BackAAP and the dilemmas of lokniti
Arvind Kejriwal's skills as a political entrepreneur will soon be put to test
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Arvind Kejriwal has been an astonishing political innovator. The way he has gone about raising money for his campaign, written his manifesto and reached out to voters caught the traditional political parties on the wrong foot. Kejriwal is in running to become the chief minister of Delhi a mere year after he formed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Now comes the difficult part. Kejriwal made a name for himself as an uncompromising activist. It remains to be seen how he will adjust to the inevitable compromises of formal party politics, especially given the fact that the electorate has not given AAP a clear mandate. The dilemma that Kejriwal could face in the coming months was anticipated by Anna Hazare, with whom Kejriwal parted ways after his decision to form a political party.
There are two troubling questions. Should political change be driven from within the system or from outside? And what should be the role of direct democracy in this process?
The debate between the two crusaders against corruption has deep roots in Indian political history. It is well known that M.K. Gandhi advised the Congress to convert itself from a political party into a Lok Sevak Sangh once its primary goal of independence was attained. M.N. Roy dissolved his Radical Democratic Party after the first general election due to an overall disillusionment with the corruptions of parliamentary democracy. Jayaprakash Narayan borrowed from both Gandhi and Roy when he spoke of partyless democracy towards the end of his long career.
Kejriwal sometimes talks about giving citizens a direct say in government decisions. His ambitious goal of asking citizens to directly vote on important issues has within it the possibilities of reordering the traditional relationship between the state and civil society. But there will be significant challenges along the way in defining the limits of direct democracy.
First, the core principle of a constitutional democracy such as ours is that policy has to be designed within a framework of rules rather than the shifting tides of public opinion. Second, the Indian experience with local democracy shows that it is often captured by dominant caste interests that wield great power in the locality. Third, economists after Kenneth Arrow have shown that there are significant challenges in aggregating inconsistent individual choices into a meaningful social choice.
It is unlikely that Kejriwal and his team are unaware of these problems with direct democracy, and perhaps citizens will be expected to vote only on issues that affect their daily lives rather than broader national policy. The global experience is mixed. We have the successful example of Swiss cantons asking their citizens to vote on specific issues but also counter-examples such as the terrifying people’s courts in Maoist China which dispensed brutal punishments with a show of hands.
Also, some of the suggestions in early versions of the AAP manifesto—that consumers should vote on how much they should pay for food—were absurd. Any rational consumer would choose a minimal price at which farmers would necessarily refuse to supply to the cities.
This is what Roy wrote about the problems of representative democracy nearly six decades ago: “It is known from experience how, in an atmosphere of political backwardness and general ignorance, this system can be abused; how people of questionable character can occupy positions of public trust by virtue of belonging to particular party. A party gives priority and prominence to people not of moral integrity or intellectual merit, but those who can be of greatest help for it to capture power. The result is that parties often serve the purpose of promoting the ambition of individuals either thirsting for power for the sake of power or for material gain."
Hazare has echoed these fears in more recent times. It is to the credit of Kejriwal that he has taken the plunge nevertheless, after understandable criticism that it is one thing to complain and another thing to actually run a government.
History offers sobering lessons. Jayaprakash Narayan saw his utopian dreams shattered when he gave his blessing to the Janata Party, which was shown the door by voters before its term could end. Kejriwal must undoubtedly be aware of all these risks.
The grand promises of local swaraj or lokniti can be popular in a country where people are fed up with the corruption of traditional politics. So is the quest to give citizens agency. But running a modern nation state (or one of its components) that is part of a system of global rules is not an easy task, especially when voters have often refused to give clear mandates to any one political party.
Kejriwal has been elected on the back of a very ambitious—and unrealistic—set of promises. He deserves praise for rattling the system as well as rewriting the rules of electoral politics. But his skills as a political entrepreneur will be put to severe test in the coming months when he will begin to deliver on his promises to voters.
Can the AAP deliver on its ambitious promises? Tell us at views@livemint.com
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