Random: Elections 2014

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 8^th 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 2^nd 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.

This completes the dismantling of Mr Gupta's criticisms of the Swaraj model and Mr Kejriwal. For some allegations (e.g. of high command culture), I concede that I have merely shown that the argument/example presented is not sound, not refuted the claim itself. Mr Gupta, reminded of Journalism 101 by Mr Arun Shourie, went directly to the source (i.e. the book Swaraj). Unfortunately, several scientific studies have shown that giving more information to people doesn't typically change their views when it comes to politics, because people see the new information through the lens of their bias. Therefore, simply going to the source means nothing if you preserve your bias when evaluating the source information. Let this be Journalism 102. I would hope that our reputed journalists such as Mr Gupta are able to retain this lesson and free themselves from their baggages.

Post-Script:

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.

References:

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/national-interest-arvind-chitra-katha/
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

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