Leader
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2010
- Messages
- 29,159
- Reaction score
- 9
- Country
- Location
New Delhi, if not urban India, is having its PTI-moment. The anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), grabbing 28 of 70 legislative assembly seats in Delhi, has stunned political pundits. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal defeated the sitting Congress chief minister, Sheila Dikshit by a huge margin as Congress (with eight seats) was routed.
Though the BJP has emerged as the largest party (32 mandates) yet it is short of a simple majority. In other words, the AAP has toppled Congress and spoiled the BJP’s chances to build the next government.
The AAP is a result of the anti-corruption crusade Anna Hazare initiated in April 2011. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwa is a former civil servant and Anna Hazare’s self-confessed disciple. Back in 2011, he was seen as the strategist behind Anna Hazare’s eleven-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, a famous spot in New Delhi dedicated to civil agitation.
While the guru rejected any idea of building a political party, the disciple went on to announce the AAP on October 2, 2012. Interestingly, the AAP has many similarities with Imran Khan’s PTI. Had Transparency International been an international in the socialist sense, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would have been its Indian section and the PTI, of course, the Pakistani one.
Like the PTI, the AAP is a product of the TV-isation of politics. The media initially ignored Anna Hazare’s hunger strike. In fact, Times Now’s Arnab Goswami, pivotal in projecting Anna Hazare, himself was irritated the first time a staffer ran a report on Anna Hazare to fill a ten-second news slot. After a week, Goswami changed his mind and decided to depute a reporting team at Jantar Mantar to cover the hunger strike live for six hours.
CNN-IBN and NDTV, two major competitors, followed suit once Times Now began live coverage. The next day, 42 OB vans were stationed at Jantar Mantar. Both parties have won support from the middle class – always happy to conveniently ‘engage’ through TV.
Similarly, both these anti-corruption parties, enjoying a middle-class social base, espouse a neoliberal economic agenda. Imran Khan, for instance, has no problem with either privatisation or international financial institutions. Class question, distribution of wealth, power configuration and other such structural issues do not bother the PTI. Likewise, the AAP does not consider neoliberalism any problem. When confronted by an interviewer, Kejriwal agreed that neoliberal policies were responsible for corruption but “not the sole reason by any means”.
Unsurprisingly, the PTI and the AAP claim to be neither left nor right wing yet like all ‘anti-ideology’ players – be it NGOs, media outlets, or think tanks – both hold capitalism in great esteem. Thus says Kejriwal: “[W]e are neither capitalist nor socialist or leftist… We are not attached to any particular ideology. We’ll borrow from any ideology, left or right that solves our problems. But yes, we firmly believe that government has no business to be in ‘business’. Business should be left to private individuals”.
And Asad Omar will hardly disagree when Kejriwal says: “A businessman creates wealth and provides employment. Out of his profits, he pays taxes, runs his family and does charity. .. However, the system treats him as a thief and a dacoit...The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would create a business environment where people can do business honestly... Rather than act as an obstacle, AAP would create an environment that encourages and facilitates business”.
In other words, he thinks predating beasts can be tamed to become vegetarians. Struck speechless by such banalisation of the anti-corruption discourse, I resort to Mir Taqi Mir:
What a simpleton Mir is The apothecary’s boy who made him fall ill Is the very one he goes to, to get his medicine
PTI moment - Farooq Sulehria
@Jazzbot @RescueRanger @Aeronaut @A.Rafay @pkuser2k12 @Peaceful Civilian
@Aamna14 @Marshmallow @Pukhtoon @chauvunist @Jzaib
Though the BJP has emerged as the largest party (32 mandates) yet it is short of a simple majority. In other words, the AAP has toppled Congress and spoiled the BJP’s chances to build the next government.
The AAP is a result of the anti-corruption crusade Anna Hazare initiated in April 2011. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwa is a former civil servant and Anna Hazare’s self-confessed disciple. Back in 2011, he was seen as the strategist behind Anna Hazare’s eleven-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, a famous spot in New Delhi dedicated to civil agitation.
While the guru rejected any idea of building a political party, the disciple went on to announce the AAP on October 2, 2012. Interestingly, the AAP has many similarities with Imran Khan’s PTI. Had Transparency International been an international in the socialist sense, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would have been its Indian section and the PTI, of course, the Pakistani one.
Like the PTI, the AAP is a product of the TV-isation of politics. The media initially ignored Anna Hazare’s hunger strike. In fact, Times Now’s Arnab Goswami, pivotal in projecting Anna Hazare, himself was irritated the first time a staffer ran a report on Anna Hazare to fill a ten-second news slot. After a week, Goswami changed his mind and decided to depute a reporting team at Jantar Mantar to cover the hunger strike live for six hours.
CNN-IBN and NDTV, two major competitors, followed suit once Times Now began live coverage. The next day, 42 OB vans were stationed at Jantar Mantar. Both parties have won support from the middle class – always happy to conveniently ‘engage’ through TV.
Similarly, both these anti-corruption parties, enjoying a middle-class social base, espouse a neoliberal economic agenda. Imran Khan, for instance, has no problem with either privatisation or international financial institutions. Class question, distribution of wealth, power configuration and other such structural issues do not bother the PTI. Likewise, the AAP does not consider neoliberalism any problem. When confronted by an interviewer, Kejriwal agreed that neoliberal policies were responsible for corruption but “not the sole reason by any means”.
Unsurprisingly, the PTI and the AAP claim to be neither left nor right wing yet like all ‘anti-ideology’ players – be it NGOs, media outlets, or think tanks – both hold capitalism in great esteem. Thus says Kejriwal: “[W]e are neither capitalist nor socialist or leftist… We are not attached to any particular ideology. We’ll borrow from any ideology, left or right that solves our problems. But yes, we firmly believe that government has no business to be in ‘business’. Business should be left to private individuals”.
And Asad Omar will hardly disagree when Kejriwal says: “A businessman creates wealth and provides employment. Out of his profits, he pays taxes, runs his family and does charity. .. However, the system treats him as a thief and a dacoit...The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would create a business environment where people can do business honestly... Rather than act as an obstacle, AAP would create an environment that encourages and facilitates business”.
In other words, he thinks predating beasts can be tamed to become vegetarians. Struck speechless by such banalisation of the anti-corruption discourse, I resort to Mir Taqi Mir:
What a simpleton Mir is The apothecary’s boy who made him fall ill Is the very one he goes to, to get his medicine
PTI moment - Farooq Sulehria
@Jazzbot @RescueRanger @Aeronaut @A.Rafay @pkuser2k12 @Peaceful Civilian
@Aamna14 @Marshmallow @Pukhtoon @chauvunist @Jzaib
Last edited:
