Head, not heart: Time for AAP to put its thinking cap on

Notwithstanding the plethora of exit polls - its own as well as independent ones that had predicted a strong performance for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), I personally never expected such a strong showing. Not that I like the BJP or the Congress - my personal preference would have been NOTA (none of the above, neither Congress nor BJP) - in their present avatars, for that would have meant choosing between two evils. At the end of the day, you would still be picking “an evil” - albeit a lesser one in your individual opinion.

But where does that leave AAP? It’s probably just as well that they did not get an absolute majority - which gives them some time to do some serious policy thinking - for what one gets to hear is passion, not rationality. If Rahul Gandhi’s only achievement to date is winning a genetic lottery some four decades back, AAP’s only claim to fame is that it is not only of the “same devils”. They can continue on this course - of not being one of them - for some more time, since there is always beginners’ luck to bank on, but unless they can crystallise on their ideology, they will fade away just as fast as they emerged.

The standard AAP response that “they are focused on solutions and not ideologies” is inane. Almost as laughable as Rahul’s CII speech (that incidentally received a standing ovation from the top CEOs in the country; what were they guys thinking?). Let’s look at some of the problems in front of the voters today.

- Cartel of electricity distributors

- Rising consumer prices

- Water shortages

- Poor state of primary education

- Rising crime rates

- How do we solve the Kashmir issue?

- Should we legalise gay sex?

What is the “correct solution” to these problems? The answer has to stem from a belief in a political ideology. Answers do not exist out of these ideologies and the very basic question that each ideology answers is “What is the role of government in society?” If one cannot answer that simple question, then it’s indeed a very sad reflection of the level of thinking in our society.

[caption id=“attachment_1280117” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] AAP workers. PTI[/caption]

It’s baffling that a team with eminently qualified personnel cannot decide on a relatively simple issue - i.e., solutions do not exist in the left or the right. Solutions emerge from your head when you can answer the above question, after thinking through the consequences of what you believe and subjecting those belief systems to reality tests (and there are plenty to learn from history without having to repeat them yourself).

As I wrote earlier, ( Kejriwal, you should reboot your agenda ), there are only four broad political ideologies - communism, liberalism, conservatism and libertarianism - and various shades thereof. One of the above four is based on science/rational thinking and the other three just provide political excuses/justifications to concentrate power in the hands of a few individuals under the guise of the greater welfare of the society.

Ofcourse, I believe that libertarianism is the ideology that’s based on science - and one that really transfers power to the individual/ordinary citizens rather than concentrating the same in the hands of the state. So I am even more surprised that all parties while espousing the above end goal choose the ideology that would take them away as far from that goal as possible. It’s understandable as to why the BJP, Congress and the mainstream political parties would do it - following a political philosophy of libertarianism would vastly reduce their powers, and perhaps even render them irrelevant to the lives of the citizens and progress of a nation. Buy why is AAP shying from it?

Developing Role Models

All the mainstream parties have terribly flawed role models: Nehru/Gandhi in the case of the Congress, Sardar Patel/Nationalism-is-enough on the part of the BJP, and “Anna-like” people in the case of AAP. All of these leaders have (or have had) terribly flawed ideas on what leads to the development of a nation. Most of the above leaders were probably sincere in their belief systems, but a sincere belief in a flawed system brings no better results and the state of the economy after 66-plus years of independence is a testimony to that.

It’s probably not a bad idea to look outside our country for role models. The world is fortunate enough to have one living role model for politicians in Dr Ron Paul. He easily fits the only criteria for AAP - ie, a person should be honest. But, more importantly, Paul is a person who has lived by principles for the entire 40 years of his political career - right from the reasons as to why he entered politics ( because the US went off the gold standard) and voting all his life on the basis of principles rather than the Republican Party’s diktats.

I am sure we are going to have a re-election in Delhi in less than six months’ time and AAP would probably storm to power. Rather than using people’s faith in them to justify not having an ideology, they are much better-off adopting one and subjecting these to reality tests. As things stand today, notwithstanding the tremendous personal achievements of Kejriwal & Co, they are unlikely to attract voters who really understand these issues. Fortunately or unfortunately for them, and definitely unfortunately for the nation, most people do not and that has been the bane of democracies all over the world. India is well on its way to becoming one more country on that list of failed democracies.

Shanmuganathan “Shan” Nagasundaramis the founding director of Benchmark Advisory Services - an economic consulting firm. He is also the India Economist for the World Money Analyst, a monthly publication of International Man. He can be contacted at shanmuganathan.sundaram@gmail.com