Resigned from AAP membership

Resignation
Anil Upadhyaya <anil.upadhyaya@gmail.com>
Fri 8 May, 2015 at 15:04

To: Aam Aadmi Party <contact@aamaadmiparty.org>

Dear Sir,

I had become a member of AAP quite some time back and stood by you through the thick and thin in your apparent struggle against corruption. I now stand disillusioned.

I think that AAP was only interested in exploiting public frustration with the political system for the sole purpose of gatecrashing into the same corrupt and disgusting system. You have succeeded. Congratulations!

I feel sad that I, like many others, was tricked into assisting you in this unfortunate endeavor in my own little way. As an atonement I hereby resign from the membership of AAP.

Please acknowledge.

Regards,

Anil Kumar Upadhyaya
18/428 Indira Nagar,
Lucknow - 226016.
Mobile: +91 962 152 6956

Delhi Poll Outcome

It is a deja vu moment.  The victory of AAP has many parallels with the BJP victory at the center in May last year.  It is a decisive mandate.  The mandate has been given on the basis of clear-cut issues rather than caste, region and identity.  It is a mandate that leaves little excuse for not delivering on the promises.  I would like to think that it also shows what happens when a decisive mandate is not fully honored, and hence it embodies a warning too for the beneficiaries of the mandate.  It says in very clear words that petty corruption and crony capitalism have reached a level that the public will revolt against at every available opportunity.  And it shows its disapproval for narcissism at any level.

The electorate in India seems to be maturing fast.  The old tricks deployed for dividing the electorate ad infinitum on the lines of caste and creed are now giving ever diminishing returns.  The electorate seems to be sending out a message that it is a taskmaster and will not put up with non-performance.

The electorate is essentially telling the politicians, "We are giving you responsibilities and tasks and NOT a seat of power and pelf.  And please do not use identity management to distract us from any non-performance."

AAP supporters are celebrating the victory in traditional ways.  They will do well to keep celebrations at a minimum and get down to brass tacks. AAP must not forget the warning very clearly implicit in this victory.  Deliver or perish!

The Independence Day Speech

The Independence Day speech this year by the iconic PM of India befittingly broke the confines of bulletproof glass as also the shackles of a neatly typed out speech.  And hence it comes as a surprise that the PM chose to remain silent on the biggest malaise afflicting the citizens at large, sapping their vitality and putting them in dire straitjackets!  He had no comments to offer or promises to make on the twin evils of widespread corruption and criminalization of politics.  Same goes for the mind boggling figures of black money stashed overseas.  Was it not the pent up frustration of the public with the mounting corruption that led to a decisive rejection of Congress and a majority for BJP?  The very atypical conciliatory notes in complimenting all the previous governments in bringing the country to where it stands today (!) also come as no little surprise.  Didn't Modi thunder his way to a total majority by crying himself hoarse about what the Congress governments have done to the country over six decades?  And he is so overawed by the competence and knowledge of the all-pervasive bureaucracy that he doesn't have even a word of advice to them to work as humble public servants under the Pradhan Sevak?  The only criticism he had for the earlier government and the top bureaucracy was a lack of coordination that manifested itself as multiple governments within a single government.  I cannot figure out what to make of such mushy statements coming from someone hailed as the Iron Man!  Will such pacifist attitude ever enable us to weed out corruption in places high and low, and steep deterioration in the sphere of politics?

Again, it is quite okay to chide the citizenry for their unhygienic habits, lack of toilets and discrimination against girl children. But are these also not manifestations of poor governance and total lack of accountability on the part of the government machinery?  Have governments provided dustbins at public places for disposal of garbage?  Do we have enough public toilets in public places even in the cities?  Don't we have to charter our course carefully when going on an outing with the family so that we return to our home or a place with a clean toilet in time?  How many parents and doctors have been penalized for aborting female fetuses or for giving dowry or deaths related to dowry?  I am sorry to say so but such exhortations remind me of knee-jerk reactions from local corporators when approached with a complaint about poor sanitation.  They would lecture you on hygiene and cleanliness and add that if everyone could keep the drain and the sidewalk in front of his own house clean, there would be no need to complain!

A friend who shares the worry has something positive to comment in the matter.  He says, “….. he is a pragmatic person. He knows that corruption is so interwoven into the fabric of our society that if starts to pull out those skeins, the entire fabric may come undone. He has to do it gingerly. This is the best explanation I can offer. Time will tell. How things change at the ground level will ultimately decide if he has been working on corruption too.”

However such gingerly approach and caution was conspicuously absent when dealing with the appointment of a retired bureaucrat, or in dismissing a particular governor for misdeeds, or in changing the Collegium system for appointments in the judiciary after a particular claimant was vetoed out.  How come that strong, swift and decisive actions are warranted only when someone has crossed the path of someone powerful but not on life-and-death issues facing the country?  Are we witnessing a resurrection of Indira Gandhi?

