“The AAP Effect”

The election season in India is on. One of the novel feature of this election is the impact of newly formed Aam Admin Party (AAP) in the political landscape.

The most significant achievement of AAP is the speed in which this party has come to so much of attention and relevance in the political process. It is too early to conclude its ability to reach positions of power and to hold on to it on the basis of what it delivers. However it has made significant contributions to the democracy in India.

Firstly it managed to shake up the established parties and their leaders by raising a number of questions; especially relating to corruption. It reminded them that the electorate cannot be taken for granted. This shake up has to some extent brought upfront the importance of addressing corruption in public life. I don’t believe this will result in a complete clean up. But it may to bring some moderation and more seriousness about the way government manages its finances; monitoring the quality of outcomes and its benefits to the society.

Secondly it has reversed the trend of decreasing participation of the common man in the electoral process. A large cross section of the society had moved away from participation in elections and voting because they were disgusted at what they experienced and felt that there is no point in any kind of involvement.  But today we see reversal of this trend.  We see active interest among many of the former disbelievers. More importantly we see many more good and educated professionals joining the fray with a commitment to make a contribution to the society and not just for private gains.

Third contribution it has made is the passion it has ignited among the youngsters. Recently I attended a function which was primarily meant for the youth. One of the speakers asked two questions to the audience. To the question on how many have voted in any elections there were hardly any raised hands. But when they were asked how many would vote in the coming election, the majority raised their hands.  I am sure this larger participation can only mean good for the society.

Is this going to usher a new era? Are we going to see a complete clean-up of political system? While I am excited about the reversal of the trend I am not sure of the sustenance and scaling of the collection of good people to overthrow the bad. This is because the very nature of the good people has the inherent fault line that could lead to its implosion. Remember the Janata Dal which came to power soon after emergency. What a great collection of statesmen and professionals. It failed from within without completing its first term.  

I had written a blog on this problem of “Good being Bad” I have reproduced it below for convenience.

To be or not to be  –Of Good being Bad

In the first part of this article I discussed about how any system of governance will always have a mixture of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ use of the system. I have used the word “good use” and “bad use” in a figurative way. Good use is when the system is used for the larger good of the humanity and bad use naturally its opposite.

The relative proportion of good and bad in the society is determined primarily by the value system of the majority. The natural tendency of this mix is to gradually degenerate with the proportion of bad getting more and more; the bad drives out the good.

This is similar to the income distribution and its shift in a society. In a society however evenly distributed the wealth is to begin with, eventually the mix becomes skewed with smaller percentage of the society controlling larger part of wealth.

The question is not whether it will degenerate. But how long it will take! Some social shocks and scams may cause periodic correction of this degeneration and eventually the society/ civilization degenerates to its cyclical low. May be the cycle will start all over again.

One of the key contributors of this degeneration is the inaction by the good. As the proverb says; “the best thing that the bad can expect is the good to do nothing”

The greatest tragedy is that the people who want to use the system for their private agenda (let is refer to them loosely as the bad people) have some of the good traits that help them prosper and the people who want to use the system for the larger benefits of the society (let us refer to them as the good people) have some of the worst traits that weaken them. Let us take a deeper look at these qualities.

Co-operation

The bad people are generally too happy to co-operate with anybody so long as that co-operation brings them power or wealth or both.

The good people generally carry a chip of honesty on their shoulder that they seldom co-operate even with people with similar value system. They believe that their goodness is one step higher and they are ready to dump and run if the other guy doesn’t play along exactly as he feels is right. In fact they almost make such renunciation a virtue.

Courage

The bad normally has the courage and with impunity cooks the account books /investigation/ assessment or any administrative process for their gain.

The good is often scared to take bold decision and hides behind rules and technicality. The obstructive bureaucracy is often a result of such cowardliness and not just self serving actions of the bad.

Power of Interpretation

The bad will interpret laws and technicality so long it meets its end or favors an ally.

The good often tries to interpret with limited appreciation of what it stands for; by the time they finish splitting the hair it fails to be achieve any good.

Sacrifice

The bad is capable of sacrifice for what it stands for. Sacrifice its principals, society, environment and much more.

Good will hold onto technical correctness, its pride and prejudice even at the cost of its ultimate benefit to the society

Loyalty

The bad often demands and commits substantial loyalty to its partners so long as such loyalty is rewarding. They are willing invest in this loyalty for quite some time.

The good often has little commitment to his partners if it feels that their goodness is not of the same type. They are willing to abandon and run and not pull together.

Risk taking

The bad is willing to take its risk, because they see potential reward in taking risk.

The good is often too risk averse. The potential reward for sticking the neck out could be some brickbats. With no upside benefit for self and downside uncertain and costly, the good normally avoid getting involved.

Now we ask the question “How good is good”. There is a saving in our tongue which translates to “the good often bears the fruits of the bad”

I do agree there are many ‘good’ who are as good as the ‘bad’ and it is through them that we have gained anything.

What we need to do to avoid/delay of decay of our society is to develop a willingness to learn the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’, stick together and support each other for what we stand and not be a utopian island of fruitless good.

Willingness to co-operate, to take risks, to take a position, to believe in the intention of the fellow good, not to be cowed down by oppositions and mild differences in styles and not to run away to our comfort zones is what is needed today.

There is high probability that the future of AAP could end up be like this. The party is already showing signs of this internal fault line. If this happens it would be a loss to the democratic processes


"It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more" Woody Allen