The anti-corruption Anna Movement that began in 2011 clearly had the right-wing imprint, despite association of people like Prof Yogendra Yadav, Prof Anand Kumar, Prashant Bhushan, etc. But the redux of the movement that emerged as a political party consciously tried to chart out a separate path from its earlier avatar. Prof Yogendra Yadav suggested, AAP is beyond any ‘-ism.’ In an interview with me before the elections, Yogendra Yadav emphatically said that AAP is “trying to move beyond two kinds of politics that dominate any discussion on the Muslim question towards a third kind of politics which moves beyond pseudo-nationalism and this completely bankrupt form of secularism which being practiced.” For a very long time, however, AAP seemed to shy away from clearly making its position clear on issues of communalism and issues concerning minorities, in particular, although it had paid lip-services to some of those apprehensions in its manifesto. In fact during the peak of Delhi Assembly elections’ campaign Muzaffarnagar riots ensued and the deplorable conditions of victims were reported, yet AAP remained silent. Thus gradually Arvind Kejriwal expanded his categories of ‘enemies’ in politics which needed to be weeded out to include communal forces, besides earlier categories of corrupt leaders, dynasts and politicians with criminal backgrounds. He went on to say as much as communalism is a bigger threat than corruption in front of a gathering of Muslim intellectuals. Nowhere was this more evident than in Gujarat when Arvind Kejriwal attacked Narendra Modi in his home turf on the same pitch, raising issues of development, infrastructure, etc. rather than talking simply about 2002 riots. Consequently AAP has today merged as a credible alternative from opportunistic regional parties, and a shrinking Congress to keep the communal BJP out of power. Increasingly several educated Muslims are beginning to see Kejriwal as the only potential candidate with some caliber to puncture the apparent Hindutva wave of Modi masqueraded as mandate for development. twocircles.net/2014mar16/aap_emerging_viable_alternative_muslims.html
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 06:25:56 +0000
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