Critics say that Kejriwal has been acting like a political novice by releasing a slew of allegations that may not come to much. Khurshid, for once, has said that Kejriwal was “an ant taking on the might of an elephant”.
Kejriwal accepts that survival in Indian politics against established political behemoths requires “strategic planning”, acknowledging that his “timing could have been planned better”.
While Kejriwal admits he is still learning, he believes that the truth will prevail. “Remember they may have survived for many decades in politics, but we too are formidable foes in pursuing truth,” he said.
Kejriwal objects to the fact that “power is vested in a political establishment in Delhi and in state capitals. It needs to be people-centric”. His use of street protests has earned him the respect of the middle class.
– From the November 4, 2012 Al Jazeera article: India’s ‘Assange’ crusades against corruption
More than two years ago, I published an article titled, Meet Arvind Kejriwal: “India’s Julian Assange,” which focused on the crusade for social justice of a man I had never heard of. It immediately seemed important to me as further evidence of the nascent global political awakening against corrupt politicians, large corporations and central banks. In the intervening years, we have seen the rise of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and even Bepe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy. I hadn’t heard of Mr. Kejriwal again…until today.
While the establishment paid little attention to the man back in 2012, they are definitely paying attention now. Mr. Kejriwal has been attacking the entire establishment. For example, India has it’s own useless two party system, consisting of the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and he’s gone after both of them with equal vigor. It is the BJP that is currently in power, and it was the BJP that Mr. Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party, or Common Man’s Party, swept aside in local New Delhi elections.
AP reports that:
NEW DELHI (AP) — An upstart anti-corruption party won a smashing victory in elections to install a state government in India’s capital, dealing a huge blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.
While the results from last weekend’s elections will not have any bearing on the structure of the federal government, they sent a clear message to Modi that he was not invincible despite his party’s strong showing in state elections since it was swept to power last year. They were also an indication of voters’ frustration with endemic corruption.
Thousands of jubilant supporters of former tax collector Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Admi Party, or Common Man’s Party, beat drums and danced in celebration after India’s Election Commission announced results Tuesday showing AAP’s overwhelming win.
“Such a big mandate is very scary, and we should live up to people’s expectations,” Kejriwal told his cheering supporters, who yelled “Five years, Kejriwal!” and showered rose petals on him outside the party’s headquarters in New Delhi.
Analysts said the scale of the defeat of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was a wake-up call for the government.
Kejriwal has made opposition to widespread graft a centerpiece of his political work. During a brief stint as New Delhi’s leader last year, he promised tough action against police officers and officials caught accepting bribes, and encouraged ordinary people to carry out sting operations by filming officials accepting bribes.
With most votes counted, the Election Commission said the AAP won 66 out of 69 seats, with the BJP winning just three. The AAP was ahead in the one remaining constituency in the 70-seat assembly.
“Something dramatic has happened,” a dejected BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said.
Kejriwal, a graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and a former income tax official, became hugely popular during his 2013 election campaign, which honed in on corruption as the country’s greatest menace. While no party won an outright majority in that election, Kejriwal led a minority government for 49 days before resigning, leaving New Delhi under temporary federal government control.
“Democracy is winning today … because an honest man is standing for us,” 22-year-old student Pradeep Kumar said.
What is happening in India, in Europe, and what will eventually come to the U.S., represents a monumental political paradigm shift. When it’s over, the Fourth Turning will be complete, and the world won’t ever look quite the same again. It’s still very early days.
For related articles, see:
Incredible Video: Beppe Grillo Dissects the Financial System…in 1998
Meet Arvind Kejriwal: “India’s Julian Assange”
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Michael, it might be interesting–and useful–if you offered your perspective on how those in the US with similar ideas as Mr. Kejriwal should proceed in the next few years. The US is certainly behind many places where serious resistance is springing up: Spain and Greece come to mind and now we see it blossom in India.
I’m not talking about a national campaign, I mean in small, local races–where corruption can be every bit as endemic as national races–how should those who feel the call to help bring America back from the abyss organize their efforts? What would be the message if all across the US independent candidates were able to come from out of the blue and capitalize on the gathering storm of discontent among the middle class especially.
Pipe dream? What do you think?
I think there are two main reasons the U.S. is behind so many other regions politically.
1) The masses have been brainwashed into believing things will get better. That the American dream is still alive. People still think and hope the economy will turn around and they too will get rich.
2) The deterioration in the standard of living has been gradual, like boiling a frog. Once the next cyclical downturn hits, and the dream above becomes unquestionably unattainable, they will become politically motivated due their agitation and suffering.
My goal is to get the information on record now, so that when people are ready to react they know what the core cancers are. In my Letter to Sam Zell post, I outlined some of them. They were:
1) Opposition to Wall Street bailouts, the concept of TBTF and the growth of crony capitalism generally.