Like most of us, I have great hopes from the PM.  And I do hope that my apprehensions and I are proved decisively wrong.  And yet I cannot help wondering whether we made a mistake in rejecting the AAP phenomenon.  We turned it into a sinking ship that is gradually being abandoned by all but a handful.

The wonder drug SutoL

This indigenous drug has been around for quite long and tall claims have been made by its inventors about its efficacy for curing a wide variety of ailments - many of them peculiar to India.  However there was always a dearth of willing subjects in adequate numbers to participate in a trial that could establish the claims.  Quite a few patients also claimed to be allergic towards it.

Later on, somehow, the number of willing patients rose to a statistically very significant number in a state that is known for its enterprise.  The trials there have been claimed to be a resounding success that established all the claims of the inventors and then some more.  The competing firms, however, kept pointing out that the observed effects were more due to the disciplined lifestyle of the participants rather than the drug itself.  One newly established firm conducted its own research and maintained that though there were some improvements in the musculature and skin tone, functioning of the internal organs continued to be at sub-optimal levels.

In the meantime large number of patients throughout the country were getting disillusioned with established drugs from the best-known brand in the country.  Complaints were made of loss of general vitality accompanied by impaired vocal chords.  Moreover rising prices were making the drug very unaffordable.  There also was a suspicion of huge profits being siphoned offshore by this firm.

A sizable number of these disillusioned patients in another state, decided to try a drug that had been invented very recently.  The response was very good but the patients were too impatient.  To make things worse, the firm stopped production claiming that its competitors had blocked the supply of a vital input.

In the meantime inventors of SutoL claimed to have found a very potent molecule that they have named O-maN.  The addition of this molecule has significantly enhanced the potency of the old formulation.  Some of the ingredients in the earlier formulation have also been dropped as they were found to be interfering with the efficacy of the new molecule.

Left with no choice and with reports of the new formulation under the old brand name SutoL, the patients have shifted en masse to the indigenous drug.  The trials have begun with much fanfare.  The market share of competitors who had a near monopoly in the market has seen a sharp plunge.

The latest entrant in the market who had to stop production because of non-availability of a critical ingredient, are sticking to their claim that this new so-called wonder drug is essentially similar to the brand that it has displaced.  Unfortunately they find few takers.

The newly begun trials have evoked keen interest all over the world.  We offer our very best wishes to the participants in the trials as also the makers of this drug.

Politics and CMM

There is a lot of vigorous debate going on about the current choices that emergence of leaders like Arvind Kejariwal and Narendra Modi have thrown up.  Like everyone else, I also have my views in the matter and would like to share them with everyone else with a few explanations.

But let the disclaimers come first.  I have lived in Gujarat for over a decade and I simply love the state and its people.  I must add that my familiarity with the state was limited to the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara (Baroda), and Gandhinagar.  The people seem to be so mild,  peace loving and business minded that the recurrent riots used to come as a surprise to me.  And though the riots peaked in 2002, mercifully it has put paid to the annual ritual.  Coming from UP, I found the government departments, in a quite small number of encounters with them, far more responsive and much less corrupt.  When in Gandhinagar, I was very impressed when Mr. Modi had a Sai temple razed to the ground.  It was said to be an unauthorized construction and it was reported that a couple of hundred more temples scattered over Gujarat that were unauthorized met the same fate.

I saw Gujarat as a state that had all the right ingredients built into its DNA and a good leader could take it to great heights.  I believe that Modi did so.  And yet I had doubts whether he would be able to deliver on the same scale if he were to be transplanted to UP.  The northern states seem to have a DNA that is quite different from their southern and western brethren even though many common strands do exist.  If one could use, somewhat loosely, the terminology from Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the northern states persist at the lowest CMM level while those in South and West have climbed a step or two up the ladder.

So in Gujarat we had a good leader leading a great state and the results could not be otherwise than what we have seen.  But then the country as a whole is different and much too complex.  It is at a CMM level that cannot guarantee consistent great outcome.  It may give an acceptable outcome in combination with the personal heroics of a good leader, or it may not.

The burning need is NOT so much to get a great hero who can bulldoze the system but to move the system up on the CMM scale.  And how can that be done?  By creating institutions and structures that can prevent all the devilish acts that have been going on for decades.  We need to create Lokpal, we need to carry out police reforms, we need to make bureaucracy accountable and responsible and we need to amend Representation of People Act to ensure better parliamentarians and legislators.  In short, what we need most is not personal heroics but a more mature institutional framework with Acts and rules that enhance the capability maturity of the country as a whole.

