There appears to be a growing disenchantment with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) these days due to a variety for reasons. One class of the criticism of AAP is based on their conduct and the other is based on their core beliefs. Mr Shekhar Gupta articulates the second class of criticism (i.e. of AAP’s philosophy) very effectively in an Indian Express article titled “Arvind Chitra Katha” dated 8th Feb 2014. [1] I intend to show here that the criticism, particularly its tone, is wholly unwarranted. (There is of course a difference in core beliefs and actual conduct, and the latter may be criticized even if the former is sound).
In
this article, the writer tells us that he read Mr Arvind Kejriwal’s book Swaraj [2] and found it scary. He starts with a ridicule of what he calls Kejriwal’s
“Chandamama history” and spends a significant portion of the article (about 30%
of the criticism by word count) on this aspect. To illustrate his point, he
refers to a story from Swaraj
that the author has cited to show that ancient Indian society had “real”
democracy. The story is about a courtesan, whom
Mr Gupta suspects to be Amrapali from Chatursen’s novel “Vaishali Ki
Nagarvadhu”. He goes on to explain that this history is a fiction derived from Chandamama,
Wikipedia, and a Vyjayanthimala
movie. Further, he postulates that Amrapali was a mythical version of “Helen
of Troy”. It seemed rather silly to me that he chose to spend so much real
estate on pointing out that Mr Kejriwal’s story of a courtesan in ancient India
is a legend, rather than considering it a parable used to bring home the point of democracy being rooted in Indian culture, something that another writer has supported. [3] Whether
Mr Kejriwal believes it to be legend or “history” seemed not of great significance
to me. (The book does appear to cite the story as a parable, without trying to
claim historical validity – neither the name of the courtesan or of the king is
mentioned.)
The
other part of Mr Gupta’s ridicule is directed at Mr Kejriwal’s proposed
solutions. It appeared to me that Mr Gupta has had an epiphany – systems are
bad in their extreme form – and he’s chosen to apply this insight to the proposed Gram Sabhas.
But then again, I thought, perhaps the book did warrant such ridicule. So I
decided to take inspiration from him and Mr Arun Shourie (who Mr Gupta claims as his inspiration) and read the book for myself.
The central thesis of Swaraj
is that a large number of problems can be solved if it was left to the local
communities to decide how they would like to spend the resources allotted to
them, rather than mandating that the money be spent on schemes made at the national or state level (which often don’t make sense at the local level). In other words, Swaraj
proposes that devolving power to local communities is a big part of answer to
the problem of corruption and development. I could write a review of the book,
but I think it is more illustrative to go forward by addressing Mr Gupta’s
criticisms in detail. At this point, I would recommend that you read Mr
Gupta’s article first to see why he thinks that what Mr Kejriwal proposes is
preposterous. In the interest of brevity, I have referred to his various criticisms
without explaining what he said in detail – it will help if you have read the article
to understand what I am talking about. Let me go on, then.
Regarding
the story of Amrapali, I had considered the possibility that rather than being
a solitary example, the book is filled with stories purporting to be real
history. This would explain why Mr Gupta had chosen to spend so much time
debunking the “Chandamama history”. But upon reading the book I discovered that
there is just that one story – legend or reality – that was cited from ancient
India. Further, the entire Kejriwal manifesto is NOT inspired, as Mr Gupta
alleges, from the purported Chandamama history. In fact, the book cites several
examples of the gram sabha concept being implemented successfully in different
pockets on modern India. For example, cases are cited of mohalla sabhas having been successfully implemented in the Delhi MCD wards of Trilokpuri and Sunder Nagri,
where the councilors have apparently declared that the contractors of the areas
will be paid only when the work is completed to their satisfaction. This is the
kind of power over local schemes that Mr Kejriwal says he wants
to be given to the gram/mohalla sabhas.
