A paradigm shift in Indian politics

Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) spectacular debut in Delhi marks the second coming of Gandhi and a significant paradigm shift in Indian politics for three reasons.

First: It heralds the advent of a much-needed political alternative that breaks free from all varieties of ideological formulations shaped and coloured by the language and idiom of colonial and post-colonial experiences. In that sense, it promises the possibility of a fresh discourse totally unencumbered by the stale and tired semantics that ceased to make sense a long time ago. This discourse is authentically reflective of the needs and aspirations of the present juncture of history, for it convincingly steers clear of the ideological certitudes of the past without being ethically neutral or morally ambiguous.

Curiously, AAP presents analytical challenges to most political pundits for whom any force that does not fall neatly into the Right or Left (or the myriad varieties within them) paradigm is automatically suspect. This is why much of the intellectual attempts at analysing the AAP phenomenon are filled with smug condescension and cynical prognosis. While the pundits struggle with conceptual conundrums, which are largely their own making, substantial segments of people in India seem quite comfortable with the new semantics and modus operandi that AAP has brought into the political scene.

Gandhi presented insurmountable challenges to contemporary pundits precisely because he chose to operate outside the set ideological cocoons dominant at the time. But the majority of people in India, cutting across divides of caste, creed, class and language, had no difficulty understanding what Gandhi represented. AAP has already made it clear that it did not want to occupy the middle ground between the Right and Left, but to transcend the binary towards a politics centred on the rights of the citizens.

Second: AAP has plans to bring together the various people’s movements across the country, which robustly functioned outside the political establishment for decades. Several Farmers’ movements, women’s movements, green movements, anti-nuclear coalitions, human rights groups and other radical groups have continued their struggles against significant odds for the past three decades, while the political establishment, including the mainstream left, mostly turned a cruel blind eye to them. Even the media paid scant attention to these political struggles, which brought immense energy into the stagnant waters of Indian politics, acknowledging their presence only when they turned violent or when they won or lost major legal battles. To bring these groups into the arena of electoral politics will undoubtedly be a game changer.

The latest development in this context is the invitation issued by AAP to People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy in Koodankulam. AAP is better suited than others to the purpose of bringing together the diverse energies of the people’s movements because they remain ideologically agnostic without being ethics-neutral.

Third: AAP has scrupulously avoided whipping up vertical issues, choosing instead to stick to horizontal ones. This is a crucial point of departure since for most political parties in India their very reason d’etre for existence is one or the other vertical issue stemming from the differences of caste, creed, region, language or class. Even those parties, such as the Congress, that claim to stand for horizontal issues are tainted with the same dirt because they cynically used the various divides that define Indian polity (such as the Hindu-Muslim divide) for electoral gains on many occasions. AAP has so far focused on the most important horizontal issue that affects all Indians in nearly equal measure in one way or the other, namely, corruption. This has exposed them to criticisms that they are ambivalent on crucial issues (of a vertical nature) such as the politics of Hindutva, calls for bifurcation of some Indian states and so on. AAP seems to have concluded that the need of the hour is not to add to the already nauseating cacophony on predictable lines, but to build up a new political discourse that seeks to bring the common citizen — or the last man — centre stage.

Contrary to fears expressed in some Left circles, this writer has not seen any evidence to suspect that the AAP is soft on the Hindu Nationalists or on the votaries of predatory neo-liberalism, two of India’s principal challenges to national integration. Most of the vertical issues that have doggedly plagued Indian politics have resulted from corruption on the one hand and the absence of humane politics and governance on the other. Divisive issues are brought to bear upon politics with the intent of obfuscating the real problems affecting the citizenry. AAP’s goal of creating Swaraj — the Gandhian idea of radical decentralisation — offers a creative solution to the various manifestations of internecine disharmony and conflict in India because it presupposes the convergence — or confluence if you will — of multiple identities under a single roof to chart their common destiny as citizens of a democratic country.

The following statement by AAP ideologue and eminent social scientist Yogendra Yadav is sufficient to dispel all doubts about the party’s alleged ambiguity on ‘development’: “My commitment to the last person is a value, it is non-negotiable. But if someone says the public sector or subsidies are non-negotiable, they are confusing ends with means.”

Shajahan Madampat is a cultural critic and commentator based in Abu Dhabi.