Referendum on FDI: Kejriwal's flawed idea for 'idiocracy'

Arvind Kejriwal, it appears, has his finger on the pulse of the nation. The issues that he picks up for amplification and wider dissemination have thus far, for the most part, enjoyed great resonance among a cross-section of civil society. His high-decibel ’exposes’ of corruption at the intersection of politics and business have reverberated far louder and for far longer than the more diligent investigations by mainstream media outlets that had unveiled much the same details as Kejriwal has used to build his case.In addition, his core team of young campaign managers has proved to be rather better at harnessing the power of the social media than many of the Luddite national parties and leaders, with very few notable exceptions.

In that sense, for a party that hasn’t yet won even a municipal election, Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party today have acquired ‘chatter value’ in political circles that is the envy of mainstream national parties. For all their claims to being blase about Kejriwal and his party, the responses from both the Congress and the BJP reveal their nervousness about his potential to shake up the political system in a way that erodes their support base. So comprehensively has Kejriwal come to colonise the minds of both these parties that their leaders get positively apoplectic whenever they invoke his name on public platforms and in front of television cameras.

[caption id=“attachment_547826” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Arvind Kejriwal comes across as less of a leader and more of a follower. AP[/caption]

Yet, Kejriwal’s ability to pick up hot-button political issues - and take a stand that gets huge traction with his dedicated army of followers - may not really be a sign of his sharper political instincts. If anything, it reveals a disquieting readiness to cater to the lowest common denominator of populist politics in a way that shows him up to be less of a ’leader’ and more of a ‘follower’.

Kejriwal today wants a referendum on the proposal for FDI in multi-brand retail. He points out, rightly, that the parliamentary vote of last week, which effectively endorsed the FDI proposal, was secured under false pretences and arm-twisting. As Firstpost has noted earlier, parties across the spectrum invoked various specious reasons (that had nothing to do with the specifics of the FDI-in-retail proposal) to justify their stand on the vote. In that sense, Kejriwal is correct to highlight the fact that Parliament failed, yet again, in elevating the debate on the proposal and helping leaders and common folks arrive at an informed decision on whether FDI in retail is a good thing or not. When policy proposals are ’endorsed’ in Parliament by leaders’ blatant shifting of goalposts to justify their stand and their vote, Parliament loses a bit of its claim to channelling the sentiments of common folks.

Yet, Kejriwal’s proposal for a referendum on the FDI in retail, which ties in neatly with his broader campaign for taking democracy to the grassroots, overlooks one critical consideration: that his faith in the ‘wisdom of crowds’ may be misplaced.

In the absence of an informed debate on the issue, where politicians have resorted to rhetorical excesses and peddled half-truths and wholesale lies, the _aam aadmi_in whom Kejriwal would place his trust to decide on the matter is just as befuddled on the matter. Playwright Anuvab Pal’s recollection of a conversation among a group of construction workers at an airport on what the FDI in retail proposal was about shows up the stark illiteracy that characterises the debate.

Pal notes :

One said, “When FDI comes, the MLA is saying, foreigners will go house to house and shoot small shopkeepers”. “That’s not fair”, said another. “That’s what the government has allowed,” said a third.

The level of ignorance that such discussions reflect about the powers of comprehension - and the infinite capacity of the masses to be brainwashed by their _neta_s - is positively scary. And inKejriwal’s utopian world of grassroots democracy, the verdict on FDI in retail will be delivered by such ill-informed aam aadmi.

Democracy, of course, is at its most foundational element about channelling the voice of the majority in shaping policy. But that presupposes that the people who vote are well-informed on the contours of the issue and the debate, not blinkered sheeple who swallow every lie that is fed to them without any capacity to think things through by themselves. That, if anything, would result not in a democracy, but in an ‘idiocracy’.

If anything, the onus is on leaders - including Kejriwal - to elevate the debate and educate their followers. And if that means saying the things that people don’t want to hear, they ought to have the courage to do that. But Kejriwal, it appears, would much prefer governments to conduct an opinion poll to feel the pulse of the nation - and adopt the verdict as policy. In that sense, Kejriwal comes across as less of a leader and more of a follower.

If Kejriwal’s idea were to be accepted as the template for democracy and for policymaking, there is in fact no need for an executive or even a legislature. Governments would run on auto-pilot and policy measures would take effect merely by resorting to referendums on every issue of public discourse.

The unvarnished truth is that people never vote against their own self-interest. In Kejriwal’s model of grassroots democracy, if we asked for a referendum on matters of economic policymaking, people may vote to do away with taxes in their entirety or, more likely, pile on freebies and limitless subsidies for themselves. That wouldn’t make for sound policymaking, but would merely pave the shortest path to fiscal ruin.

It is, of course, true that successive governments have played politics with competitive populism - and pretty much wrecked the economy in other ways. But Kejriwal’s solution - which lies in shaping policy through referendums - isn’t the solution that he claims it to be. It is the template for ushering in the dictatorship of the idiotic, ill-informed majority.