Why the Aam Admi Mob is dangerous and must be defeated
1) Aam Admi Party or Aam Admi Mob (AAM), is precisely what I called it. It is a mob. When a mob becomes prominent in a city, the boss rewards people who had stuck to the mob so that he retains their goodwill and induces other people to support the mob. When AAM came to power in Delhi, the reward was to cancel penalties of people who had defaulted on their electricity bills. What a stupid and dangerous precedent! The mob's rhetoric is filled with this 'my way or the highway' attitude, and a monstrous ego built on the self-righteousness of the Indian middle class.
2) Politics is in general hard, and is an honorable pursuit. But it is still a beast that can be tamed with a few tricks such as demonizing the opponent and pandering to politically active vote banks that tend to vote as a herd. While this is true in other democracies, in India you additionally have to pretend to be a simple person, use words like communal, secular, saffron brigade whenever you think it would pay off. You should also create fissures among people based on religion, region, caste, language and other things that are not under their control. Mastering these tricks and playing them carefully is easier said than done. But this mastery is seen in most political parties including the BJP which I support. I can give many reasons for supporting the BJP, but it should be clear that I don't simply throw my hands up and say the whole thing is rotten. I live in a real world with trade offs. Not in some Disney land with perfect solutions.
3) With that out of the way, the mob has really learned well. On most online forums, Muslims seem to be supporting the mob. That community has been given a rough ride by the Congress and other secularists for so long, and is so fearful of the BJP that it would gladly take any rickety old bus down a cliff. The mob duly addressed the Muslims in its Delhi manifesto, and Kejriwal has been pulled up by the election commission for asking Muslims to vote for the mob. This makes the mob very dangerous since it seems to have checked off the politically active vote bank box. Some recent images from rallies show people sporting the mob's caps with words written in Urdu. Can anyone pander to a vote bank more overtly?
4) Kejriwal keeps claiming that he is an ordinary man with very ordinary aims like getting water, electricity, driver's license without having to pay a bribe etc. Good. All of us want that and I would like an ordinary man like Kejriwal to be my municipal councillor or my city's mayor, not the Prime Minister of my country. I have already experienced spineless MMS as prime minister, and I now want a strong visionary as prime minister. If Kejriwal is so ordinary as he claims to be, I don't want him to lead India. I don't want him to (effectively) command our armed forces, negotiate with cold and calculating men like Putin, Obama etc. He may even sit on dharna demanding a permanent seat for India in the UNSC.
5) The mob also does not understand the functions of a government. People elect governments so that the government can take decisions on their behalf. If you run back to the junta every time you need to place a procurement order to buy computers for government offices, then why do we conduct elections and give you the office in the first place? Direct democracy, which Kejriwal projects as if no Indian had thought about it earlier works in very small numbers. It may even work at the state level, but definitely not at the federal level. We also saw how he managed to totally screw up his attempt at direct democracy in his Delhi durbar right in the middle of a busy street. Sure, you learn from your mistakes. But I don't want you bungling with issues that have national and global ramifications when you have nothing else to show as evidence for competence. India has put up with crackpots and dimwits like Rabri Devi in the Chief minister's chair. I can definitely put up with the mob in individual states, but not in the Lok Sabha. Not now.
6) The only major issue on which the mob is seeking to be elected is corruption. Do they propose a viable solution to corruption? NO. First we have to realize that we cannot eliminate corruption completely. It is worth reiterating that we do not live in Disney Land, but in a real world with trade offs. As long as there are humans, there will be corruption and lapses in our morality. But by electing people who are not corrupt, we can reduce the incidence of corruption. So the solution is political in nature. What the mob is proposing is to set up another institution to investigate corruption charges among government officials. How on earth is this to solve our problems? What hard evidence do they have to show us that the Lokpal will solve the problem? Have we not experienced enough institutional break downs to conclude that this will not work? Do we not already have police, CBI, courts, a central vigilance commission etc? Should we not focus on reforming or doing away with these institutions before creating another beast? How naive can we be to expect that this one "super-law" will solve all our problems? Another issue is the total arbitrariness by which the Lokpal is formed. It is not democratically elected, and is completely unaccountable to the citizens of India. As it is, we are facing high levels of judicial activism. So how are we to conclude that there will not be any Lokpal activism? The whole idea has so many holes that I am surprised to see people buy it without any evidence to support the claims and all the evidence pointing towards bloated and inefficient institutions. I don't want to sound cynical, and I hate corruption as much as anyone else. But again, the solution is political. We need to elect people who are educated and honest, and not vote on caste or religious lines. This transformation will take a long long time. It is extremely naive and dangerous to believe that one more unaccountable institution will solve the issue.