Let’s
first visit Mr Gupta’s criticisms of Chandamama history before addressing the
more meaningful criticisms:
1. Calling
Vaishali “world’s oldest democracy”: Mr Gupta ridicules the reference to Vaishali as the world's largest democracy. I shouldn’t have to
explain to a journalist such as Mr Gupta that such claims are made for impact,
not because the author/orator has conviction about their historical accuracy. But
let me still indulge him a little bit. Mr Gupta does seem to believe that
Vaishali was a democracy (and that its alleged anarchy led to its defeat at the
hands of Ajatshatru), so the question is whether it can claim to be the first
one. The Licchavi kingdom existed ~2000 yrs before United States of America
adopted the declaration of independence. If the US Department of State, along
with Barack Obama and George W. Bush can
call United States of America the “world’s oldest democracy” [4, 5], is calling Vaishali
the same that ridiculous? (On historical account, neither of these claims is tenable,
because no place can make that claim. People formed groups long before history
started being recorded, and there must have been many of these groups with some
form of democracy.) Recently, with Mr
Narendra Modi choosing to contest from Varanasi, it has been a lot in news and
often is called the oldest living city. One could of course question the validity of this claim [6] and ridicule people on this basis. But is it really sensible?
2.
The
“legend” of Amrapali: Mr Gupta did a “quick
check with some prominent historians and their texts” and found that the story
of Amrapali is just a legend from movies and novels, and not reality. He names
just one book that he looked up, didn’t find any references to, and concluded
definitively that it must be a legend. He goes on to assert that she’s probably
just a mythical Indian version of Helen of Troy. I looked up just one book as
well – John Keay’s “India, a History”.[7] Apparently, Amrapali did exist: Pages
67-68 refer to the “beautiful Amrapali”, “a courtesan whose physical perfection
and outstanding skills had secured her elevation to the status of a national
asset”, “one of the Buddha’s most devoted future followers”. So much for her
being mythical.
3.
Cause
of the war: Further belittling Wikipedia and Chandamama history (and ultimately Mr
Kejriwal) he disparagingly points out that the cause of war between Vaishali
and Magadh was not love but a matter of stolen necklace. Here I quote pages
67-68 of John Keay’s book: “…Magadh’s problem seems to have started back in the
reign of Bimbisara and to have been complicated by an affair of the heart”.
Apparently during some “desultory fighting”, Bimbisara had sneaked into
Vaishali and spent a week with Amrapali. This was seen as an affront to the
Licchavi kingdom, which then intensified their attacks on Magadh. So according
to at least one account, the war had something to do with Bimbisar (not his son
Ajatshatru as Mr Gupta’s asserts) and Amrapali’s affair. Ajatshatru was driven
to exact revenge. Regarding the story of the necklace, John Keay’s book doesn’t
attribute it to be the cause of war but states that it initially “compounded”
the war. There are other accounts which cite the cause of war to be a disputed
mountain or a disputed island.
4.
Cause
of Licchavi’s loss: Mr Gupta gives the impression that Ajatshatru was able to defeat
Vaishali in no time because the latter were busy debating how to defend themselves.
In fact, the war raged on for 12 years (Page 69). Finally, “Insinuating into
the Licchavi counsels a particularly wily Brahman, or suborning the city’s
tutelary ascetic with an irresistible prostitute, he either reduced his enemies
to discord or duped them into surrender.” So, in addition to Magadh’s
“well-equipped and professional armies” (Page 65), there are at least two other
proposed causes for the loss of Licchavis. Is Mr Gupta’s claim that Licchavi’s
wouldn’t have lost if they were dictatorships and didn’t have counsels in which
“a wily Brahman could be insinuated”? Or does he think that it is impossible
for a femme fatale to seduce a government official in today’s democracy to
gather vital secrets from him. Some would argue that one of the reasons India lost
the China war was that we weren’t prepared for the war because Mr Jawarlal
Nehru couldn’t be convinced that China posed a military threat. Since a single
person still had to make the decision to prepare for war in our personality
driven democracy, I don’t know if we should count this one in favor of or
against democracy! But considering the authoritarian regime won, let us give it
to them. China has also been doing much better than us in many other respects
in the last few decades. Some would say that it is at least partly because it
doesn’t have a messy democracy like India. So is Mr Gupta prescribing that we
discard our current system and have a healthy dose of authoritarianism because
our “greatest asset is also our greatest weakness”?[1] Why does Mr Gupta choose to
focus solely on the part that “governance through discussion” was their
greatest weakness and completely ignore the part of the sentence that claims it
was also its strength? The way he has treated the subject, one would be led to
believe that there is no merit to having a more participatory democracy.
