Janata Part 1977 - Aam Aadmi Party 2013 - A Comparison By Mr. Nand Gopal I see AAP as a repeat of the 1977 Janata Party experiment under Morarji Desai and Charan Singh, V P Singh, etc., that failed miserably. There was euphoria at that time also – like the euphoria behind AAP now - which was misplaced (like honesty or integrity of a few men, real or imagined) and which was doomed to fail as it was only against Indira Gandhi without any radical new ideas or principles, which is also the case now. Janata Party came to power after the 1975 Emergency Rule of Indira Gandhi and the forced sterilization program under Sanjay Gandhi that was carried out during that time. Socialist policies continued to dominate the new Government (like now under AAP such as free water supply and lowering electric changes paid by consumers at a time of already pathetic condition of the industry now) dominated by socialists like George Fernandes and Raj Narain. The insignia of that rule was throwing out of the country of Coca-Cola and IBM as a symbol of taking the country towards a more socialist state than Indira Gandhi’s India and prove that India could do better than the West by making our own substitutes for the products of Coca-Cola and IBM. I do not know how many of this generation of Indians know about the failure of that attempt, even in the case of a soft drink like Coca-Cola. A substitute was made involving Government Research Institution and named as 77 in memory of the victory of Janata Party in 1977. That product went out of the market within months, I think. As far as the computer Industry is concerned, they could not do anything immediately but a company named Semiconductor Complex Limited, was established in 1983, in an attempt in that direction, but the entire complex was destroyed in a fire in 1989, and I have not heard much about that company later. Now, India is trying to woo IBM and another western company to build integrated chips in India as India imports its entire need of computer chips with resultant enormous outflow of dollars aggravating the balance of trade problem. I knew at that time that men like George Fernandes (he was also called an honest man and a man of integrity at that time) were just power seekers cashing in on the trouble India facing because of its collectivist and socialist policies, and I knew that those men would fade away as quickly as they come, but not before they have done enough damage to India. If you ask any expert in the field of computer science, he would say that the throwing away of IBM in 1977 put the country back at least 10 years in the development of that industry. What India now needs is not men such as George Fernandes or Arvind Kejriwal or parties like Janata party of Aam Aadmi Party who follow the same old failed socialist and fascist policies but new thinking and new ideology. Anyone who has any concern for the future of India must be able to answer the question why the collectivist policies such as socialist and fascist polices have failed all over the world, either established by vote in Europe or by force as in Soviet Union and China, and find a radical new alternative. I want to quote Ayn Rand in this regard, We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something. Ideas cannot be fought except by means of better ideas. The battle consists not of opposing, but of exposing; not of denouncing, but of disproving; not of evading, but of boldly proclaiming a full, consistent and radical alternative” AAP, which was the offshoot of the movement started by Anna Hazare for the passage of a Lok Pal bill as a solution to remove corruption, has no solution to various more basic and important problems faced by India because corruption is only a fringe issue. The Lok Pal bill will only create another institution dominated by bureaucrats, and it will only convict a few people, and the majority of the corrupt people would know how to handle those bureaucrats and escape from being convicted. Corruption is built into the system of socialist and fascist polices that India has been following since independence. If one understands the role of businessman and politician in a society, one can understand why and how to eliminate corruption in politics and business. The businessmen are those who provide the members of society, the general public, the goods and services needed by them. If a businessman is asked to get the permission for fulfilling his function and carry on his work in society, and if he is at the mercy of the politicians and bureaucrats with discretionary powers that the irrational laws of the land had conferred on them, either the businessman can pay bribes to carry on his activities or he can fight for enactment of laws based on objective principles without any discretionary powers to the politicians and bureaucrats. If he chooses the second option, then he would have to become a politician and try to convince the public the need for such objective laws, which would be a herculean task and the businessman obviously would choose the first easy option of paying bribes and carrying on his work. Remember both politician and the bureaucrat are hand in glove with each other in most cases and work against the businessman. In any rational society the laws should be minimum and must be objective. For e.g., take the case of land registration. The laws are such that it gives discretionary powers to the bureaucrat to get certain amount in each registration, and obviously, a certain amount goes to politicians, and whoever goes to registration, as he is at the mercy of the bureaucrat, he has to pay bribes to get his work done, who is to be blamed more, the bureaucrat or the man who goes to registration? Laws can be formulated in such a way that it gives no discretionary power to bureaucrat. Whose province is this, the formulation of law? Of course, the politician. Almost all the citizens of India know that land registration department is one of the most corrupt in India. Why not the politician formulate laws which gives less discretionary power to the bureaucrat and bring down corruption? Because they want the law to be in this way that both he and the bureaucrat can milk the system and in public while at the same time claim that they are making every effort to abolish corruption and claim to be making this measure and that measure and fool the people (like Lok Pal, which will only create another set of bureaucrats and politicians to implement them and make the corrupt businessman, politician, and bureaucrats go before them and give some money and get out of the cases with only a few percentage of cases in which those involved will be convicted). Unless the laws are changed, the corruption will never go away. In fact, the idea of Lok Pal created the AAP party, and it is going to make laws with much more discretionary powers and will create a new set of politicians and bureaucrats to carry on their holy alliance to milk the businessman and every common man in India. Here in India, if anyone wants India to be a country of morality, it must have a culture based on reason, and India must be a country based on free trade and free market principle, a country based on the moral principles of reason, individualism, and capitalism. Noting else will do. Socialism has failed all over the world. The degree of freedom of a country is the degree of its progress. The difference between North Korea and South Korea is like a laboratory experiment for all to see that free market and free trade is the only way of progress for any country.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 05:42:46 +0000
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