The Aam Aadmi Party defies definition, for now. In terms of organisation and campaign strategies, it is like none other. Beyond binary oppositions of secularism and communalism, backward and forward castes, upper and working classes; beyond ideological idioms of the Market and Marx; the new political party that is making waves in Delhi can only be explained — at least till it tastes power — in terms of the Upanishadic doctrine of neti, neti (neither this nor that). The Aam Aadmi Party, politically, ideologically and organisationally, is different from anything that the country has seen in the recent past. The BJP that was formed in 1980 could not be counted as a new party as it was only an extension of the Jan Sangh and the political form for the ideas of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Though the Telugu Desam Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party were two successful examples of the eighties, both were proclamations of the politics of pride and oppression. Matinee idol N.T. Rama Rao’s call to uphold Telugu pride resonated in the hearths of all Kamma homes. Many other backward castes that wanted to rid the State of Reddy rule also responded to NTR by taking the party that was formed only in 1982 to a landslide victory in the 1983 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections. Kanshi Ram, a Defence Research and Development Organisation employee, had first set up the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees’ Federation (BAMCEF) in 1978 and its political wing, the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4), in 1981, for limited electoral intervention in Delhi and Haryana. So, when he took the final plunge with the formation of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984, it wasn’t really a new Dalit idea. From the Asom Gana Parishad in the east to the Nationalist Congress Party in the west or the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party in the north to the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi in the south, new parties are either splinter groups of earlier formations or statements of ethnic pride. And their success has been limited. Even the successful BSP, with a tangible presence outside Uttar Pradesh, could poll just 14 per cent of votes in the 2008 Delhi assembly elections. And that is where Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party looks strikingly different. Latest opinion polls predict 21 per cent of votes for Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. Arriving with a bang Till a year ago, the AAP was merely the manifestation of urban anger against corruption. Though Kisan Baburao Hazare’s fast could consolidate the fruitless fulminations of urban middle classes, the anti-corruption movement was petering out in late-2012. That was when Kejriwal announced his political party — on October 5. Now, the amorphous, free-floating urban anger has surely turned itself into a political party ready to give the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP a tough run for their seats. Just the other day, a crowd was decrying Arvind Kejriwal outside the AAP office on Hanuman Road in Connaught Place. A young man on a motorbike, wearing a Bhagat Singh T-shirt, two young girls barely out of their teens, a villager in white kurta and billowing pajamas, and an elderly woman were all complaining bitterly about “Kejriwal’s betrayal” of the movement. On closer scrutiny it turned out to be a case of sour grapes. The group wanted to get the AAP candidate for Palam Vihar assembly constituency changed. (The points of reference in their angry electoral discourse, interestingly, were Bhagat Singh and Mahatma Gandhi!) An elderly man among them derisively attacked his own group for building up Kejriwal: “You have to give birth to a Bhagat Singh in your home not in your neighbour’s home.” The older woman was teaching political catechism to the younger ones: “Kids, this is how a political party becomes corrupt.” All this anger was over distribution of seats: a familiar sight outside every mainstream political party worth its salt in this city. In fact, in the age of fax machines, many political parties used to shut their machines during ticket distribution to stop the deluge of complaints against candidates. The great Indian trick of anonymous complaints against an opponent, accusing him of murder, rape and every other heinous crime, is most effectively used in electoral politics. And this angry crowd at Hanuman Road only proves that the AAP has arrived in the Indian Political Circus with a bang. Gen Next And this is the saving grace of a thoroughly imperfect democracy — that it may just transform a mob seeking death for a faceless enemy into a more law-abiding lot, as they join the electoral process. Kejriwal’s party is going through the initial rites of internal competition. The more stiff the in-house competition, the better the party’s chances in the polls. Ashish Talwar, one of the prominent members of AAP’s Delhi Campaign Group, points out that the best thing the party did organisationally was to turn the city-state into zones instead of wards. Every assembly seat has four wards and every ward coordinator expects a party ticket during the municipal corporation election. To overcome “organisational aspiration”, as Talwar puts it, and to create smaller units that are suited for door-to-door campaign, AAP divided every assembly seat into 8 to 14 zones. The logic was simple: in every political formation at least 30 per cent of the organisation is always opposed to its own leadership. This ginger group will not abandon the party, but will simply not work during the elections. This group gets bigger as the leadership turns indifferent. So, instead of four ward coordinators, if 10 zonal leaders run the campaign, the “dissident quotient” will be proportionately lesser. Thus, the AAP is fighting the Congress and the BJP in about 1,000 zones in Delhi. From going out to seek candidates, asking people to come forward and contest, to meticulously checking the records of aspirants for corruption or criminal antecedents, there is a lot that the AAP is doing right. But the most important aspect of the campaign, or for that matter the organisation, is that it lends itself to the digital tools of the day. The urban techies have always been drawn to armchair debating. Here is a grand opportunity for all those angry young people to do armchair campaigning, and they do it very effectively in various social media platforms. Some of them have queued up to write out cheques for the party at a recent fund-raiser, and the most committed of them have descended into the real world to sweat it out to “change the country’s politics”. They number around 700 volunteers. This is the committed core of the party; apart from them there are about 200 volunteers for every seat. The target candidate pool is probably the most eclectic for any party. From the Hazare people to the local elite to Congress and BJP activists fed up with their leadership, everybody wants to be part of the AAP party. The local elite are the ambitious, upwardly mobile, who feel the Congress and the BJP have for long closed their doors to new entrants. They could also be from “prominent” families of Delhi’s urban villages. Then there are those who run Resident Welfare Associations, schools and hospitals, temple-mosque-gurudwara committees, or are relatively clean politicians left out by the mainstream parties. Everything seems to be too antiseptic here, particularly the void created by lack of ideology. Is this the ‘post-PoMo’ party heralding the end of ideology? Well, the answer will blow in only with a gush of power. m.thehindubusinessline/opinion/birth-pangs-of-a-new-party/article5164439.ece/?maneref=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 07:15:22 +0000
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