As
I have said, the history of Vaishali is a non-issue. The only reason I have
addressed it is because of Mr Gupta’s focus. For somebody who’s criticizing
another person of being guided by fictional history, shouldn’t he have done a
better homework on his own history?
Now
let’s get to the more relevant issues. I have already addressed the allegation
of the Kejriwal manifesto being governed solely by Chandamama history. So let’s
look into some of the other things that the book has been ridiculed for.
1. Mr Gupta alleges that Kejriwal is claiming that the gram sabhas will be “supremely virtuous”:
Mr Kejriwal doesn’t assert that gram sabhas will be “supremely virtuous”. In fact, in the book he accepts that sometimes there may be
fighting and no consensus would be reached. He says that in such cases, at
least the people will know that it is their own fault and not of some official
sitting in a far away city. But when
they are able to work together, the benefits will be tremendous. He concedes
that things will not improve all of a sudden but asks when are the chances of misuse of power greater: when power is concentrated in one
individual (sarpanch) or when it is distributed to many (gram sabhas)?
2. Mr Gupta ridicules the idea of un-tied funds, without accountability:
What Mr Kejriwal says in the book, and what he has said repeatedly since,
is this: People at the center or state level don’t know what the needs of
individual villages or localities are. The funds available to the villages are
often “tied” to these schemes. So they may want to build a hospital, but the
money allocated to them may be tied to a scheme for building houses (which the
particular village may not need as much). The argument against tied funds then
is that the spending will be more efficient if the villagers are able to freely
decide what their priorities are. As to the question of accountability, I ask
this: With all the purpose, supervision, oversight, and accountability that Mr
Gupta imagines that our system currently has (and Mr Kejriwal’s Gram Sabhas
don’t), why is corruption still rampant and nobody ever seems to get punished? By
the way, Season 2, Ep 4 of Satyamev Jayate (last segment) talks about a village
that was transformed when a third of the funds to the gram panchayat were made
“untied” to any schemes and the villagers were free to decide how to spend the
money. Another guest on the program said that people always want decentralization of power, but only to their level; they always say that giving power to people below their level will cause anarchy. Repeating another sentiment: to some extent, you need to trust the people.
3.
On the power to hire/fire/reward/punish all
government employees: Currently
this power is vested with politicians. Does Mr Gupta think that they have
oversight that works?
4.
On the “Quick and exemplary punishment” being
the fundamental philosophy of this new “system”.” Nobody is unaware of the long time it can
take (if ever) to get justice in India. The first episode of the 2nd
season of Satyamev Jayate (on the issue of rapes in India) talked about there being
no deterrence to crimes in India as the guilty never get punished, and hence
the need for quicker and more exemplary punishment. I believe we
can agree that there is a huge gap between the current situation and the point
where “quick” becomes “hasty”.
5.
On
ending Naxalism: Again, the words from Swaraj are twisted. What Mr Kejriwal writes
instead is that the problem of Naxalism will be mitigated in a democracy where people have greater power. I
don’t understand why this is outrageous to Mr Gupta. With his references to
“saffron historians”, Gujrat 2002, Article 370, Mr Gupta makes it clear that
he’s not for BJP either. Rahul Gandhi said something on
similar lines as Mr Kejriwal [9] . So let us choose nobody? But isn’t having no
government probably closer to anarchy than anything Arvind Kejriwal has
proposed, and for which Mr Gupta chastises the activist-politician?
6.
On
referendums and areas within purview of gram sabhas:
Mr Kejriwal has said several times that these sabhas will have
defined areas on which they can make laws. Having laws made at state and
national levels doesn’t create anarchy because the respective domains are
defined.
7.
On
the authority to collect taxes: Giving authority of tax
collection to the local bodies is proposed to make them financially autonomous
and to reduce the amount of leakage that happens when taxes are collected,
passed on to the center and then disbursed back to the local bodies. This is
not as ridiculous as Mr Gupta believes – in the United States, taxes are usually
collected at the federal, state and local level. The local bodies decide how
and on what to spend their funds.
