THE PHENOMENON CALLED AAP
There is no doubt that the most significant event that has happened in the arena of bourgeois parliamentary politics of India in recent time is the rise of Aam Aadmi Party. It may sound cliché but it is very true that before the last assembly election of Delhi, almost nobody imagined that the election would produce such an outcome. The one year old party, almost fully consisting of activists, inexperienced about the tricks of parliamentary politics, not only got quite a large number seats fighting against both Congress and BJP, but finally was also able to form the government at the state. The Government of AAP may not have lasted long, but even within this short period of 49 days, it has been able to make some indelible mark. Within the short tenure of its government, this L'enfant terrible of Indian politics has taken some steps which have stirred the political atmosphere. It is beyond doubt that this party, after they came into limelight after the Delhi assembly election, had been able to consistently keep the spotlight on them, sometimes by their statements, acts and even by their unconventional demonstrations. It is a story which is in the process of unfurling, unraveling, and yet to take a definite shape, because the actors, somewhat disparate, themselves do not quite know in which direction they will move collectively. We should try to understand the process which has created this phenomenon called AAP and also the process which the AAP in its turn is trying to create.
In the very beginning, we should not fail to recognize that AAP has been able to raise some important issues, has been able to bring some important questions to the fore. Amongst these issues, two questions are very important, not only to us, but also to the AAP itself. First among these is definitely the question of corruption. We all know the corruption has reached to what a gigantic proportion in India. Government officers and employees take bribes to perform tasks which are very legitimately due to the citizens, traders adulterate their commodities, doctors take bribes from the medicine companies and pathological centres, school and college authorities take bribe to admit students and even to offer fake degrees to some of them, players take bribes to play according to wishes of betting syndicates, police take bribes to act against the innocents or even not to act against the guilty. Definitely, there are honest people in every profession, but there is no profession free from corruption. Though, corruption has infected the society from top to bottom, definitely the corruption is maximum at the top. Almost regularly news of some scams break out, where ministers both at central or state level and top bureaucrats are involved. Probably none of the political parties in the parliamentary arena can claim to be free from corruption. Not only the political parties and the leaders thereof, every institution of the country, be it legislative, executive or even judiciary are affected by the disease of corruption. The filth has reached the proportion of the mythical Augean stable.
AAP has been born from the struggle against this corruption at high level, especially in the government machinery. Through its consistent struggle before and after the formation of AAP, it has been able to bring this issue of corruption in the spotlight. Consistently they have tried to unearth and bring to the fore various incidents of corruption by ministers and bureaucrats and in some cases by some big capitalists involving thousands of crores of rupees. This struggle against corruption echoed in the minds of a significant section of people, particularly middle class, who are disgusted, fed up with all the corrupt, criminalized political parties and got attracted towards AAP.
Another issue, raised by AAP, we think, has far more significance, though it has not got the same amount of prominence, is the issue of ?swaraj', especially of control on the role of government by the general people. They have mooted the idea of formation of Gram Shabha or Mohalla Sabhas to decide the policies of Governments. They have tried to implement this idea to decide whether they should form the government in Delhi. They widened this idea swaraj to such an extent that the land and other natural resources should come under the local sabhas, schools and hospitals should also come under them, and government officials and even the police should be accountable to the mohalla Shabhas or Gram Shabhas. This idea has been naturally rejected by the established parties as impractical and nothing short of anarchy.
Though born on mainly the issue of corruption, subsequently AAP deemed it necessary to raise some other issues like price rise, problem of contract workers etc, through their vision document and also by some steps taken by after being in Government, during their short tenure.
It is important that they could raise these issues in a different tuning from that of the established bourgeois parties and it cannot but be appreciated that the issues are close to the aspiration of the people who have so long been cheated and betrayed by the old parties. Even if we assume that the new party is serious on these issues, the big question remains whether the apparently pro-people issues they have raised, can at all be addressed effectively remaining within the jurisdiction bound by our constitutional framework and obviously within capitalism. Take for example the issue of corruption itself. According to them, the roots of corruption lie in some corrupt people, corrupt ministers, and corrupt bureaucrats and to a lesser extent a few corrupt businessmen and industrialists. So, with the magical ?broom' of ?janlokpal', it would be possible to clean this Augean stable of corruption. They could not see that even those examples of scams, they are raising, are direct fallouts of the policies of Globalisation and Liberalisation, through which the Indian corporate, aided or so to say mentored, by their imperialist big brothers, MNCs, are looting the country and to maximize their booty, each of them is trying to bribe the ministers and government officials because the latter have the keys to open those resources. 2G, 3G and coalgate all fall in the same category. Undoubtedly, the ministers and government officials have taken bribes, but who gave them the bribes, other than the big Indian capitalists and the MNCs? But, AAP could see almost none of them. According to them, barring a few like the Ambanis, majority of industrialists and business houses are clean. They could not see that every capitalist, especially in this era of moribund capitalism, profits from innumerable corrupt practices like bribing officials to get rid of taxes, modify the account books and prices of shares to deprive the small shareholders their dues, so on and so forth. Is not the whole financial market a big casino, where the small depositors are almost every day being looted of their meager savings? In this era of financialisation, capitalism has created a world-wide huge casino, which the AAP people cannot see, how shortsighted they are! They cannot understand that corruption cannot be eradicated within the capitalist system because it is the capitalist system which is creating, fostering corruption. The roots of corruption lie in the system of private ownership of means of production where the power to control is in the hands of few and they use it for their benefit so that the owners of means of production can maximize their profits. Corruption cannot be eradicated in the present system of capitalism. This Augean stable cannot be cleaned by the broom of AAP, but only by the broom of political revolution of the working class and peasants through which the control will pass to the hands of those who are the majority of population and also a process will start to bring the means of production under system of social ownership.