7) If the mob manages to get a few seats, what will it do? I don't know. And apart from the ill-conceived lokpal bill, even they don't know. But the mob is definitely filled with rabble rousers, people with their own agendas, some of which are anti-development and even anti-national. For example, their candidate for the Kanyakumari constituency is Udayakumar, who lead the anti-Kudankulam protests. This fellow resorts to the most ugly form of propaganda, by creating hysteria and an atmosphere of fear among uneducated fishermen. He is completely opposed to the use of nuclear power, and since nuclear radiation cannot be seen or felt, it is the best thing to be cast as "boochandi" (bogeyman). The truth is that even within just tens of meters from the reactor core, the radiation levels are comparable or lower than the radiation levels on an airplane. In fact, the radiation dose suffered by workers who mine for nuclear fuel is comparable (or even smaller) than the dose experienced by flight attendants!
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.10018/abstract;jsessionid=525741BE68B7F7B66A1076CAE387E6B3.f04t01
Nuclear energy can be very dangerous but scientists all over the world, including Indian scientists have worked long and hard to understand, control and use it for producing energy. What sort of energy policy are we to expect if this ignorant man gets elected to the Lok Sabha, or worse becomes a minister? I am sure we can find many such examples among the people who are contesting on the mob's ticket. India is in dire need of a good energy policy and I would trust someone who has delivered 24 hour 3-phase power supply to his state than a mob which inducts a fear monger just to exploit the vote bank of the fisherman community. Moreover, Modi has also shown foresight in encouraging solar power, which we all hope would replace conventional power sources in the future. But in the mean time, I want our homes, hospitals and factories to operate, please!
8) Independent India has had a history of electing people on a whim. That Vijayakant's party has 40 odd seats in the TN assembly shows that our electorate does not make the most well-informed choices. It is likely that the mob will win enough seats to spoil the formation of a stable government and this makes me worried.
9) The mob's policies on many other important issues are non-existent, unknown or dangerous. There may very well be maoist sympathizers in the mob's ranks. But for all its shortcomings, the mob has changed the political discourse in the country. It has made people expect better out of their representatives. Like every other political party, as it gets bigger, it will attract people who are there purely for power. It only took two generations for the Indian National Congress to turn into a family fiefdom. Drawing from Carl Sagan, great claims require great evidence. On the one hand, Modi's evidence is no where close to prove his great claims. But the evidence is at least in the affirmative. The mob's evidence is non-existent or contradicts their claims. Repetition is a powerful tool which I will use again. There are no perfect solutions in the real world. Most problems that our country faces can be addressed by political reform. Human nature is inherently fallible, and simply creating non-democratic institutions does not guarantee a better life. We live in a world of trade offs, not Disney land.
1) Aam Admi Party or Aam Admi Mob (AAM), is precisely what I called it. It is a mob. When a mob becomes prominent in a city, the boss rewards people who had stuck to the mob so that he retains their goodwill and induces other people to support the mob. When AAM came to power in Delhi, the reward was to cancel penalties of people who had defaulted on their electricity bills. What a stupid and dangerous precedent! The mob's rhetoric is filled with this 'my way or the highway' attitude, and a monstrous ego built on the self-righteousness of the Indian middle class.
2) Politics is in general hard, and is an honorable pursuit. But it is still a beast that can be tamed with a few tricks such as demonizing the opponent and pandering to politically active vote banks that tend to vote as a herd. While this is true in other democracies, in India you additionally have to pretend to be a simple person, use words like communal, secular, saffron brigade whenever you think it would pay off. You should also create fissures among people based on religion, region, caste, language and other things that are not under their control. Mastering these tricks and playing them carefully is easier said than done. But this mastery is seen in most political parties including the BJP which I support. I can give many reasons for supporting the BJP, but it should be clear that I don't simply throw my hands up and say the whole thing is rotten. I live in a real world with trade offs. Not in some Disney land with perfect solutions.
3) With that out of the way, the mob has really learned well. On most online forums, Muslims seem to be supporting the mob. That community has been given a rough ride by the Congress and other secularists for so long, and is so fearful of the BJP that it would gladly take any rickety old bus down a cliff. The mob duly addressed the Muslims in its Delhi manifesto, and Kejriwal has been pulled up by the election commission for asking Muslims to vote for the mob. This makes the mob very dangerous since it seems to have checked off the politically active vote bank box. Some recent images from rallies show people sporting the mob's caps with words written in Urdu. Can anyone pander to a vote bank more overtly?
4) Kejriwal keeps claiming that he is an ordinary man with very ordinary aims like getting water, electricity, driver's license without having to pay a bribe etc. Good. All of us want that and I would like an ordinary man like Kejriwal to be my municipal councillor or my city's mayor, not the Prime Minister of my country. I have already experienced spineless MMS as prime minister, and I now want a strong visionary as prime minister. If Kejriwal is so ordinary as he claims to be, I don't want him to lead India. I don't want him to (effectively) command our armed forces, negotiate with cold and calculating men like Putin, Obama etc. He may even sit on dharna demanding a permanent seat for India in the UNSC.
