The AAP’s democratic deficit

Less than two months after its spectacular Delhi victory which stopped the Modi juggernaut, the Aam Aadmi Party got drawn into an ugly, bruising internal conflict that led to the expulsion from the national executive of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, two of its best-known leaders. Neither Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal nor they came out smelling of roses.
The confrontation exposes a major democratic deficit in a party whose very rationale was to democratise Indian politics, free it of corruption, and make it more transparent. That’s why many people who invested great hopes in ‘AAP the experiment’ feel let down by ‘AAP the party’.
The convulsion in the AAP and denting of its image weakens India’s secular-democratic forces and the agenda of equity and justice. Conversely, it strengthens the forces of communal intolerance, authoritarianism and iniquity. This is bad news even if the AAP flourishes, as does the new party Yadav and Bhushan are planning to float.
The Yadav-Bhushan episode was triggered as much by a clash of personal ambitions as by differences over styles of functioning – never mind lofty rhetoric about internal democracy. Kejriwal, with his authoritarian personality, had no use for people who wanted to be treated as joint stakeholders in the enterprise called the AAP.
Kejriwal saw the AAP as his own proprietary shop especially after winning the Delhi elections, which he did with his coterie of loyalists. He also resented the fact that Yadav wanted the AAP to contest the Haryana Assembly elections which would have diverted attention from the Delhi polls.
The Yadav-Bhushan duo was loath to be subaltern elements who must always bow to the Big Boss. So they invoked the one-person-one-post ‘principle’ (never debated in the AAP) and requested Kejriwal to step down as national convenor.
Kejriwal saw this as threateningly ambitious – although it’s perfectly legitimate in party politics. For Kejriwal, even a little ambition spelt disloyalty. He adopted a winner-takes-all approach: it’s me or the duo, he told his followers, who overwhelmingly voted them out.
Kejriwal did this crudely and abusively, relying on private conversations based on ‘sting’ operations. This, and the use of bouncers and banning of cell phones, even pens, at the March 28 national council meeting, speaks of a new political low.
It’s wrong in principle to spy into people’s private conversations. Democratic politics entails the highest respect for personal privacy, or it’ll create a spy state. It’s illegitimate to use information from stings as ‘evidence’ of culpability. Above all, it’s unethical to cultivate journalists by leaking such details to them.
Regrettably, the Yadav-Bhushan duo used identical tactics (although beyond a point, it probably had no choice). While claiming victimhood, Yadav repeatedly invoked respect for dissidence, but he himself showed no respect for dissidents in Haryana.
At the end of the day, Kejriwal is more blameworthy, for three reasons. He made a unilateral flip-flop on dissolving the Delhi Assembly: after his 49-day tenure, he moved court and demanded dissolution, but suddenly changed his stand. Second, he allowed some dubious donations to be accepted, without getting directly involved. Third, he imposed despotic decision-making on the AAP.
This is not to underrate the historic importance of Kejriwal’s stunning performance in the Delhi election. The AAP’s canvassing was woven around his popular appeal.
But politics isn’t about elections alone. And popularity is about more than personalities. It’s also about Delhi’s poor wanting to punish Modi for his pro-rich elitism, ‘56-inch’ arrogance and sectarian Hindutva. Kejriwal became the man of the moment, who happened to articulate a set of popular aspirations and demands.
There was nothing inevitable about the AAP becoming the extremely personalised party it did. This is not a natural law of Indian politics. Although many parties are centred on a single personality, some aren’t, like the Communist parties or the regional units of major outfits like the Congress or even the Bharatiya Janata Party today, or the Swatantra party or smaller Left-leaning parties of the old days.
The AAP had a chance to forge a collective leadership. But it itself made that task difficult by rejecting all ideology, and making a virtue of political amorphousness and absence of a programmatic framework. With the recent purge, it seems to have squandered the chance altogether.
The AAP is becoming a party of Kejriwal and his clones alone: his young Hindi-speaking admirers who typically quit well-paying IT industry jobs to work for the AAP, who look up to him as a demigod, and in whose company he feels most comfortable.
This cabal, as the AAP’s sacked Lokpal Admiral L Ramdas put it, is an “all boys’ club”. There are no women in the Kejriwal cabinet, and now, none in its national executive either. This is utterly deplorable.
The AAP has a bright future in Delhi and will remain nationally relevant as a potential pole of attraction. Whether it expands to other states will depend on whether it takes some worthy pro-people measures in Delhi, beyond the just-announced minor five percent minimum wage increase. Its first three major moves fall short of expectations.
First, its government is scrapping the Bus Rapid Transit system – the long-term, equitable solution to Delhi’s horrendous transportation problem, 15-20 times cheaper than the metro, which was maligned by the car lobby and sabotaged by the police in its very first 5.8 km-long stage. But the AAP didn’t bother to study the BRT before scrapping it. Nor has it consulted anyone, least of all bus commuters, thus betraying its process-related promise of local democracy.
Second, it has banned the sale of all kinds of chewing tobacco. It makes no sense to do this when cigarettes and beedi sales aren’t banned. Given that tobacco-chewing is widespread, the ban will only drive the business underground.
Third, the government has decided to supply every family 20,000 litres of piped Delhi Jal Board water free every month, corresponding to 140 litres per person per day (lppd). This is excessive and unrelated to the real need, which is for reliable, regular supply, for which even poor people are prepared to pay.
Studies show that a person doesn’t need 140 litres (over 10 buckets) a day. Realistic estimates are 50-60 litres, the highest being 85 litres. Subsidising water for the poor is justified. But giving it free to all will encourage waste, water-logging, pollution and disease.
The expense incurred will prevent the AAP from addressing the big iniquities in the water sector: massive wastage, exclusion of the poor, and huge consumption disparities.
Fifty-four percent of DJB-supplied water is wasted. DJB pipelines don’t reach one-third of Delhi’s 33 lakh households. The poorest have to buy exorbitantly priced water from mafia-controlled tankers. The mafia mines water haphazardly, contaminates groundwater and lowers the water-table.
Sixty-two percent of households get less than 50 lppd, and 25 percent less than a paltry 20 lppd. But 17 percent, living mainly in posh bungalows and flats, get 390 lppd.
The top priority is to reduce waste, extend pipelines, meet the needs of the bottom 25 percent, and double the number of meters. The AAP has ignored these realities.
The AAP must think its policies through critically, and with great seriousness. Or there’s a real danger that despite its pro-poor intentions it will end up pleasing the elite and alienating its own base. That would be tragic for Indian democracy.
The writer, a former newspaper editor,is a researcher and rights activist
based in Delhi.
Email: prafulbidwai1@yahoo.co.in