Danger Signals: The Aam Aadmi Party shows signs of falling into the same old rut
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , FEBRUARY 1, 2014, Vol. 49, No. 5 (FEBRUARY
1, 2014), pp. 7-8
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Economic&PoliticalwEEKLY
FEBRUARY 1, 2014
Danger Signals
The Aam Aadmi Party shows signs of falling into the same old rut.
Police and against the union home minister, Sushilkumar disciplinary action against the policemen and control over Delhi
The Aam
Shinde,Aadmi
came to a tepidParty's
end with the(aap)
protestingdharna
chief Police. Infor control
this particular over
instance, Delhi
there are leadership
two issues, both closed ranks and launched its protest demanding
minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, and his party agreeing to a equally dangerous: one is the demand of the aap to conflate
face-saver provided by the lieutenant governor of Delhi, Najeeb police reforms with control of the police by the aam aadmi or
Jung. This is perhaps the first time since the anti-corruption common man, the other is the racism and xenophobia on display,
movement became a political party that it has had to retreat aap leaders have been quick to point out that control over Delhi
politically. It has also exposed some aspects of the new party's Police has been a prominent part of the party manifesto. The
unwelcome characteristics. In all, it bodes ill for what has, until aap vision document, in fact, wants the police to be "directly
now, been a creative rupture in Indian politics. The dharna and accountable to the local people", that the "Mohalla Sabha should
the events around it suddenly came to dominate aap's political have authority" over the police station. The actions of Bharti tell
agenda, pushing out other issues primarily because of the need us how dangerous this seemingly democratic proposal can be in a
of the party to defend its ministers from sharp political attack, country where, as Ambedkar warned, the village and the mohalla
not only from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party but continue to host the most dangerous ideologies of caste, patriarchy
even vocal sections of civil society. and various other prejudices. Seen in the light of the aap's own
The direct action on issues related to women's safety in Delhi vision document, it appears that Bharti was wrong only insofar
- dowry deaths, prostitution and criminality - by two ministers as his racism was concerned. Yet, for many, the hollowing out of
of the Delhi government, Rakhi Birla and Somnath Bharti, was the rule of law that this vision of direct democracy demands
a response to the public criticism of the aap government for its will perhaps be far more dangerous.
casual reaction to the gang rape of a Danish tourist. Kejriwal It is a frightening dystopia if one merely considers what such
was being painted as less than honest in the media since in mohalla control of the police would have meant in 1984,1992
2012, after the December gang-rape case, he had called the then or 2002.
chief minister, Sheila Dixit, incompetent, but, now when in Troubling questions also arise from aap's adamant defence of
power, he was blandly repeating her very words of helplessness. Bharti despite all evidence and its collective refusal to address
He was being called out on his promise that the aap govern- his racism (even if some prominent leaders have criticised it),
ment would make Delhi safe for women. Similarly troubling is Kejriwal's assertion that "drug, sex rackets
Birla wanted the police to break into the house of those who lead to rape tendencies". As some observers have pointed out,
had allegedly burnt their daughter-in-law, Neha Yadav, on the aap's critique of corruption in the State is now showing the
dowry demands. Bharti wanted the police to raid homes of some "classic" shift towards a critique of corruption in society, with its
Nigerian women alleging that they were prostitutes. When the many dangerous consequences. Further, with all its critique of
police refused, aap volunteers with him caught hold of three the existing systems and institutions, aap has not come up with
Ugandan women, harassed, manhandled them and threatened alternative systems and institutions which will reflect the demos
them in the most abusive racist terms. Videos show him claiming more effectively and provide a foundation for a progressive
that the Africans "are not like us" and the Ugandan women have politics. Lastly, it has foregrounded the "people", the aam aadmi,
gone on record to state they were almost lynched by the aap without any definition of who this people are. As its membership
mob and it was only the police who saved them. swells from the hundreds of thousands to the millions, and as it
Both Birla and Bharti appear guilty of asking the police to now aspires to fight the parliamentary elections, it cannot continue
follow their verbal orders rather than adhere to the rule of law, to refuse to address these issues under cover of its "newness" or
which lays down clear guidelines on the need for a warrant, that it is still coming up with its programmes and policies,
the protection of women from arrest after sunset, etc. It was to One of the most attractive and creative challenges of aap
protest this "insubordination" of the police officers that the aap to established politics was its use of direct democracy. From its
Economic & Political weekly Q323 February i, 2014 vol xlix no 5 7
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EDITORIALS j
constituency-level manifestos, to organising jan sabhas another aap leader who has made loathsome remarks about
(peoples' assemblies) before taking difficult political decisions, women, dark-skinned south Indians, and Muslims. It is under
the aap's radical democratic practice showed it to be so differ- standable that as this new party grows rapidly it will attract
ent from the established parties, and gave it a creative, pro- all sorts. What is indefensible is that such activists are being
gressive momentum that attracted much public support. How- protected and their actions justified by the aap leadership. Is
ever, it is only a thin line that divides direct democracy from the aap leadership capable of making amends and not disap
mobocracy or majoritarianism. That ogre has raised its head pointing the growing hopes of Indians in the possibility of an
in the actions of Bharti and the utterances of Kumar Vishwas, alternative politics?
