There is no better time to be a political entrepreneur in India as today. While Arvind Kejriwal is the face of that entrepreneurial resurgence, his bigger impact is in the creation of an entirely new politics, akin to the discovery of a new market, that holds the promise of power.
If business schools still haven’t begun to write their case studies on the spectacular debut of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), they’re going to get left behind in academic entrepreneurship. The strongest signal the elections in Delhi have sent across the political spectrum is that even today, there is space for innovation, there are gaps in the market for power, there is room for enterprise.
You might argue that the AAP didn’t have much to do. The quad of mis-governance, corruption, inefficiency and insensitivity that the Indian National Congress has excelled in over the past three years has become like the snake that is eating its own tail, offering political opportunities to those looking to serve an angry electorate. In fact, the AAP must be grateful to the Congress which with its unique culture of arrogance, apathy and submissiveness to the Gandhi family has opened out its flanks for entrepreneurs to rip into.
Although AAP’s debut 28 seats in an assembly of 70 is nothing short of unbelievable, in terms of effectiveness, it amounts to little more than a looming presence in the Opposition benches. More than the number of seats, the feat of the AAP is really a modern-day decimation of the Goliath by David. Which is good for AAP --- spending five years in the Opposition would be a good learning curve for a young upstart party, whose ambitions go beyond Delhi in space and 2014 in time.
What AAP has achieved goes beyond the seats or even the upstaging of three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit --- Congress’s finest soldier, whom the party, under the confused and directionless leadership of the Gandhi family mother-son duo betrayed at the crucial moment --- from her New Delhi constituency. Dikshit fought her battle alone, raising questions about just how far the flailing party will go in backing strong leaders.
The space AAP found around corruption, following the unearthing of one scam after another --- Rs 186,000 crore coal scam, Rs 176,000 crore 2G spectrum scam, Rs 163,000 crore Delhi airport scam, Rs 29,000 crore ultra mega power projects scam, thousands of crores in the Commonwealth Games scam, hundreds of crores in Adarsh Housing Society scam.
And even as we emerge from assembly elections in five states and head towards general elections in five months, scams like Parliamentary Affairs minister Rajeev Shukla getting land cheaper than onions (what he paid per square foot is about a tenth of what a kg of onions cost) are increasing the angst against the Congress, offering fodder to political entrepreneurs. That the Gandhi leadership is unable or unwilling to do anything about it could have been acceptable in its 20th century politics.
In 21st century India, with increased transparency, growing and almost ubiquitous voices on social media influencing voter choices, and a citizenry that is willing to brave the cold water cannons of Congress as it tries to smother political dissent, this is not working. Instead, it is ideas like ‘end corruption’ and that G-word (governance) are the new currency of political discourse. Nobody has understood this paradigm-shifting market better than the AAP’s chief Arvind Kejriwal.
He raised the angst of corruption and converted it into a movement that shook the Congress-led government. The gap in the market was there for the taking, and the principal opposition party in Parliament, the BJP, did a good job of raising the pitch. But it took a Kejriwal to grab it, nurture it, hone it into a political weapon. While the 26 seats AAP has won is insignificant, both statistically and in being able to mould policy, there is a bigger impact this idea has had on Indian politics --- the virtual absence of criminal candidates in any party.
And even those who scoff at populist politics of Kejriwal, as on power bills for instance, can’t but accept that he has already won the battle on criminal candidates that he initiated and the courts ratified. The politics of India has changed forever --- it will be impossible for any party, in any state, of any affiliation to offer its voters a candidate who has the black ink of corruption smudged all over him. If any lesson has to be learnt from Kejriwal on political entrepreneurship, it is this: even if there is a vacuum in the political arena, it takes more than simply identifying it or playing with it.
You need to have a vision that goes beyond power-grabbing, the idea has to be larger than life, larger than its fulcrum. You need to sweat it out, deal with the contempt any new idea faces, fight off seductions to join the ‘mainstream’, have the courage and conviction to stand on the strength of that idea, even when those who will benefit from it look down on the possibilities.
The one thing that still needs to be proved is this idea’s scalability. In the larger scheme of things, Delhi is a small corner, a spoilt city, pinnacle of politics no doubt but tiny before the larger electorate of India. Will Kejriwal be able to replicate this success beyond the capital? With general elections barely four months away, will he be able to create an organisation in 543 constituencies that, even while being geographically, culturally and linguistically unique, resonate with the overarching idea of a corruption-free India, and deliver a more effective politics?
The challenges before AAP are big as much as they are steep. But big opportunities lie in each of those constituencies. The success of AAP should create political entrepreneurs across the country. Who knows, it might trigger a churning in the Congress itself, the first hints of which have begun. What AAP’s inspiring debut is telling us is that even today, there is space for innovation, there are gaps in the market for power, there is room for enterprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment