Skip to main content

AAP – Theatre of the absurd: a congregation of NGOs, Activists & Bored CEOs


“Road to Hell is paved with Good intentions”



AAP: Theatre of the absurd
This post is not about Arvind Kejriwal (AK) - the person, the activist. He is way above those who would malign him on grounds of personal integrity, honesty, a genuine desire and intention to do something real good for the Nation. Of this, I am absolutely convinced. I also respect him for taking the plunge into active politics. By doing so, he showed the Sibals and Diggis that when push comes to shove, a common man like AK can pack them into the oblivion.
In short, AK is a revolutionary and an activist for public good par excellence.

The excitement is palpable
The problem started when AK the activist, turns into a willing CM; on flimsy and compromised support of the same whom he was fighting against all these years. He would have done wonders leading the opposition with 28 AAP MLAs on his side, using Activism to his full strength. Even if it called for an outside support to BJP. This weakness & the rush for Power with a poorly crafted decision to form a feeble and compromised government was the starting point of my disconnect with AK. The next steps that followed after AK took over Delhi pushed me totally against AK & his NGO-Activist-political outfit AAP. Their poll manifesto, public policy blueprint (if there is any) and their actions subsequent to taking over reigns of Delhi; are extremely regressive for India & its future. An AAP member who happens to be the former Chief Secretary rank IAS officer, busy drafting the Swaraj Bill for AAP opines: Globalization main cause of corruption: AAP official. A brilliant AAP idea is their bid for 90% reservation in Delhi colleges for Delhites. Reversal of policy on FDI in multi-brand retail. Who else but the communists would love all of this to say AAP did what CPM wanted to do: Prakash Karat

Dark Days ahead!
AK and his stellar team were fully aware that most of the poll-promises made by them would not be possible without the constitutional amendments. Barely a week into the office, AK & his team of AAP ministers delivered on their poll promise of water and power subsidies, only to put Delhites through the obvious:
Dark days ahead? Delhi discoms warn of payment crisis if rates aren't hiked.

I always thought AK would make a good administrator, given his IRS background. But was shocked and amused to see the way he conducted his very first public meeting, where Too much janata, Kejriwal's first darbar ends in near-stampede:

Click to enlarge
This report would pass the “Laughter Challenge” and it makes for a truly amusing read - I quote:
Later he reappeared on the roof inside the secretariat complex to appeal for calm, as the darbar timings of 9.30 to 11 am were officially over. "Go back home now," he told the estimated crowd of about 20,000 people who refused to disperse, angered by the mismanagement. "We will make better arrangements next time," he said.
On a more serious note, please do read the full report to get a sense of his administration capabilities.

Finally, I thought AK had worked on the ground for 15 long years and hence would be familiar with the various models and practices already in place, as far as the local governance and grievance redressal is concerned. But I was wrong! I am surprised that he preferred to re-invent the wheel all over again when there is an excellent tried and tested mechanism already in place for grievance handling.

I had promised myself not to mention NaMo in this post at all but I changed my mind now. Everyone who got super excited about the first ever Public Grievances Meeting conducted by AAP surely were not aware and had never heard of SWAGAT:
This scheme has been running in Gujarat for the last ten years with a brilliant track record of 92.45% of complaints resolved. United Nations recognised this fine work in June 2010 and awarded United Nations Public Service Award 2nd Place for:
"Improving Transparency, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Public Service Category" 

United Nations Public Service Award
Snapshot of SWAGAT session in progress

Obviously, the paid media that we read and watch every day will never talk about this as this comes from NaMo's Gujarat. Those interested may like to further study SWAGAT that puts technology at the forefront in solving problems of the common man. Then compare it with the dated “1863” model of AK's Durbar to conclude that the poor people of Delhi deserved better!

Digging deeper into the last 10-15 years of AK's history, one would notice that someone somewhere has been nurturing & funding a silent civil society revolution in India, pushing and backing AK all the way. Serious questions are raised on AK's association with the NGO Kabir, liberally funded by Ford Foundation, HIVOS, PRIA, POS and Dutch Embassy; the Magsaysay Award, which incidentally is also funded by the Ford Foundation; his staying posted at Delhi virtually all of his IRS Career while other honest officers like Khemka are shunted around twice every year.

