Last year ended on a very dismal note for India's ruling Congress Party after its defeat in the state elections. This isn't the first time in the history of Indian Politics that the voter has exhibited decisiveness. The man on the street, perhaps, first demonstrated the power of a vote (and responded to an open palm of the hand with his fists clenched in fury) in the General Election of 1977. Public anger, at the Indira Gandhi led government's attempt in 1975 to override Democracy, catalyzed by the stirring idealism of Jayaprakash Narayan propelled the Janata Party to power in 1977 making it the first non-Congress party to form a government at the center.
Another instance of the voter's decisiveness that comes to mind is N.T.Rama Rao's meteoric rise to power in 1984, after his party, the Telegu Desam Party (TDP), formed a mere nine months earlier, won an absolute majority in state elections in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
These are compelling instances of the Indian Voter not being unduly swayed by the sense of entitlement that the Indian National Congress has had over the politics of post-Independent India.
Cut to present day and we see, in Delhi, yet another instance of the voter bestowing power upon a party that has so far made earnest and insistent claims about how they are going to redefine politics in the country. In the wake of its stunning debut in the state elections at Delhi and months before the 2014 General Elections are due, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has, unquestionably, fired the imagination of the entire nation.
AAP, formally launched on November 26, 2012, lists Swaraj and Anti-Corruption among its key ideologies on the party's website www.aamaadmiparty.org. The party expands the premise of Swaraj to include a government's direct accountability to people. Other actions taken by the AAP that have struck a chord among its proponents include their shunning the usual trappings associated with an elected representative of the people. Retinue. Coterie. Syndicate. Sirens. A shocking reliance on Public Transport instead of motorcades. Eschewing bungalows provided for by the state. And an absolute insistence that the party comprises of only common men.
This may well be the beginning of India's exhilarating tryst with a change that will continue to widen in its scope. What started out only as a India Against Corruption movement could soon encompass all aspects of governance. There could, for instance, be a more pronounced tilt towards Technocracy - a form of governance where key decision makers are selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their chosen field. The party has also decried dynastic politics and is fiercely passionate about implementing the Right to Recall law - a proposed law that would allow citizens to replace elected representatives midway through their term if found corrupt or for reasons of non-performance.
And therein lies the risk of the party getting sucked ever deeper by "mission creep".
Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields (Source : www.wikipedia.com)
Some nasty examples of mission creep that immediately come to mind are the US Military's bungled operations in Vietnam during the war. Closer home, I find the UIDAI an example of a project that veered off its rails as the scope of that project started to widen beyond it initial mission statement.
As the fledgling party now diverts its energies towards the looming national polls, AAP increasingly risks getting sidetracked from their core plank of Anti-Corruption. On the very first day of this new year, after first being introduced on the floor of the parliament in 1968, the President of India signed the the Jan Lokpal bill into a law. However, the notion of Jan Lokpal still remains exceedingly hazy and the institutions of Jan Lokpal and Lok Ayukta's remain as phantom-like as ever. It still isn't clear how the Jan Lokpal intends to fight corruption. In the early stages of the India Against Corruption movement in 2011, there were fleeting comparisons made with Hong Kong's battle with corruption. In the early seventies, Hong Kong won its long drawn battle against graft after the government created a highly empowered Anti-Corruption body to crack down on corruption, especially in their police force. Their sense of urgency was unmistakably clear. Also remarkable was the average Hong Kongers determination to never tolerate corruption again.
You wouldn't want your favorite prizefighter walk out of the ring, due to a new found interest in tap-dancing, after having a very formidable opponent on the ropes. This still remains India's most opportune moment in time to root out corruption forever. One hopes that the AAP remains as closely aligned as possible to its primary goal of fighting corruption.
Other problems that face the nation can wait. For the time being.
(c) Avinash Menon. Views expressed in my blog are my own and do not represent the policies or views of any political establishment or the Government of India
