AAP: An experiment in democracy

October 6, 2013, 7:07 pm IST in City City Bang Bang | India | TOI

Not many gave Arvind Kejriwal a fighting chance when he began a career in electoral politics virtually from scratch. The circumstances surrounding the founding of the Aam Aadmi Party were less than propitious; the party came into being as an act of desperation that followed the collapse of the Anna Hazare led Janlokpal movement. Much to the unconcealed glee of the political establishment, Kejriwal entered their arena and was considered by most to have written his obituary from public life.

Things have not gone exactly to script. While the AAP might not quite be the frontrunner in terms of electoral victory, it is certainly a significant force, with both the Congress and the BJP having no choice but to take it seriously. For Sheila Dikshit, the AAP plays the role of crystallising and sharpening the unease that voters feel with a three-time government that seems to have lost its way in its most recent term while for the BJP, riven by internal dissent and diminished by the lack of stature of its leaders, it is the AAP that that seems to be coming between an outright victory and a hung assembly.

Arvind Kejriwal and his team have managed to shift gears quite dramatically. The Janlokpal movement for all the street level mobilisation that it managed was essentially a media driven enterprise that leveraged the infatuation that media had with a middle class movement. Cameras preyed on every word uttered by Team Anna, something that arguably magnified the power of the movement as well as ensured its eventual demise. The media induced hangover continued in the early days of the AAP, with Kejriwal’s attempt to unearth a scam a week played the old media game. This method had two problems- it was exceedingly difficult to dig up meaningful new dirt all the time and secondly, scams generated ratings but not ground level electoral support. To the extent to which it has been managed, the transition to a truly local organisation that echoes the everyday concerns of citizens has been AAP’s biggest success. 

The promise of the AAP is to offer a new way of practising politics and giving fresh meaning to the idea of democracy. The AAP is certainly delivering on some fronts. Its method of funding is unique, depending as it does on supporters quite literally putting their money where their mouths are. The highly personal, engaged and low-cost form of campaigning restores to democratic practice the idea of treating each voter as an individual rather than banding her in a larger, usually identity based collective. The idea that members of the legislature are representatives of people more than their rulers is one that finds expression in the methods used by the party. The campaign consists of several volunteers, who are part of the team not as professional political workers but amateurs fired by the idea of a new kind of governance. The process of selecting candidates too shows a desire to go beyond the usual considerations that govern the choices made by traditional political parties. 

On the other hand, not everything about the AAP is necessarily new or easily defensible. The advertising campaign is crude and borders on the vicious. Importantly, it is less than scrupulously honest, making sweeping generalisations about opponents and arrogating to Kejriwal a halo that would make most saints blush. The campaign is increasingly centred around Kejriwal, and the AAP sometimes seems to be less a mass movement than a cult around an individual. Also, while it is exceedingly clear as to what the AAP stands against, it is far from clear as to what it supports. A single point agenda is fine for a protest movement, but for a political party, particularly new one, it can become limiting.

Overall, the AAP is what it appears to be- a brave new force with its heart in the right place, that is trying out an experiment in participative democracy. It brims over with untidy energy and self-justifying righteousness. In terms of the solutions it proposes, they are somewhat simplistic and depend largely on the power of good people with good intentions. At one level, it is disappointing that the AAP has chosen a campaigning style that if anything lowers the bar in terms of the level of political discourse. But perhaps, that is what allows it to escape the fate of other well meaning efforts to clean up politics. Much like Arvind Kejriwal’s photograph in the posters put up by his own party, the campaign is sweaty, untidy, heartfelt and angry.  It is consumed by self-belief, with no time for appearances or niceties. In some ways, it is a mirror to the inchoate anger and frustration felt against the political establishment by the urban middle class.  

As with the Janlokpal movement, the real issue is not whether Arvind Kejriwal has all the right answers or whether the AAP is in fact the party that will bring about change. It is best seen as an experiment in democracy, flawed in some ways, but alive and real in its intent. It is  part of a new process by which the meaning of democracy is being redefined ground upwards.  By embracing some of the ways of politics while rejecting many others it has arguably given itself a chance while dimming its righteous glow. The AAP for all its idealism, lives in the real world of politics, and on the whole, that is good news. If it meets with even limited success, it will potentially open the doors for other efforts of this kind. For voters in Delhi, for once there is a real choice on offer. It might not be perfect, but there is a third way. 

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.


Santosh Desai

Chowlesh Shah

very good article.one of the very few intellectuals recognising and giving credit to AAP for showing that politics can be clean .to my dismay i find v...


i wish if people of my loving state UP may also understand Kejriwal and get rid of "Cunning Politics" based on religion, caste, color and creed......m...

Jai Bharat

AAP will be become an immortal event in history after Delhi Elections. India gave the world wisdom of freedom through Non Violence and Now AAP will sh...