Superficiality of their understanding is even more evident from their understanding of control by general public. They have proposed that the sole right of selling land should rest with gram sabha, police will be under the gram sabha, gram sabhas or mohalla sabhas should have the right to decide the local policies and also the right of devising proper regulations. They also suggested that even in central or state level legislations referendum should be carried out. But, they did not question the present state structure. They think that within the present constitution this can be implemented. This proves that either they are unaware of the importance and significance of their suggestions or they are deliberately using these high-sounding, pompous ideas to attract the masses, knowing very well that these suggestions cannot be implemented within the present system. The utter worthlessness of their idea is evident from the recent incident where Prashant Bhushan, leading member of AAP suggested that a referendum should take place in Jammu & Kashmir to decide whether draconian Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) will be applied in that state, which is completely a democratic demand and in tune with their vision document, but retracted fast under pressure from the establishment and also other leaders of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal. Just think that the gram sabha will have the power to acquire forcibly the land from the non-peasant owners of land and that too under the present structure! Is it possible? Is it possible that police will be under the jurisdiction of local people? Just think that police will act according to the wishes of workers in a working class town and not according to the wish of the capitalists, though the constitution authorizes the police to protect the private property and through a thousand strings they are connected to the exploiting classes! Is not it a pious wish which cannot be fulfilled within the present system?
So, though the AAP has raised some important issues concerning the people, their idea of solving these problems is very much superficial. Actually their short sightedness is not the fault of Arvind Kejriwal or other individual leaders of AAP. Their short sightedness comes from their petty bourgeois class origin. AAP basically represents the bourgeoning middle class, who have grown in the period of globalisation and liberalization. They have benefited economically a lot by the policies of globalization but they now feel that as a citizen they are not being heard by the ruling elite. The power is in the hands of corporate houses, political leaders and the administration. They are affected by the corruption of this ruling elite, criminalization of society, lawlessness. They do not have any faith on the corrupt political parties and leaders thereof. So they are now trying to express their voices, their frustrations, their grievances especially against the corruption and prevalent lawlessness of the society. And they also want to share power. The deep distrust against the established political parties has brought disparate elements in the same platform of AAP. On the one hand there are Meera Sanyal ex-CEO Royal Bank of Scotland and Captain Gopinath of Air Deccan fame who are naturally vehement supporters of liberalization and on other hand there is Medha Patkar, who is fighting against the government policies of development, which is synonymous with the policies of globalization and liberalization in present day politics. On the one hand we have sympathizers of Maoists like Binayak Sen and others and on the other hand some ex-IPS officers. Holding these disparate elements is well nigh impossible in the long run. Sooner or later, this conglomeration is bound to fall apart. However, more important is the main force behind this movement and also that of AAP is the upper middle class, who want to control the corruption in society, want that criminal elements be controlled, but they do not and cannot question the policies of globalization and liberalization, let alone the present capitalist system because these policies have given birth and fostered this section. Not only that, their advancement is also tied up with the advancement of those policies. This is the actual reason of the superficiality of their fight, of their struggle.
So, the working class has nothing to expect from this new entrant of Indian politics. On the contrary, this poses a certain amount of danger to the working class and other sections of toiling masses. Before formation of AAP and its decision to contest the election, this section was rather indifferent towards the problems faced by poor people. But the decision to contest assembly elections had pushed them towards the poor people and they decided to bring some issues like price rise, problems faced by the contract workers within the ambit of their agenda. But, like previous issues, here also they could not go to the root of the problem, that is, the policies of globalization and liberalization because of their class origin. What they could think up is nothing but some measures which may only give some reliefs, never eradicate those problems. However, even those measures cannot be given by any government, even if it is headed by AAP. For that, the working classes and toiling masses will have to wage a bitter fight against the big bourgeoisie. However, there is possibility that the position of AAP against all corrupt established parties may find echo in the minds of a section of workers and toiling people who are disgusted with the established parties but not finding enough strength within themselves to get organized and fight the big bourgeoisie ruling classes and they may put their faith on AAP and follow them. If that happens that will be a big setback for the working class, who are beginning to wake up to struggle after a long period of inactivity on their own and trying to return to their class root, class track. However, the working class is also trying to sum up unconsciously or semiconsciously their past bitter experience which have taught them that nobody outside their class should be believed without any question and furthermore, the learned elements of the petty bourgeoisie should not again be given the reins of their struggle, their lives. So, we have faith in the working class and believe that the working class will not be easily duped by the parties like AAP and be derailed from their effort to get organized on the class basis.
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