8.
If I have to nit-pick like Mr
Gupta, I can wonder aloud about what he means on the thoughts of Ram, Krishna,
and Gandhi on democracy. Ram was a monarch (not a democratically elected
leader) who banished his wife to the forests after making her go through an agni-pareeksha,
just so that the praja
doesn’t cast aspersions on the Queen. And even when she passes the test, she’s
still banished to the forest. Gandhiji is often called autocratic for his
refusal to change his mind once he’d decide on something.
9.
On
the devolution of power to gram sabhas being a recipe for anarchy:
In this Indian Express article [2], the writer (M Rajivlochan) delves more into
the democracy in “ancient Indian society”, limitations of the King’s power, and
how these added to social stability instead of causing anarchy.
10.
The
possibility of majority rule subverting minority rights:
This is the most valid criticism made by Mr Gupta. There is a real possibility
of these gram sabhas being dictated by majority opinion and minorities not
getting their fair share. In fact, there is a section of the book that tries to
address foreseeable problems with the gram sabhas. One of these problems cited
is the possibility that if a scheme (say, building roads or giving subsidized
ration) benefits only a few people, the majority may vote against the
provision. The books offers that the “problem can be solved to a certain extent
by the concept of benefit group/councils”. Further details are needed to
understand how (and if) this would
work, and I should expect that when journalists have the opportunity to
interview Mr Kejriwal they try to get answers on these issues. That they also
read the proposed Swaraj bill and ask pointed questions about scope of misuse
and the checks and balances in place to prevent them. But instead, much of the
time is spent asking clarifications for inane questions (e.g. Are you the
B-Team of Congress?). On the question of Somnath Bharti, I have heard the same
questions being asked and the same answers (of course) being given in interview
after interview. When Mr Kejriwal says that he and his party went through the
tapes of the whole night and found nothing wrong was done by Somnath Bharti, why
don’t the news channels acquire the video tapes, go through them, and in the next
interview either rebut these claims based on what they find in the tapes or
concede that they were wrong? Instead, the same accusations are hurled in each
interview and the viewer is basically free to choose his/her version of the
event because the news channels have not offered any new information. Some people
will argue that it is solely that the media is paid to do the kind of news it
does. I am not cynical enough to claim that everybody who has a opinion
different from mine, or what I consider unsound, is corrupted. I would not
accuse Mr Gupta of intentional malice – it is impossible for me to know that. But,
to me, what cannot be denied is that (1) he did a substandard job in his
research – almost all his criticism of historical accounts was demonstrated as
false; and (2) that he let his biases
pervade his article – even when he claims to be trying to be a better journalist
by reading the source, all he does is to apply his biases to the source material
as well. Another thing that’s evident here is how a decent writer can make a
reasonable proposal sound extreme and ridiculous.
11. Vinod Kumar Binny and High Command Culture: Mr Gupta insinuates that AAP is just as guilty of the high command culture as other parties, and in support he cites the expulsion of Vinod Kumar Binny. Without disagreeing (or agreeing) with the essence of the matter, let me just say that he could have cited a better example than this. To anyone who observed impartially the content of Vinod Kumar Binny's accusations against AAP and Arvind Kejriwal, it was clear that these were the same accusations that Delhi BJP, and Mr Harsha Vardhan in particular had made (including on the floor of the house). Now you might say that it is okay because BJP's accusations were correct and two people can have the same version if it is the truth. But many of these charges by Mr Binny can be demonstrated to be patently false. Lying is completely different from holding an opinion different from the party, and expulsion in this case was not only understandable, it was unavoidable. I will give just two examples of such false charges made by him (this is already a very lengthy piece) [10, 11]:
A. That JanLokpal and Swaraj bill hadn't been passed yet and no work was being undertaken on it: This is obviously false because if no work was being undertaken, how was the party able to have the bills ready to table in February? Remember, Arvind Kejriwal resigned over these two bills that Mr Binny claims no one was working on.
