Abhishek Dwivedi
In reply to AAP is here to stay by
Akansha Mehta
With few reservations, I will have to agree
with Akansha where she says that Aam Aadmi party is a favorite of hopeful and
optimistic idealists. Taking her argument forward, I will state that it is a hallucination
for the over optimistic people plagued with utopianism. Expecting solutions
from idealists is to move further away from reality. And here, I must confess
that I am a realist indeed.
Any argument
or contention in favor of or against AAP cannot be made without establishing
two basic facts. First and most important point is that AAP is a Political
party in the same political system that it abuses at every opportunity. It is
no more a civil society trying to take on the system through social movements. Secondly,
there is a difference between India Against Corruption and Aam Aadmi Party. IAC
is still in existence under the guidance and patronage of Anna Hazare an has declared that it will not support AAP. Its
activists are still trying to use apolitical means to take on the system. While
AAP is the breakaway of the movement and consisted of people who had political
aspirations, not that it is wrong or immoral.
While Akansha is generous in accepting or
at least acknowledging that AAP has half-baked policies, she easily disregards
them as “beliefs of intellectuals and rival political parties”. Well I think it
is my duty to inform her about the party and its policies she is defending.
First of all, AAP has its committees in order to
formulate policies on different matters including police reforms, SECULARISM,
economic policy, foreign policy and even a committee on external defense. But
do we really need these committees to get a glimpse of policies of AAP? An important name flashes at the top and thus,
we must mention here, Mr. Binayak Sen. Mr. Sen has been named by AAP in the
Police Reforms Committee and Naxalite issue committee. Now, presence of Mr. Sen-
a known Naxal sympathizer, in police reforms committee, is beyond the
understanding of any sensible mind. Even
if Mr. Sen was in Health committee or related field, it would have made sense
due to his medical expertise, but police reforms is simply absurd. Moving towards
the committee on naxalite affairs where presence of Mr. Sen, being a sympathizer
of Naxals, people who have taken arms against state, will only undermine the
morale of forces and state machinery. [Thank god AAP is not in power.]
Well, do we really need to look upon the composition
of the committees to get a glimpse of the policies when Prashant Bhushan has
said it on record that
Kashmir should be given a chance to get separate from India. With our soldiers
dying in Kashmir every day, such statements by “stalwarts” of AAP are enough to
show the hollow nationalism of AAP leaders. Presence of Bhushan in AAP
has made it one thing certain that we can expect our internal security and
affairs to be in shambles, if, god forbid, AAP ever comes to power. Those who
say that it is “personal view” of Bhushan should remember that how
“batla encounter” case fought by Bhushan was declared as an AAP
initiative by Kejriwal in his letter about which we will talk later.
Then there are committees on secularism,
minorities and Muslims. I do not understand the need of two different
committees in the first place for minorities and Muslims. But then AAP is a
political party. And the committee on secularism has already started working
overtime. The Letter to Muslims
of Delhi by Arvind Kejriwal clearly terms Batla House encounter as fake and
assumes or owns the responsibility to defend it. If the AAP bandwagon calls
that as secularism, gods save the country. Now with courts judgment pronouncing
the lone captured terrorist as guilty, the AAP has a lot to answer.
The biggest problem with AAP is that it
cannot come out of the shadow of a protest based movement. Anything happens and
the Topiwalahs of AAP are there to protest without understanding or even
knowing the problem. All of their exposes have proved to be absolutely
worthless. Their crusaders have been found to be corrupt themselves. And the
traditional AAP support is another story in itself. Ask them anything regarding
economy, foreign policy, internal security, terrorism, police and
administrative reforms and they will have a solution ready- JanLokpal. Anything
and everything can be solved through JanLokpal.
Protests and Exposes have been the backbone
of AAP. But there is another side of this story. Protests have become a weapon
of extortion for AAP. The AAP support to Bajaj
Auto Strike is one such case. AAP jumped in suddenly to support the contract
workers at the Bajaj Auto and tried to tap the largely neglected contract
workers base. However, Moneylife brought the
real issue out when it disclosed that AK had met Rahul Bajaj for a TV channel for
AAP two months back. It will not take a mind storming session to guess that AK
was getting back at Bajaj who refused or seemed disinterested in the Channel
proposal.
The whole drama of transparency and
secularism has brought AAP in the line of political parties whom it was formed
to oppose. Like traditional Indian parties, it has all the buzz and no
substance. It is making gains in Delhi, but the TIMES NOW- C- VOTER opinion poll
did not give any seat to AAP or for that matter any other opinion poll.
Arvind may try to sell hope or dreams but he
is no different. He is just another politician. He has become one of those
against whom he still claims to fight. The mask of so called political transparency
has been removed by Mayank/Anjali and Bajaj episodes; and now Veil of secularism
is the last resort of AAP which it has tried through Batla House Encounter
issue.
The only conclusion i can end this article with, is that with Kejriwal in arena, the Indian politics
is bound to get dirtier.
