Dangerous Democracy With Arvind Kejriwal

Hello, and welcome to this pilot episode of Dangerous Democracy with Arvind Kejriwal. In this series, I will attempt to expose (cue: dramatic tone) the dangerous ideas that are being propagated by those who seek to be elected.

Let's start with the underdog here. The AAP, a nascent party, has suddenly sprung out of the wilderness as the most dangerous party in the world. It feeds on the peoples' fear of corruption and fools them into a false sense of security with its innocuous sounding name; which portrays it as something that is for the common person. However, behind the innocuous façade, and the X is worse than Y game lies a dangerous mind. The mind of Arvind Kejriwal, politician wannabe, and complete moron.

For once, let's not go over the utter idiocies of the AAP's short term in Delhi, which ended in a temper tantrum that would put any five year old to shame. Let's go to the point before they were ever elected. To the book that should have warned us of the dangers of AK's Swaraj.

Swaraj means self-rule. This itself is ridiculous in a democracy. As I've often stated in the past [1, 2], that is just not how democracy, or government for that matter, should function. Just like I wouldn't open the bonnet and tinker with the engine in my car, I wouldn't trust myself to be a good administrator, knowing fully the complexities of managing a whole country. AK, however, chooses to ignore this. He thinks that almost everyone in the country should be part of his "Gram Sabhas" which is just because "Panchayat" was already taken by the current system. He thinks that having a billion yammering yobs will be better than the current parliamentary system. To prove his point, he dramatically points out the story of Amrapali, which has been told in the classic "Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu," which, to those who don't speak Hindi, translates to "The prostitute from Vaishali." Amrapali was made a prostitute because the people of Vaishali wanted her to whore herself out. She asked for the King's palace as compensation, and the King had to vacate his palace in order to satisfy the demands of his subjects. Interestingly, AK skips the part where the King built himself a larger palace, using the taxes collected from his subjects. Or the part where Vaishali fell to Ajatshatru just because the people couldn't decide if they wanted to defend themselves.

Jumping to the present, AK presents a cherry-picked selection of Indian villages where apparently, "self rule" has worked wonders. Actually, that's just people not being lazy bums and doing some real work, but let's gloss over that for the moment. Now, what was that saying about one swallow and the summer? Funny, but I just can't place it...

Think about it. There has never been an idea so dangerous to democracy, and the sovereignty of the Republic of India. This one guy, with absolutely no credentials (he's from IIT-KGP, and let's face it --- folks from the IITs know absolutely nothing about anything), can single-handedly destroy democracy faster than the Widow (with the upper-case W) did with the emergency. According to him, we don't need the federal structure. Let everyone make their own laws. Just give people money, no strings attached, and hope that they will solve their problems. That is one hell of a leap of faith. In fact, I would rather jump off the Burj Khalifa than take the leap of faith that AK has taken. As you know, I don't like people. Indian's on the other hand, are complete imbeciles when it comes to understanding governance, going more by passion than by the laws of the land. What AK proposes, in effect, is to have Khap panchayats at every nook-and-cranny in the country.

I've always held that Indian democracy is remarkable. It's better than American democracy, because we have a balance of powers. It's better than English democracy, because we are a republic. We granted everyone above a certain age the right to vote, unlike countries which practised discrimination years after Indian independence. At the same time, India understood the challenges it faced, and adapted to overcome those challenges. For instance, we dropped jury trials as soon as we realised that they don't deliver justice (refer to the Nanavati v Maharashtra). We worked hard to bring the panchayats to an active form of government. We've survived emergency imposed by a crazed lady, we've survived for 67 years without understanding an iota of what a true democracy represents.

Which is why AK is perhaps the biggest danger that Indian democracy faces. After 60 years of corrupt and incompetent "rule" by a single party, which has sucked out all hope from the citizens, AK comes in dressed as Napolean by Old Major's side, singing "communalism is worse than corruption is worse than inter-caste marriages is worse than bachelorhood is worse than dynasty is worse than capitalism is worse than corruption." Soon, he drops all association with Old Major, even calling him out for being in league with the humans. With his sheep fanboys singing his praise, and Squealer on his side, he built a wall painted with the rules of AAPism. Of course, he later ended up offering freebies to win elections, initiated tainted people with serious charges, kicked out Snowball because he wouldn't sing his tune, before being caught painting over the constitution. Then he quit in a massive tantrum, in front of the sheep singing "AAP good, others bad." Perhaps a good thing, as Boxer still hasn't been sold to the knacker, and the pigs haven't yet started walking upright.

I still haven't said all the stuff I want to say about AK; but on that bombshell, I have to end this post. Until next time, goodbye, and good luck.