This post surely would upset many but I write this with a sense of responsibility based on my knowledge of events and facts. It is not a sheer co-incident or a TRP-chasing media that AK & AAP are visible all over the electronic and print media. TRP can be chased by various other means as well and the Mainstream Media knows how to get there. This is a classic master-stroke of Congress and the Paid Media is once again doing what it does best, once paid well, serve the Dynasty. Congress already knows where it stands today as far as 2014 Lok Sabha elections are concerned. Congress has exhausted all their tricks to keep NaMo away from contesting 2014 Lok Sabha polls. So this is the last and final attempt of Congress, pitching AAP against NaMo. They support AAP at Delhi, bring AAP into the drawing rooms of urban India through “paid media” such that even the “loose-motions” of AK are discussed at length on prime time. Educated and informed voters from the urban India, closely following this “nautanki” on media, have already started writing off NaMo. In the meanwhile, expectations from AK & AAP will be pushed to the skies and then they will start falling flat on their poll promises in the absence of a clear mandate to carry out constitutional reforms, one after the other. Congress will then finally pull the rug, withdraw support and take high moral ground. 
Wow! See the bigger picture now?

Addendum: The adjective "Bored" in the title of this post is picked up from a nice article of Chetan Bhagat: Get the priorities right: India first, AAP second

Comments

  1. Absolutely a true writing !!
    Nice Read “A change is necessary in any form.”

    ReplyDelete
  2. AAP- a true story???!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nero’s Guests, the age of inequality: A Review

The reason why I have taken up to write a review of Nero’s Guests is because it needs to be widely circulated, written and talked about, as much as possible; so that everyone gets to see it, those who still do not get the time to watch it, may further need to be motivated to do so, and only then it will reach out to the wider audience and be able to make a real impact. The mainstream media today is totally degenerated and corrupted as it does not cover anything that is not “breaking news” or that is not considered “glamorous” enough to catch eye balls. For this obvious reason, Nero’s Guests has been completely ignored by the mainstream media (both print & electronic) and is not given its due space & visibility. The subject itself is not new to any of us and it has become a part of our daily lives - mere statistics. It is about the severe agrarian crisis that the country is faced with, as a result of which farmers are still committing suicide and as many as 200,000 farmers h

Down Memory Lane: Satpura National Park

Memory … is the diary that we all carry about with us ~ Oscar Wilde This one is a sequel to the earlier post: Story of Satpura , where we introduced and talked about the person, Shri K. S. Saxena (Retd IFS), who was at the centre of creation of what we know today as Satpura Biosphere Reserve.  We pick up where we had left with the concluding remark: “And he looks forward to visiting Satpura National Park sometime …” Satpura National Park After three successive COVID-19 lockdowns and all the trauma, it was only in October’21 that we could conclude the most awaited trip down memory lane to Satpura National Park, exactly forty years after it was inaugurated. Calling it mere ‘nostalgic trip’ for Shri. K.S. Saxena (ex-IFS) on his 86th Birthday would be nothing short of an insult to his passion and love for the jungles of Satpura.  Sharing here few pictures of the trip from our personal archives, please feel free to ‘click to enlarge’ pictures for better views.  The planning for the trip was

Ideological Subversion

And then, there are the communists, Blacker hearts still. They feed on the pus of all this corruption, Like maggots in a corpse! And like maggots have left a swell, They will eventually swarm like flies, And spread their rotten philosophy, Across the country and across the world, Those then, Are our enemies! ~ Inspector Chester Campbell / The Peaky Blinders Post independence, India had the option to chose & follow a particular path to build its own destiny as a Sovereign Nation State in the new world order, after almost 1000 years of foreign rule. This opportunity was actually the result of those Freedom Fighters who laid their precious lives to liberate India from foreign rule. Unfortunately, they did not live to witness the national tricolour being hoisted on 15th August 1947. The real heroes of our freedom struggle are the ones who contributed immensely during the 90 years, starting with 1857 through 1947. They were the real sons of the soil, most of whom martyred as nameless &