What looks like personality clashes and bickering(quarrel) is really a difference in vision between two key factions in a nascent(beginning) party that is still finding its shape in the crucible
The open war of attrition in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) merely days after its spectacular triumph(victory) in the Delhi Assembly elections was an unusual occurrence(event) in Indian politics. Political parties in India normally enjoy what is called a “honeymoon period,” involving internal bonhomie(friendly) and consolidation(solid mass) of success through party building following facile(effortlessly) victories — even if they are won by simple majorities in polls. In the case of the AAP, the party managed the second largest Assembly election victory in Indian history, grabbing more than 54 per cent of the vote share and 95 per cent of the seats on offer. The victory was made possible due to an overwhelming desire among the population of Delhi — especially the urban poor — for a welfare and delivery-oriented government that was not beholden to special interests and directly reached out to their needs.
The open squabble between a coterie(circle of people with a common purpose) of leaders close to AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s ideologue-duo, social scientist Yogendra Yadav and advocate Prashant Bhushan, was, therefore, surprising. Reports suggest that a truce seems to be in the offing. But the question remains as to why this difference — which apparently emerged much before the elections — came up between these leaders in the first place. The reasons for the alienation(disaffecte) of the two dissidents(difference of opinions) seem to originate from two different viewpoints. This is seen from the joint letter sent by the two recently as a riposte(quick reply) to a statement by the coterie that suggested that the duo was working against the interests of the AAP in the Delhi elections.
Following protocol
“The AAP has to decide whether it will follow the “pragmatist” line that its supremo espouses(follow) or give more space to those in the party who seek to carry forward some of the legacy of their civil society days... ”
Mr. Bhushan, a vocal lawyer who has taken up many cases against corruption, had serious reservations with a set of candidates chosen by the party for the Delhi elections, among other issues. The set of candidates included rent-earning speculators and local bigwigs, defectors from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. Mr. Yadav, on the other hand, was not so critical of this “electoral pragmatism”, justifying in an interview the AAP’s decision to tap traditional patronage networks in Delhi’s rural areas. His key reason for dissent stems from his view that the AAP has to have a pan-India strategy beyond Delhi State, which is clearly at cross-purposes with party supremo Mr. Kejriwal. The latter had vowed(promise) to consolidate his party’s victory in Delhi, more so to mitigate(lessening) the widespread and well-deserved criticism that his resignation from government last year was a sign of political immaturity. What binds Mr. Yadav and Mr. Bhushan’s dissidence is their insistence on the AAP leadership following protocol — consultation, collective decision-making and internal democracy — diligently(patience).
Political positioning
Proximate reasons apart, the recurring rifts, resignations and defections from the AAP are an outcome of the fact that the party is still finding its feet, as it graduates from a socio-political movement to a political party, currently saddled with the responsibility to rule in Delhi. Its current positioning in the political space traditionally occupied by the Congress — a centre-left party that accrued(increase) support from the poorer sections of society — has been the result of shrewd(smart) electoral tactics rather than any ideological vision. The AAP’s volunteer and activist base is primarily drawn from the middle classes and, especially, among this section’s youth cohorts(group). While they espouse an idealistic zeal to change politics by joining the political mainstream, they have no ideological inclination(tendency) except to support a solution-based approach towards governance and public policy. On the other hand, a small section of activists derive(gain) their legacy from civil society movements and agenda-driven, non-governmental organisations. These activists believe in a centre-left core and it is this set of voices that is represented in the leadership by Mr. Yadav, Mr. Bhushan and others. Mr. Kejriwal himself belonged to this section of civil society activists but has, since his entry into politics, gravitated closer to the “pragmatists” in his party.
A recent addition to the AAP’s core is a set of media-savvy “leaders” — many of whom served in the news media before — for whom the line between public-mindedness and publicity-seeking is a blur(make unclear). They serve an important role for the party by keeping it in public consciousness(awareness) through — largely noisy and personalised — discussions in the public sphere. This section has also been useful for Mr. Kejriwal in managing the Delhi elections and has established a firm presence in the coterie that surrounds him.
In the initial phase of the party, the various sections seem to have brokered an understanding that the party would stand for solutions and not for broad positions on various issues. This has allowed the party leadership leeway to maintain a non-committal position on ideology while offering ad hoc solutions on a case-to-case basis. The ideologues of the party, including Mr. Yadav, defended this approach in the past, while putting the onus(burden) on a number of theme-based committees in the party to decide its overall positioning in the long run beyond the limited agenda of instituting a Lokpal. Many of these committees’ reports — the economics and ecology committees’ for example — have been ignored or their work is yet to be discussed by the coterie-centred leadership. It is no wonder that several voices from civil society who supported the AAP in its initial phase have moved away from the party crying foul over the lack of inner party democracy.
The coterie’s not-so-subtle(elusive) claim that it is only Mr. Kejriwal’s charisma and their pragmatic ability to field “winnable”candidates that helped the AAP register its strong win is only partially correct. After all, the AAP’s credibility lay in the fact that the party took on the establishment and had committed activists from civil society taking part in its agitations(charge up). These activists also played an important role in firming up the party’s electoral strategy in the run-up to the two State elections in Delhi recently, apart from the general election in 2014. It is these leaders who offered a dissenting position in the party.
A vision
In a nutshell, the differences in the AAP basically boil down to the visions for the party’s role in Indian democracy. Mr. Kejriwal and others who support him seem to believe that the AAP has to merely play a non-corrupt and efficient role in power and use this to delineate(define) itself from other political parties. In other words, their emphasis remains on simply bettering other parties in being conduits for public interest in a welfare-oriented political system that is “transaction-driven”. Political parties in this view are only vehicles for providing services to various interests in return for attaining power through their support. Politics and public policy in this view are reduced to promises made during elections, welfare delivered to voters and politicians acting as managers of “public interest.”
Others in the AAP who belonged to civil society movements, on the other hand, see a more transformative role for the AAP. They seek to not just adjust to welfarism in the way it is extant today, but to bring about effective changes in the system. They stop short of claiming that they espouse a radical social democratic vision — which is what their views effectively amount to — but they see clear differences between the “managers” in the AAP and themselves.
In their view, their role is not that of conduits or managers but catalysts for substantive public participation in policy setting and expansion of democracy. It is this difference in vision that has come to the fore in the squabbles in the party today, even if it has taken the shape of personality clashes and inner-party issues.
The AAP cannot live with these differences forever and seek to expand as a political party beyond its current stronghold in the capital region of Delhi. It has to decide whether it will follow the “pragmatist” line that its supremo espouses or give more space to those in the party who seek to carry forward some of the legacy of their civil society days as they consider their party to be a vehicle for a political movement. The recent moves to effect reconciliation within the party suggest that Mr. Kejriwal is willing to reconsider his current positions.
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