The 'Stagnation-Financialisation Trap'
North America, western Europe and Japan are caught in a stagnation-financialisation trap.
Forum at the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos skis into its as the good old economics textbooks once put it. The Fed's
As we pen these
second day. lines,net worth
The individual theof44th Annual
the world's "quantitativeWorld
easing" (qe) -Economic
to reduce long-termconcerned,
interest rates the latter has been like "pushing on a string",
billionaires has zoomed upwards in the year gone by and by purchasing massive amounts of long-term us government
continues to as stocks rally in the new year, never mind the bonds - has not managed to stimulate the real economy through
austerity measures, the lay-offs and the wage cuts imposed easing liquidity. It has not quite managed to resume the flow of
upon millions of working-class people. Along with a mix of credit in the real part of the economy. But Lagarde and a section
prime ministers and presidents, top officials in governments, of the transnational financial elite want this highly accommoda
central banks and international institutions, corporate ceos, tive monetary policy to go on. The reason is that the funds made
and, of course, celebrities and "social entrepreneurs", the super- available to Wall Street at very low interest rates as a result of
rich are discussing the "reshaping of the world" and its "conse- the qe programme have been used to speculate in the financial
quences for society, politics and business". markets and keep them buoyant. Indeed, financial speculators
But talking in Washington about the "safety" of the inter- have used these cheap funds from the us to "invest" in the
national financial system, just the week before, the managing emerging markets to reap high rates of return.
director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, The question being asked is whether the new chairman
mentioned the unmentionable - the threat of deflation. Deflation, designate of the Fed, Janet Yallen, will allow this party of the
she said, was "the ogre that must be fought decisively". Now, in financial aristocracy to go on. Lagarde and the financial
folklore, an ogre is a man-eating giant, cruel and terrifying, and aristocracy, the latter the super-rich beneficiaries of the qe pro
that is why one dare not speak its name; deflation is considered a gramme, certainly want it to. So also the bonus recipients among
subject out of bounds, beyond the pale, off limits. But, in late 2002, Wall Street bankers - the bonus pool at Goldman Sachs is said
Ben Bernanke, when he was a member of the board of governors to have increased by $600 million in 2013, mainly as a result of
of the United States Federal Reserve and not yet its chairman, the rise in the investment banking firm's share price. Lagarde
did talk about deflation and "making sure it doesn't happen seems to be placing her hopes of keeping the global economy
here", an historical account though. The important point here, afloat on the emerging markets to which a part of the cheap funds
however, is that the general decline in prices is merely a side effect flow. But some of these economies have also slowed down, and
of a more catastrophic economic disaster - a severe collapse of if the qe programme is now tapered off, economic growth there
aggregate demand that obliges firms to cut prices in order to find may fizzle out, taking the world economy down with them,
buyers. Deflation, if it does occur in the us, western Europe and One of the world's most prescient economists of the present
Japan, even with nominal interest rates close to zero, will raise economic malaise has been the late Paul Sweezy, who, way back
real interest rates to further dampen capital spending, thereby in the 1970s, viewed the financialisation of the process of capital
worsening economic stagnation. Moreover, it will heighten the accumulation as one of the ways in which a mature monopoly
financial distress of debtors, increase the already high share of capitalist economic system tries to overcome its tendency to
bank loans that are in default (because the real value of the debts stagnation. He, along with his colleague, the late Harry Magdoff,
escalates), raise the number of bankruptcies and bank failures, who handled facts and data so well, both then editors of the
and thereby heighten the fragility of the financial system. All this Monthly Review, in the 1980s, explained why financialisation
did happen in the us during 1930-33. Can it happen again? emerged as a hazardous rescuer of the faltering economy, also
It is intriguing why Lagarde is warning of such a possibility hinting at grave political and global repercussions when the
now. Certainly the rate of inflation is much below the 2% annual monopoly-capitalist economies are caught in the stagnation
rate that is the target of most of the central banks in the devel- financialisation trap. This is exactly the present economic malaise
oped capitalist countries, this despite the very easy monetary in the Triad - North America, western Europe and Japan - and
policies being implemented. But as far as the real economy is its grave political repercussions cannot but be far off.
8 February i, 2014 vol XLIX no 5 QBO Economic & Political weekly
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