation (PIL) to support a number of causes related to corruption, environmental protection and human rights", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prashant_Bhushan.
* Dr. Kumar Vishwas "is a Hindi-language performance poet and an Indian politician and National Executive of Aam Aadmi Party." ... "He has taught Hindi Literature to higher class students at Lajpat Rai Post-Graduate College for the last sixteen years", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumar_Vishwas.
* "Meera Sanyal (née Hiranandani, 15 October 1961) is the former CEO & chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland in India. She was involved in banking for over 30 years before stepping down from RBS to stand as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate in South Mumbai in the 2014 Lok Sabha election"..."She serves as a non-executive Director on the board of Pradan an Indian NGO that works to empower women through entrepreneurship and on the International Board of Right to Play, a global organisation that has helped over 1 million children through the transformative power of play.", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meera_Sanyal.
Secondly AAP seems to have gathered funds in a largely transparent manner. So crony capitalism influence on AAP may be minimal. From http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/the-delhi-spring/article6879314.ece, "A cross-section of Delhi’s population cutting across age, class, caste and gender appears to have voted for the AAP, obliterating the Congress and reducing the BJP to single-digit status. They put their money where their hearts were, generously contributing from their hard-earned, tax-paid wealth to AAP funds, which were open to public scrutiny."
Thirdly, a lot of AAP's campaigning seems to have been a no-frills one which still earned them this smashing victory! See http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/paisa-power-and-politics/article6879362.ece.
This is refreshing for Indian democracy where it seemed that only people with lots of money power and/or other-influence could win state and federal elections (local municipal elections is a different matter due to its smaller size and so it being easier for voters to know their candidates personally). Now a two year old party with middle-class activist type leaders has put up 70 candidates, managed a largely transparently funded city-state election campaign and been swept to power, routing the established national parties, namely, the BJP and the Congress! That is why I think that this may be a sign of Indian democracy finally coming of age.
Sure, we don't know how AAP will govern. Maybe they will govern well, maybe they will not. But they have shown that it is possible for a largely clean party with middle class educated Indians as its leaders to get formed, get funding transparently and win elections in a landslide. Even if AAP fails over time, this example may lead to formation of other similar parties.
Another important point is that rural India is very different from city-states like Delhi, and it is rural India that, I guess, sends the majority of elected representatives to state and federal governments in India (Delhi is one of a few exception cases of city-states in India). [BTW I live in rural South India.] So Delhi AAP strategy may simply not work in rural India. However, like urban India, rural India is fed up of corruption and nepotism. It too wants a corruption free government with transparency. So the AAP success story may result in experimentation in politics of rural and semi-urban India that may, over time, provide successful adapations of AAP-type political parties for rural and semi-urban India. Perhaps the established political parties themselves will start changing to be more transparent in their funding and operation to meet the challenge of AAP and similar future parties.
This Hindu interview of noted psephologist (person who studies political elections), Yogendra Yadav, one of AAP's leaders and one of its spokespersons, ‘We want to be a principled force in national politics’, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/we-want-to-be-a-principled-force-in-national-politics/article6879359.ece, is interesting.
This article makes an in-depth analysis of this election result, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/interpreting-the-aap-win/article6879316.ece.
BTW this AAP victory made international news:
* New York Times, "Upstart Party Wins Big in India's Capital, in Blow for Modi", http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/09/world/asia/ap-as-india-politics.html?_r=0.
* Guardian, "Anti-corruption party sweeps Delhi elections in blow for Narendra Modi", http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/modi-dealt-huge-blow-as-anti-corruption-party-sweeps-delhi-elections.
After this dramatic resignation of AAP in Feb. 2014 it seemed that Arvind Kejriwal and his party had captured the imagination of the common people of Delhi but did not have it in them to really govern. A tag of 'bhagode' (runaway/quitter) got applied to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP, and one felt that it was going to be really difficult for them to overcome this perception.
Then we had the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls where BJP swept all the Delhi seats as well as many other states in India, coming to power in the Lok Sabha (Federal seat of power, lower house of Indian parliament) in a landslide victory. AAP got badly humiliated as it not only lost all Delhi seats but it won only 4 seats (all from Punjab) out of the 434 seats it contested across the country. One felt that it showed that AAP was not only nowhere as a national party but even in urban centres where AAP seemed to attract a lot of interest, it did not seem to be good enough to take on the big national and regional political parties. However, one view is that AAP may not have got enough votes in Delhi and elsewhere as it was a Lok Sabha election and so voters may have felt that AAP did not have much chances to form a govt. in the Lok Sabha, and so preferred to vote for other parties.
