Dear Arvind ‘And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea’. TS Eliot

Elections in Delhi are barely two months away. The time for applauding beginner’s enthusiasm and celebrating beginners luck is over. This is appraisal time.

Other political parties have been getting brickbats for years depending upon their track record. Only in your case is the evaluation based purely on talk. And talk, as you should know better than most, is easy and inexpensive. In any case transparency cannot begin and end with listing names of donors on your website; it is a way of thinking. Hence my comments, concerns and queries.

One may disagree with your habit of rushing to judgment, misusing headlines and fabricating scams but who can deny that corruption is the bane of this country? That the political class has virtually hijacked the process of governance  and that we literally have to destroy and recreate ourselves to reach anywhere close to perfection.

Rude though it may sound, India was not quite holding its breath for the Aam Aadmi Party to arrive at these conclusions. From housewives to taxi drivers to security-guards to school teachers to film-makers to farmers to bus-drivers to scientists to bureaucrats had all figured it out.  Some actually claim to have done so decades ago.

Till the time you were an activist, it was great to see you use your chutzpah to continuously highlight problems. But now that you are a political party seeking to be our guide in a deep and dense forest, we want to make sure that you know the way.

You have introduced AAP as a revolution. The claim forces a higher degree of probity. It also makes me smile.

My first encounter with a revolution was in 1976.

For all the right reasons, Jayaprakash Narayan had initially led a movement to fight against Mrs Indira Gandhi’s imposition of the Emergency but it soon became a call for a total revolution appropriately named Sampoorna Kranti. You were 9 then and may not remember but am sure you have read about the passion that JP’s movement had generated. Many of todays’s senior most politicians from across the spectrum had entered politics then.

Today if you google Sampoorna Kranti, most entries are about the train of the same name. And guess who named the train? Lalu Prasad Yadav.

JP and his motley group won the elections and the government of Morarji Desai was sworn-in. It lasted a little less than two years. He was succeeded by Charan Singh whose government survived a little over 6 months.  JP and Desai were both relegated to somewhat soiled pages of history.

The country’s growth rate dipped to -5.24% in 1979.

The next revolution happened in 1989.

VP Singh was the mascot of integrity. He had everything going for him. A good lineage, decent track record and squeaky-clean image.  He also took up the issue of corruption.  The immediate provocation was the Bofors deal. VP didn’t quite win majority but since Rajiv Gandhi saw his tally drop from 400+ to less than 200, the Congress decided to let the opportunity pass and VP was sworn in.

VP’s government lasted a tempestuous year leaving it to Chandrashekhar to fly to London to pawn RBI’s gold and manage loans enough to import oil and keep our cars running.

Growth rate dipped to 1.06% in 1991.

Revolutions can indeed be expensive toys when handed over by gullible people to cunning politicians.   

From your pronouncements so far we know what you will not do if elected. Neither you nor your people will ever take bribes. And you will create a mechanism to ensure that if any complaints of corruption are received, immediate action is taken. So far, so good.

You have spent a lot of time and energy explaining how they will operate. But what will they do?

A ship is safest in the harbor but that’s not where it belongs. What is your ideology, your big idea? Big idea is what parties like to be known for. Often they do not even adhere to it but something they like being known for. Call it their self-image or the way they will make things happen. Congress’s believes its big idea is inclusive growth, Modi’s is nationalism. What is yours?

If it is just corruption-free governance, please remember that it sounds ominously like the big ideas of Jayaprakash Narayan and VP Singh. Both together did not last 5 years.

I have gone through enough and more of your pronouncements. You have spoken more than adequately about corruption and the need for the Lokpal, you have complained against price-rise, you have accused the private sector of profiteering, you have railed against further privatization and supported the right to reject and a few other issues of governance.

Interestingly, though you have authored a book on the subject, your espousal of the cause of devolution of decision-making to grams and mohallas has never been as robust as it has been for, say the Lokpal. I don’t think you really believe in the idea.  But more of that later.