2) The fact that the “rule of law” is not applied to oligarchs, politicians and government officials.
3) The destruction of civil liberties through the nation and the militarization of police.
4) Endless and pointless wars abroad, as well as the destructive war on drugs at home.
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/02/06/an-open-letter-to-sam-zell-why-your-statements-are-delusional-and-dangerous/
Hope that helps.
The spectre of social justice is indeed haunting the globe. Let the oligarchs and capitalists have no place to hide!
I sort of feel let down by this post. Though this man claims to be an outsider / commoner, there are a number of question marks about his integrity towards the nation by former RAW officers ( equivalent to CIA in US ). I am sure those RAW officers will have their contacts still.
His activities have resulted in numerous security issues in the nation along with his close proximities to Naxalites ( internal terror group in India ). His economic policies are bordering lunacy and if moved @ federal level, India will turn into another Venezuela.
The current PM Modi, is actually an outsider in the BJP itself. He has come up with his work over the years. When ever you visit India, visit the city of Surat which was devastated by plague first, then floods, earthquake. Today its among the top 5 clean cities of the country. All this happened in a decade.
My read is simple : This man’s party simply substituted the Indian National Congress (INC) with policies worse than INC. Today the INC almost destroyed. Some one has funded this party as a natural opposition to the BJP.
I am saddened by this development, particularly when he was @ helm first for 49 days. He quit his job doing some amazing melodrama. Nonetheless he gets a second chance and let’s see what he can come up with.
Thank you for your comment. Bear in mind, that I am not an expert on the Indian political situation, nor do I claim to be. Which is why I have a comment section for people with different perspectives to offer their thoughts.
The main point of the post was to highlight how the emergence of this party is part of a larger global trend. When I mention Syriza and Podemos, I never claim to support their policies, I am pointing out the trend. The political paradigm shift.
I am absolutely no expert on Arvind Kejriwal. I agree time will tell how good, or useless he is.
all the indians i know in new york city , almost by a self selection process of having left, don’t have much good to say about india, let alone indian politics.
india is notoriously corrupt like china, but less organized and worse. this is what i’ve been led to believe by repeated discussions of the matter. in which case, i applaud this fellow kejriwal for making ‘change’ but it’s likely nothing comes of it. words are cheap. what is going to do about the naxalites? communist revolution in india? that would be very very bloody. and even more people would die by starvation.
a simple few year period of western sanctions on india would cause mass starvation. and western governments aren’t interested in a true reformer taking over india for the betterment of sino-russo interests. mike you point out that this guy might be the new syriza. well the way the game of thrones works is alliances. is syriza going to use the threat of talks with the impoverished yet oil rich and nuclear armed russia and china to leverage negotiations with its current ecb and germano paymasters?
will india? no. india even less so. as much as we have a mypoic view of the nature of cooperation of european govenrments. the greater view of history demonstrates that fierce compeittion in the east pre-empts some grand alliance from forming in a sudden fashion against the western hegemony.
does the shanghai cooperation councle, and the new brics bank and recent chinese renminbi wire services slowly change the game of empire. yes. will this mr india bring a sweeping wave of change to india. likely not. the indians i know tell me the most predictable thing about india is the grinding poverty and mess. what is to explain the chinese miracle since the 70s that india was not able to replicate? i’m not sure but it seems the different trajectories tell you something about the capacity for ‘change’ in india.
furthermore,
india’s current (modi) presidents’ rise to ‘power’ involved pierre omidyar, of first look media
a lot of interesting connetions. glenn greenwald was at first look. mr muckraker himself matt taibi naively joined up and then left.
omidyars modi connection is not simply a commercial venture intent upon gaining access to u.s. dollar investment in amazon and ebay style companies in india.
snowden is not who he says he is. he never was. and glenn greenwalds connection to omidyar and modi clearly implicate the u.s. state department. high level connections like these are not simply hanging around in the air .
the president of india is a direct interest of the u.s. state department.
the u.s. clearly has deep seated interested in india.
Freedom is breaking out all over
Hello Michael,
I understand that you are not familiar with Indian politics so it is fine that you think this particular guy is somehow a ‘revolutionary’ character in India. Even most people in India believe that he is going to bring about dramatic changes.
But the fact of the matter is that his entire political career has been plotted by an organization called the ‘Vivekananda International Foundation’ and it is their media cronies who elevated this man to national fame. His party is funded mostly by foreign agencies including the Ford Foundation and other NGOs with dubious backgrounds.
He has now promised free water, cheap electricity and lots of other social welfare schemes which would supposedly save New Delhi but it is actually going to make things much worse. I believe that all these things are happening due to strategic planning and execution by powerful internationalist forces and the people of India are not going to benefit in anyway by this new party. Their fresh style of propaganda will bring some good times to the media but at the end of the day nothing is going to change.