This time, Feb. 2015, even before the polls, national TV news channels coverage of the election campaign showed that AAP had recovered some prestige. Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal had apologized for his/their mistake of resigning from power, and said that he would not do it again. More crucially, the Congress party lost the faith of the voters (as shown by its vote share going down by around 15%) and all these votes seem to have gone to AAP (whose vote share went up by around 25 %), http://www.thehindu.com/elections/delhi2015/aaps-delhi-win-a-landmark-in-poll-history/article6879392.ece. The BJP's vote share went down marginally by 1 to 2%. As one BJP leader acknowledged after the election results, AAP was able to attract former Congress voters which BJP failed to do. Anyway the result is that AAP has been swept to power with an incredible majority of 67 seats in a house of 70.
OK, but how does this relate to Indian democracy coming of age? Well, for one, this political party's leadership is composed of mostly middle-class activists for good governance, anti-corruption, transparency etc. Short info. about some of its leaders:
* Arvind Kejriwal "is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and worked for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) as a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal.
* "Yogendra Yadav is an Indian politician and academic whose primary interests are in the political and social sciences. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi since 2004.", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogendra_Yadav.
* "Manish Sisodia was awarded a diploma in journalism by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and worked for Zee News and All India Radio prior to becoming involved in social activism related to the Right to Information", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manish_Sisodia.
* "Prashant Bhushan is an Indian lawyer, activist and politician. He is noted for his use of public interest litigation (PIL) to support a number of causes related to corruption, environmental protection and human rights", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prashant_Bhushan.
* Dr. Kumar Vishwas "is a Hindi-language performance poet and an Indian politician and National Executive of Aam Aadmi Party." ... "He has taught Hindi Literature to higher class students at Lajpat Rai Post-Graduate College for the last sixteen years", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumar_Vishwas.
* "Meera Sanyal (née Hiranandani, 15 October 1961) is the former CEO & chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland in India. She was involved in banking for over 30 years before stepping down from RBS to stand as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate in South Mumbai in the 2014 Lok Sabha election"..."She serves as a non-executive Director on the board of Pradan an Indian NGO that works to empower women through entrepreneurship and on the International Board of Right to Play, a global organisation that has helped over 1 million children through the transformative power of play.", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meera_Sanyal.
Secondly AAP seems to have gathered funds in a largely transparent manner. So crony capitalism influence on AAP may be minimal. From http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/the-delhi-spring/article6879314.ece, "A cross-section of Delhi’s population cutting across age, class, caste and gender appears to have voted for the AAP, obliterating the Congress and reducing the BJP to single-digit status. They put their money where their hearts were, generously contributing from their hard-earned, tax-paid wealth to AAP funds, which were open to public scrutiny."
Thirdly, a lot of AAP's campaigning seems to have been a no-frills one which still earned them this smashing victory! See http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/paisa-power-and-politics/article6879362.ece.
This is refreshing for Indian democracy where it seemed that only people with lots of money power and/or other-influence could win state and federal elections (local municipal elections is a different matter due to its smaller size and so it being easier for voters to know their candidates personally). Now a two year old party with middle-class activist type leaders has put up 70 candidates, managed a largely transparently funded city-state election campaign and been swept to power, routing the established national parties, namely, the BJP and the Congress! That is why I think that this may be a sign of Indian democracy finally coming of age.
Sure, we don't know how AAP will govern. Maybe they will govern well, maybe they will not. But they have shown that it is possible for a largely clean party with middle class educated Indians as its leaders to get formed, get funding transparently and win elections in a landslide. Even if AAP fails over time, this example may lead to formation of other similar parties.
Another important point is that rural India is very different from city-states like Delhi, and it is rural India that, I guess, sends the majority of elected representatives to state and federal governments in India (Delhi is one of a few exception cases of city-states in India). [BTW I live in rural South India.] So Delhi AAP strategy may simply not work in rural India. However, like urban India, rural India is fed up of corruption and nepotism. It too wants a corruption free government with transparency. So the AAP success story may result in experimentation in politics of rural and semi-urban India that may, over time, provide successful adapations of AAP-type political parties for rural and semi-urban India. Perhaps the established political parties themselves will start changing to be more transparent in their funding and operation to meet the challenge of AAP and similar future parties.
This Hindu interview of noted psephologist (person who studies political elections), Yogendra Yadav, one of AAP's leaders and one of its spokespersons, ‘We want to be a principled force in national politics’, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/we-want-to-be-a-principled-force-in-national-politics/article6879359.ece, is interesting.
This article makes an in-depth analysis of this election result, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/interpreting-the-aap-win/article6879316.ece.
BTW this AAP victory made international news:
* New York Times, "Upstart Party Wins Big in India's Capital, in Blow for Modi", http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/09/world/asia/ap-as-india-politics.html?_r=0.
* Guardian, "Anti-corruption party sweeps Delhi elections in blow for Narendra Modi", http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/modi-dealt-huge-blow-as-anti-corruption-party-sweeps-delhi-elections.
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