B. That the party had cheated people on free water by making them pay for the whole amount if they exceeded 700 litres: From the very beginning, one of the criticisms of the water subsidy was that free water would lead to water wastage. It was explained by AAP and Citizens Front For Water Democracy [12] that to prevent wastage of water, there was a provision that if the usage exceeded 700 litres, charges will be applied for the full 700 + X litres. As a MLA of AAP, Mr Binny must have known about this. If he really felt that this provision had been snuck into the manifesto, why didn't he communicated this to the electorate before the elections.
With
what I have written so far, I may have given the impression of being smitten by
this book, AAP’s philosophy, and/or its leader. This is far from the truth. It is hardly a scholarly text, has no
references, and appears to have been written in a very short time. It presents
more of an idea than a convincing argument. (This is exactly what I had
expected, and the reason why I hadn’t bothered to read it sooner.) A judgment
on this idea would depend on the actual form the proposed Swaraj law takes. For
example, the proposal to give law making powers directly in the hands of the
people can be very problematic for the reasons Mr Gupta cites. Mr Kejriwal has
in interviews said that the areas within the purview of the
gram sabhas will be specifically defined (they won't be able to make laws on everything). Mr Kejriwal explains in the book that the village will have the
power to make rules only for the village; for matters involving two or more
villages, the rules will be made at the block level. Similarly for the inter-block
level issues, the state government will make the rules. However, there is still is a lot of ambiguity
that can only be resolved once you see the draft of the Swaraj bill (which I
haven’t). The
book also gets pretty repetitive despite being short. After a few examples of
how the gram sabhas can solve this and that, I was like – Got it dude, Gram
Sabhas will help solve a lot of problems.
I
also disagree with Mr Kejriwal’s description of Switzerland as the best
democracy in the world, and here again Mr Gupta is right that in a direct
democracy there is a very good chance of a mob rule. But, such challenges are
not limited to direct democracies. In the US, recently a law (SB1062) was
passed in the state of Arizona that would have allowed people to discriminate
against anybody (intended against the LGBT community) if it was based on their
“deeply held religious beliefs”. The bill was vetoed by the governor not for
reasons of conscience but because of pressure from business groups. In India,
populist laws and measures are enacted all the time. The Shah Bano case is a
prime (even if somewhat old) example. So both the “oldest and the largest” (per
US Department of State) representative democracies in world suffer from the
same problem for which Mr Gupta castigates Mr Kejriwal’s proposal. The question
of appropriate checks and balances is very legitimate and must be answered by Mr
Kejriwal. But you are misleading your reader and yourself by pretending that
the current system doesn’t have similar problems, or that there can’t be any
checks and balances in the proposed system.
The
other objectionable part that I found in the book is the passing comment about
khap panchayats ordering killings being a matter of contention. That’s
certainly something I would like Mr Kejriwal being probed further on. It’s a pity that most journalists focus on
meaningless issues rather than substantive ones. But I should mention that on
the occasions when Mr Kejriwal has been asked about it, he has never (to my
knowledge) replied that this doesn’t happen. You don’t have to be a
constitutional scholar to know that on the question of whether to ban khap
panchayats, he’s absolutely right when he says that doing so would be unconstitutional
as you can’t ban an assembly of people. Moreover, it would be meaningless because,
if you did, they could just change the name of the organization. That’s exactly
what happens sometimes when a terrorist organization is banned – it simply pops up
under a different name. Moreover, he rightly argues, that such acts of khap
panchayats are completely within the purview of the IPC.
- Swaraj, by Arvind Kejriwal, Published by HarperCollins, 2012
- http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/how-we-were-ruled/
- http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2013/06/22/us-and-india-world-s-oldest-and-largest-democracies-share-historical-ties
- http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament
- http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/photos/12-oldest-continuously-inhabited-cities/old-as-the-hills
- India-A History, by John Keay, Published by Harper Perennial, 2004
- Satyamev Jayate, Season 2, Episodes 1 and 4
- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/manipurs-insurgency-issue-can-be-resolved-through-discussions-rahul-gandhi/
- http://www.firstpost.com/politics/aap-live-yogendra-yadav-asks-if-binny-is-backed-by-bjp-1342833.html
- http://ibnlive.in.com/news/more-trouble-for-aap-4-of-its-mlas-in-touch-with-bjp-sources/445752-37.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elbvy3V87Is