5) The mob also does not understand the functions of a government. People elect governments so that the government can take decisions on their behalf. If you run back to the junta every time you need to place a procurement order to buy computers for government offices, then why do we conduct elections and give you the office in the first place? Direct democracy, which Kejriwal projects as if no Indian had thought about it earlier works in very small numbers. It may even work at the state level, but definitely not at the federal level. We also saw how he managed to totally screw up his attempt at direct democracy in his Delhi durbar right in the middle of a busy street. Sure, you learn from your mistakes. But I don't want you bungling with issues that have national and global ramifications when you have nothing else to show as evidence for competence. India has put up with crackpots and dimwits like Rabri Devi in the Chief minister's chair. I can definitely put up with the mob in individual states, but not in the Lok Sabha. Not now.
6) The only major issue on which the mob is seeking to be elected is corruption. Do they propose a viable solution to corruption? NO. First we have to realize that we cannot eliminate corruption completely. It is worth reiterating that we do not live in Disney Land, but in a real world with trade offs. As long as there are humans, there will be corruption and lapses in our morality. But by electing people who are not corrupt, we can reduce the incidence of corruption. So the solution is political in nature. What the mob is proposing is to set up another institution to investigate corruption charges among government officials. How on earth is this to solve our problems? What hard evidence do they have to show us that the Lokpal will solve the problem? Have we not experienced enough institutional break downs to conclude that this will not work? Do we not already have police, CBI, courts, a central vigilance commission etc? Should we not focus on reforming or doing away with these institutions before creating another beast? How naive can we be to expect that this one "super-law" will solve all our problems? Another issue is the total arbitrariness by which the Lokpal is formed. It is not democratically elected, and is completely unaccountable to the citizens of India. As it is, we are facing high levels of judicial activism. So how are we to conclude that there will not be any Lokpal activism? The whole idea has so many holes that I am surprised to see people buy it without any evidence to support the claims and all the evidence pointing towards bloated and inefficient institutions. I don't want to sound cynical, and I hate corruption as much as anyone else. But again, the solution is political. We need to elect people who are educated and honest, and not vote on caste or religious lines. This transformation will take a long long time. It is extremely naive and dangerous to believe that one more unaccountable institution will solve the issue.
7) If the mob manages to get a few seats, what will it do? I don't know. And apart from the ill-conceived lokpal bill, even they don't know. But the mob is definitely filled with rabble rousers, people with their own agendas, some of which are anti-development and even anti-national. For example, their candidate for the Kanyakumari constituency is Udayakumar, who lead the anti-Kudankulam protests. This fellow resorts to the most ugly form of propaganda, by creating hysteria and an atmosphere of fear among uneducated fishermen. He is completely opposed to the use of nuclear power, and since nuclear radiation cannot be seen or felt, it is the best thing to be cast as "boochandi" (bogeyman). The truth is that even within just tens of meters from the reactor core, the radiation levels are comparable or lower than the radiation levels on an airplane. In fact, the radiation dose suffered by workers who mine for nuclear fuel is comparable (or even smaller) than the dose experienced by flight attendants!
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.10018/abstract;jsessionid=525741BE68B7F7B66A1076CAE387E6B3.f04t01
Nuclear energy can be very dangerous but scientists all over the world, including Indian scientists have worked long and hard to understand, control and use it for producing energy. What sort of energy policy are we to expect if this ignorant man gets elected to the Lok Sabha, or worse becomes a minister? I am sure we can find many such examples among the people who are contesting on the mob's ticket. India is in dire need of a good energy policy and I would trust someone who has delivered 24 hour 3-phase power supply to his state than a mob which inducts a fear monger just to exploit the vote bank of the fisherman community. Moreover, Modi has also shown foresight in encouraging solar power, which we all hope would replace conventional power sources in the future. But in the mean time, I want our homes, hospitals and factories to operate, please!
8) Independent India has had a history of electing people on a whim. That Vijayakant's party has 40 odd seats in the TN assembly shows that our electorate does not make the most well-informed choices. It is likely that the mob will win enough seats to spoil the formation of a stable government and this makes me worried.
9) The mob's policies on many other important issues are non-existent, unknown or dangerous. There may very well be maoist sympathizers in the mob's ranks. But for all its shortcomings, the mob has changed the political discourse in the country. It has made people expect better out of their representatives. Like every other political party, as it gets bigger, it will attract people who are there purely for power. It only took two generations for the Indian National Congress to turn into a family fiefdom. Drawing from Carl Sagan, great claims require great evidence. On the one hand, Modi's evidence is no where close to prove his great claims. But the evidence is at least in the affirmative. The mob's evidence is non-existent or contradicts their claims. Repetition is a powerful tool which I will use again. There are no perfect solutions in the real world. Most problems that our country faces can be addressed by political reform. Human nature is inherently fallible, and simply creating non-democratic institutions does not guarantee a better life. We live in a world of trade offs, not Disney land.