It is indeed surprising that few politicians are talking in terms of enhancing the framework itself.  Most are busy praising the virtues of this leader or criticizing the weaknesses of that leader.  There is little debate on the issues that we have highlighted in the last paragraph.  And though Modi is talking of governance all the time, he is not talking about how that will be brought about: perhaps he is too sure of his personal heroics.

Under these circumstances, AAP comes in as a gust of fresh breeze.  It is not talking about personal heroics but about the extremely urgent need to repair and enhance the framework of governance in the country.

I also dare say that unless the higher level CMM framework is created, a strong-headed leader may even pose a risk to the system.  For he / she, in his / her impatience to deliver, might further damage the existing rickety framework.  And that will be like a medicine that alleviates your symptoms temporarily but paves the way to a much greater problem.  Many of the readers must have had an experience of emergency in 70s.  Things improved dramatically in government offices and elsewhere.  And we also know what followed.

The people are impatient now and they want all the symptoms to be overcome at the earliest.  Few have the patience for the kind of changes that are the crying need of the hour.  And this is the essence of the BJP-AAP debate.

They say great organizations are those that can consistently get extraordinary performance even from average people.  And that happens when you have a great framework of processes and governance.

I know that Modi Sarkar is well on its way.  I welcome it too, for we desperately need Congress out.  But let us keep AAP - the voice of sanity - alive.  I must also add that BJP's victory may even be seen by the great System as its own victory against forces trying to change it for the better.

Ragging Kejariwal - India Today Conclave

Just finished watching a program on Aaj-Tak where Kejariwal was grilled by an audience consisting of journos and industrialists.  I don't know for sure but it must be the conclave for which he was flown to Delhi by India Today group.  I joined the program midway where a journalist was reading out a piece of bad poetry ridiculing Kejariwal's dress sense and his persistent cough and calling him a fugitive who ran away from private sector to public sector to politics and then away from power.  It was pathetic, outrageous, disgusting and clearly the act of a person whose motive was not journalism but some ulterior one.

Kejariwal did not respond and it must have given a lot of satisfaction to this man who was an epitome of people living off the fat of this country and holding the common man in contempt and having no qualms about snubbing him.  Kejariwal could have given an equally acerbic response but did not do so.  And he has won my heart by doing so.  It shows that he is not yet a typical politician who has a witty response ready for all criticism, imagined or genuine.  It shows that he has not yet imbibed the art of snobbery that helps one distance himself from Aam Aadmi and remains as vulnerable as an Aam-Aadmi.  It shows that he is a really simple minded person who is vulnerable to such unethical and unscrupulous barbs from unethical sharp shooters.  It shows that he is a person who is constantly focused on his purpose and not busy inventing clever cliches and responses.  Kejariwal, I stand with you more firmly than ever.

Coming to this sharp shooter's comments, here are my observations.  Nothing could be in worse taste than ridiculing a person for dressing like a common man.  And one who calls Kejariwal a fugitive must be someone whose upbringing tells him to stick to exploits of power at all costs and come what may.  Must be a person who would lick the feet of those who can do him a favor and kick at those who are either not in a position to do so or would not do so.  I wonder if he would have the guts to read out such sickening poetry to a RaGa or a NaMo or a Sonia or a Mulayam or a Lalu et al.

Can we not understand the simple fact that providing sops was not AAPs goal even though they have done so for the simple tactical reason that those who stood for change do not get weaned and swept away by the pied pipers of the establishment.  Their goal can ONLY be achieved by creating the anti-corruption infrastructure in the form of a credible Lokpal and NO OTHER MEANS.  And hence the decision to quit after this move was defeated was the ONLY CORRECT RESPONSE.  In fact if AAP had decided to stick to power that would be suspicious indeed.

As regards his constant movement and not sticking to anything including power, a sane person would see it as the sign of a vibrant intellect that is constant alive to its environment and committed to his purpose.  Sticking to a plum position in government like a corrupt-to-the-bone rishwatkhor, or to a post (खूंटा) like a buffalo or a seat of power like one of our sickening leaders is becoming of only a decadent, corrupt and obnoxious person and not a visionary or a revolutionary like Kejariwal.  Movement alone is the sign of life.

Journalists would do well to expel the person who read out this poetry from their profession.

Constitutional fanatics!

Whether or not one holds religion to be good, I am sure we all agree that religious fanaticism of any hue is bad, bad, bad.  It is so because religious fanaticism has little to do with religion.  It uses religion as a tool to advance its hideous agenda and its practitioners violate the very core of the religion that they use and also profess to adhere to.