For the moment, what will you actually do? Will you be a ship always in the harbor, safe and incorruptible?

Since there are not too many pronouncements to go by, let me turn to AAP’s Vision Statement which begins with an extraordinary insight ‘India is a big country’. 

Even by the somewhat inadequate Indian standards in matters to do with vision this statement scales a new low. Had this document been produced by any of my executives, he or she would have had a rough day and a sleepless night. You are lucky that in India people usually do not take this kind of stuff seriously.

The best I can do is to assume that you were busy and had asked some intern to make a draft, which somehow got released without being checked. My intent is not to embarrass you further but can’t resist quoting just one line that sums up your intern’s weary thinking.  On the subject of religious harmony, after a paragraph of vague platitudes when it came to AAP’s promise, he or she simply lost patience.  ‘All possible efforts will be made to make people respect all religions’. That’s it.

Let us go through your ‘economic outlook’ in some greater detail. You make five promises.

First, you will eliminate taxes on oil products and reduce prices to 50 for petrol and 40 for diesel. This by the way would place retail prices in India at par with oil-producing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and the USA. Our prices would also be half those in China which, like us, is an oil importer.

No mention on how you propose to make up for the shortfall in revenues. No reference to how reduced prices will impact congestion and pollution nor to the possibility that our increased demand may actually increase global crude prices and finally end up depreciating the rupee. And no mention of the strategic need to invest in public transport.

By the way I hope you do know that despite everything, our petrol and diesel prices are still competitive with non oil-producing countries worldwide.

Second, you will reduce power tariff by over 20% on the premise that private companies are profiteering.

Private companies exist for profit; it is a fact that needs to be fairly stated. By suggesting that all they do is scams, you are living in Indira Gandhi’s cuckooland which put this country two decades behind the clock. You want more and more government. You point to flaws not to correct the process but to damn privatization.

By the way you forget that some of us have seen the other side too. Since you have always somehow managed to be posted in the NCR, surely you remember the four to six hour power-cuts?

Third, you will Increase minimum support price grains by 50%.

Again, no mention of whether the increase in price will be passed on to the consumer or subsidized by the government. Or do you simply suggest increasing the deficit as the current government is doing?

Fourth you will not permit forced land acquisition for industry. Good or bad, a law has been passed on this recently.

And fifth, developmental activity to be devolved to the gram and the mohalla sabhas. Will discuss this a little later.

This is it Arvind? This is your party’s economic vision? Is this the sum and substance of the revolution that you and your group will bring in?

What about the 2 crore jobs we need to add every year? Will they come from manufacturing? If so, how do we simplify the process of clearances? Which sectors should we go for? Will it be services? Are any new sectors opening up which can act as job creators as software, outsourcing, finance and telecom had done a few years ago? How would you handle the chasm that is developing between setting up of factories and environment? Or between the center and the states?

How long will it take for infrastructure to be updated? What will the role of the private sector be? Is there a role for it in your vision? Is there a role for foreign direct investment? Will it be schemes ala Congress or infrastructure ala BJP?

Will we wait forever and allow our public sector companies to reach zero valuation like Air India and BSNL or will we have a plan to divest and use the money to improve infrastructure? What is the role of the private sector in utilities and education? How do we solve our energy problem?

How do we fight China in the long run? What is our plan for skills up-gradation? How do we leapfrog in education?

And most importantly where will the money come from?  

Arvind Kejriwal, how you treat your intelligence is your private matter but how you treat the country’s intelligence is very much a public affair.

Anna had read you well. You are basically an activist searching for a raison d’etre as a politician. Yours is an agenda born out of gaps in governance. Economic philosophy was never central to it. And it shows.

But let me not give up. Sometimes the best way to understand a person’s mind is to analyze his past and his experiences.

You did your engineering from IIT Kharagpur and joined the Tata Steel. You worked there for less than two years, sat for the civil services and joined the Income Tax department. There you had a happy tenure of 6-odd years largely in Delhi after which you started Parivartan to do stuff that you really liked doing. Social work and activism. This is where you flowered. You began small, helping people with their tax issues, then expanded the scope and achievements like the RTI and so on came your way.

Yes, in between Tata Steel and the government, you also spent two months with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. By the way some websites which seem to be well-disposed towards you say you spent 2 or even 3 years with the MOC. You should clarify.

It is hardly surprising that your philosophy, if it can be called that, is nothing but a worms-eye view of the process of governance. It has little to do with economy or even with the big-picture of governance. This is no criticism.  Some people are good at micro-management; you are one of them. The big picture paralyses you. And as for this business of vision, please stay away; it’s not your thing. It is for people who have a vision.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in your recently released book ‘Swaraj’.

Swaraj is based on the very desirable premise that power must go back to the last person in the line. If money is to be spent on a village the residents must have a say in how it is spent. You called it Gram Sabha and not Panchayati Raj as that would have made it sound like Rajiv Gandhi’s initiative of the early 90s. Or Bhagidari which would have made it sound like Dikshit’s initiative in Delhi. That’s fair; we are all entitled to a bit of intellectual dishonesty when entering politics.

But gram and mohalla sabhas to be the single point solution to all our woes?

Am personally touched by your faith in committees to always do the right thing. By the way, khaps are also part of the same Panchayati Raj construct. You have mentioned that gram sabhas should be able to sack cops. In the light of the recent riots in UP, do you stand by your pronouncement?

You have quoted elsewhere that in Kaushambi where you live, you had organized a united protest against power bills. The unity lasted for a while and then dissipated. On the lighter side, in the area where I live in New Delhi the local association has not been able to decide on which gate should be earmarked for entry and which for exit for over two years. There has created a vertical split between the two camps.

Some things sound sexy and are difficult to argue against; power to the people through gram and mohalla sabhas is one such. This is good rhetoric; by creating it into your single-switch solution to all our problems, you reveal a naivete that will cost the country dear if you manage to ever make it to a position of authority. 

Lack of economic vision is a magnificent weakness you share with Gandhi and JP.  But it was OK in Gandhi’s time as economy was really not in Indian hands. It was probably acceptable in JP’s time as the country had adopted such an insular path that real out-of-the-box thinking was impossible. But it is unforgiveable today.

In your 23 member executive committee, there are 10 activists, two each journalists, academicians, former students unionists and politicians, a farmer, a lawyer and a poet, a researcher and one gentleman introduced on your website simply as an honest person.

No economist, no representative who may give a corporate or even a government perspective and more importantly, no one who has ever run a large organization.

With no disrespect to the 23 members all of whom may be very distinguished in their own rights but is this the motley group of rabble-rousers whose hand I am meant to hold as we venture together into uncertain times whether in Delhi or at the center? Are you kidding?

And sorry, integrity cannot make up for lack of talent.

By the way, it was not always so. The list of people who have left you is certainly more imposing. Aruna Roy, Anna Hazare, Justice Hegde, Swami Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi, VK Singh. Virtually anyone who had a personal equity and the experience of running an organization has left you. Out of the original lot only Prashant Bhushan remains. I can see why; his is a competence you often need and cannot easily be replaced; good, committed lawyers are tough to find. So you obviously handle him with care.

Arvind Kejriwal,  sad to say but you are comfortable only with pygmies. Your inability to attract and retain talent is a fatal flaw for a leader. Warren Buffet is no socialist of the seventies so you may not like him but most believe he is a decent enough man to learn from. If it helps to convince you, do remember despite his wealth he continues to live in a two-bedroom flat that he has lived in for decades. He put it well when he said ‘it is better to hang out with people better than you’.

No less a person than Obama took his advice when he first appointed Hillary Clinton and later John Kerry as his Secretary of State.

Only the foolish and the insecure first decimate their peers and then seek star-dust.

And activists faking as politicians?

Preet K S Bedi

(Preet_bedi@hotmail.com)