I believe it is the same with Syriza in Greece as well. Even though there is a lot of posturing going on right now about leaving EU and ending austerity, I doubt very much that the Greek people are going to gain their long awaited emancipation from the clutches of the vultures of NATO.
Political parties aren’t going to change the world for the better. The change has to come from within and it will happen only through the participation of well informed and passionate individuals in the socio-polical arena.
Peace.
First of all, thanks for your perspective. I admittedly don’t know too much about this man, so I am more than happy to have people discuss and debate his merits and or failings here in the comment section. That being said, I want to make some separate points in response to your note.
You say that: “Political parties aren’t going to change the world for the better. The change has to come from within…”
I completely agree with this statement. You may not be a regular reader of this site, but I have always advocated this sentiment. Last year in the post, “This is Why Rand Paul is Hilary Clinton’s Worst Nightmare” (http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/11/18/this-is-why-rand-paul-is-hilary-clintons-worst-nightmare/), I wrote:
Readers of this site will be well aware that I spend very little time focusing on Presidential politics. There are many reasons for this, but more than anything else, I believe there are two key components to genuine cultural change, and none of them have to do with electing a savior. These are:
1) Knowledge – Ignorance is not bliss. Particularly when it comes to the advance or decline of a civilization. Thomas Jefferson said it best:
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
I am trying to do my own little part in that regard here at Liberty Blitzkrieg.
2) Internal Change – It is much easier to complain about others and the world at large than it is to improve oneself. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but I am cognizant that you can’t change the outside world unless you have changed what’s inside. Gandhi said it best:
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
We can elect all the saviors we want to positions of power, but unless we are able to master the above, nothing will permanently evolve in the right direction, and we will be cursed into repeating the same painful cycle over and over again. Crash and burn.
All that said, I don’t think Presidential politics, or politics in general, have to be as horribly corrupt as they are today. I do think it is possible to elect courageous statesmen as opposed to power hungry, money grubbing frontmen and women.
As far as Syriza, you may be right, you may be wrong. At this point, your words are only opinion. Time will tell.
Thanks for the comment.
Michael,
What was remarkable about this win was that it was so broad based. Even strongholds of BJP were lost,even though BJP came to power recently. The problem with Modi is that in terms of jobs he is all hat and no cattle. The development in Gijarat was neoliberal, in that it wasn’t due to growth of jobs.
He is just another oligarch supporter.
See:
Basing on National Sample Survey figures, the authors say that the growth rate of employment in Gujarat during 1993-94 to 2004-05 was 2.43 per cent. However, they add, “this came down nearly zero in the latter half of the decade (2004-05 to 2009-10).” Further, they say, employment in “key sectors, agriculture and manufacturing, witnessed negative growth rates at – 1.59 per cent and – 2.23 per cent per annum, respectively. ”
http://blogs.timesofindia. indiatimes.com/true-lies/ gujarat-s-experiment-with- jobless-growth/
Gujarat’s experiment with jobless growth
“Merely a day after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) landslide victory in the Delhi election, residents of south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar said on Wednesday they had already started noticing positive changes in their neighbourhood.
Similar to the impact witnessed during AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s 49-day rule, residents say that Day 1 started without them having to pay money to government officials.
“Every day I used to be stopped at the entry point of Jal Vihar and the police official stationed there would blatantly ask me for money to allow me to transport goods. But today despite the same official being present I was not stopped,” said Rudal Kumar, who transports goods in a cart.”
http://m.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/day-after-sangam-vihar-locals-say-governance-back-in-area/article1-1315968.aspx
AAP effect? South Delhi locality says governance back in area
Keep in mind in India manufacturing has become more productive by shedding jobs;and Modi tells the gullible public they will get more jobs! The time for manufacturing creating jobs has come and gone as automation and technology replace workers. What is left is hard to implement, improved education, improving human capital- and this was also not delivered in Gujarat-so Modi has no real solution for India’s jobs challenge.
Also please note contract jobs has reduced pay of even those workers still in manufacturing jobs. INC are like Dems and BJP is like a more toxic version of GOP-because it uses communal riots to get base excited! American scholars have noted this phenomenon;and written articles and books about it!
“Since the early 1990s, the employment structure of organised manufacturing industries in India has undergone substantial changes with the steep rise in the use of contract workers in place of permanent workers. This process has led to increased wage inequality, discrimination as well as the concern of job insecurity in the labour market. We focus on the wage inequality between permanent and contract workers, since contract workers earn substantially lower wages than their counterparts.”
http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp_id=2097
Wage Inequality and Job Insecurity among Permanent and Contract Workers in India: Evidence from Organized Manufacturing Industries
And what do you think of this?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-defends-activist-Priya-Pillais-offloading-slams-wests-rights-reports/articleshow/46257518.cms
Govt defends activist Priya Pillai’s offloading, slams west’s rights reports