I find something similar happening in the political arena too.  Those who have defiled the political system and democratic institutions by encouraging muscle and money power in politics and looting the treasury, those who have actively suppressed merit for creating vote banks, those who have divided the electorate along all imaginable lines, and also those who probably cannot properly spell the word constitution, have all come together to defend the constitution!  To their mind creating unruly scenes, walking up to the speaker's table and pointing a finger in his face, and also advising him on how to discharge his duties in a tone befitting a terrorist, are all very valid and constitutional means of defending the holy constitution.

And yet we all know that their hearts bleed not for the constitution but for the fruits of power that the public has had the temerity to deny them.  They all profess to be supporting the Lokpal bill, but they want it to be introduced constitutionally.  This will give them enough time to toss it around till it recedes from public memory.  This is the trick that they have been playing for over sixty years and that they would like to perpetuate.  We have all suffered this farce for too long and it is strange that some people still advocate patience and following all the silly rules invented with the sole purpose of browbeating change seekers.

AAP is a ray of hope and we must not let the old guard fool us into thinking that they are the fanatics that we need to guard against.

An appeal

Dear One,

I am truly glad that you chose to read this appeal.  Please read through the complete communication and then take a decision.

Many of us are currently experiencing a kind of euphoria at the possibility of getting a leader who stands for good governance and development in a no-nonsense manner.  However we must remind ourselves the sense of despair that we collectively went through when scam after scam were unearthed.  There was an uprising against total lack of values in the political system.  Any holier-than-thou mantle that BJP may have pretended to wear was found to be like the emperor's mythical  invisible clothes.  This was the time when the nation collectively realized that the ruling class, the politicians, were strongly united in their pursuit of power and pelf even as they divided the electorate along innumerable lines of caste, creed, region et al.  Remember how we desperately looked for an alternative only to be reminded again and again that there was none.  Any dim hopes that arose from Anna Hazare's movement were extinguished by Anna's firm refusal to enter politics.  We felt like a rudderless ship surrounded by rapacious pirates.

In my humble opinion the situation has not changed since then.  Congress remains firm in its pursuit of audacious and immoral politics.  BJP which was equally embarrassed by various exposes has fortuitously found a tall leader and allowed him to ride roughshod over power starved seniors and in the process make the public forget about startling similarities between it and Congress.

Many of us feel that if Narendra Modi comes to power, it may mark the beginning of a phase for the better as was the case under Atal Bihari Bajpayee's regime.  However it will be recalled that once Atalji was gone from the scene, the usual sickly tendencies sprung back with a vengeance.  Also there is a section of skeptics who think that things have gone so far downhill that the entrenched parties are incapable of delivering even with a strong and well-intentioned leader.  And who knows better than us Indians that such a leader has become the rarest of the rare commodity; and hence the euphoria over NaMo.

Whichever group you belong to and whatever may be your current affiliations, you will agree that there is an urgent, very urgent need to nurture any movement in politics that is for the explicit purpose of bringing about a change and turning the tide in favor of a clean, honest and committed government.  We have been praying and looking for such a movement to take shape, but in vain.  It seemed as if there was not one person who had the courage of his convictions and was committed enough to undertake the task.  And this is not to deny that the task is mammoth indeed.  Even an exceptional leader like Narendra Modi has to ride on the back of his party for achieving his goals.

It is wondrous that all the agitation and churning amongst the public at large has thrown up a leader like Arvind Kejriwal who has demonstrated his organizational and leadership capabilities by doing the nearly impossible task of setting up a party that doesn't draw its sustenance from funds and manpower of dubious origins.  Even stalwarts in politics never thought that he will be able to do it.  That is why they heaved a sigh of relief when he accepted their challenge to enter politics and bring about the change that we all desired.  They were sure that he will never succeed.  And yet Arvind has done it.  This reminds me of a famous quote from Pearl S Buck.  It goes like this - "The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation."

Arvind seems fully committed to running his party on clean funds only and is asking for donations.  In my opinion all of us who crave for a change in this country must rise to the call and contribute our mite.  Let us ensure that the commendable cleaning up task that Arvind Kejriwal has undertaken does not suffer for want of clean funds.

Dear reader, it is possible that you may not be a staunch supporter of AAP party.  And yet you must contribute to it so that it is up and running by the time the need for such a party becomes desperately obvious.  If you ask why, here is my reply.  We all know that genetic diversity is an absolute must for any species to survive diverse threats that it constantly faces.  The same is true of any system including our political system.  Here unfortunately the diversity in terms of ideologies, principles and commitments are totally gone.  All the parties are essentially alike with the same set of weaknesses.  This is the reason that the system falls an easy prey to viruses of corruption, misgovernance and apathy to national concerns.  We have to help AAP to grow for the simple reason that it is different and will bring back some of the badly needed diversity in the political system.

I urge you to do your bit and contribute here: https://donate.aamaadmiparty.org/.  I have already done so.

Regards,

Anil Kumar Upadhyaya