Freedom First

Freedom First

Summary

This is issue No. 562 (April 2014) of Freedom First, the Bombay-based classical-liberal monthly published by the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom, appearing on the eve of the 2014 Lok Sabha election. The issue opens with a nostalgia reprint from its own April 1957 number, then moves through an editorial contrasting the Aam Aadmi Party with the old Swatantra Party, a set of economic-policy essays indicting the UPA II government’s fiscal, tax, industrial and subsidy record, a farmers’-rights column by Sharad Joshi, Firoze Hirjikaka’s regular Cornucopia column (a Manmohan Singh political obituary and a profile of the incoming Modi era), Ashok Karnik’s point-counterpoint debate feature, pieces on civil-military relations, Asian and European geopolitics (China’s assertive posture and the Crimea crisis), electoral-reform proposals (right to reject/recall), a police-reform book review, the concluding instalment of a Right to Education Act series, student-authored analyses of the Muzaffarnagar riots and of the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party, and a closing piece on Tibetan exile politics.

Across its roughly twenty contributions the issue’s argumentative centre is a critique of a decade of Congress-led UPA governance — corruption, policy paralysis, an economically illiterate approach to fiscal and industrial policy — paired with anxious, ambivalent anticipation of the 2014 election’s two insurgent alternatives, Narendra Modi’s BJP and Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. Contributors include career economists and columnists (Sunil S. Bhandare, Dattatraya R. Pendse), retired defence and intelligence officials (Brig. Suresh C. Sharma, Ashok Karnik), academic specialists in international relations (B. Ramesh Babu, R. G. Gidadhubli), the farmers’-movement leader Sharad Joshi, a law-firm associate (Aditya N. Raut), a Tibet-policy specialist (Thubten Samphel), and several college-student contributors writing on the Muzaffarnagar riots and the Aam Aadmi Party.

Essays

Freedom First: This Month in April 1957

A ‘Nostalgia’ reprint of the NOTES column from Freedom First’s own issue No. 59 of April 1957, edited then by V. B. Karnik. It reproduces four short items: an attack on the AICC Economic Review for a diplomatic gaffe requiring an apology to the Queen and for alleged communist sympathies in its editing (naming H. D. Malaviya); an obituary tribute to B. G. Kher as patriot, scholar and social reformer; an ICCF News item on British socialist Rita Hinden’s Bombay lecture on Labour Party thinking; and a closing dig, reprinted from the Indian Express, at Jawaharlal Nehru’s economic thinking as frozen in 1930s Laski-era socialism.

• Reprints the NOTES column of Freedom First issue No. 59, April 1957 (Editor: V. B. Karnik).
• ‘Infiltration At Congress H.Q.’ accuses the AICC Economic Review’s editor of a communist-sympathetic, anti-Gandhian editorial line, citing H. D. Malaviya’s known communist views.
• An obituary marks the death of B. G. Kher, a former chief minister and Gandhi follower, praised for honesty and selfless service.
• ICCF News reports Rita Hinden’s February 1957 Bombay lecture on ‘Recent Trends in British Labour Party Thinking,’ introduced by V. B. Karnik and presided over by Prof. G. D. Parikh.
• A closing Indian Express extract accuses Nehru of economic thinking frozen in the Harold Laski/LSE mould of the 1930s.

From Our Readers

The letters section carries four reader contributions: a longtime subscriber’s continued endorsement of the magazine; a critique of a 2013 government policy funding overseas medical treatment for IAS/IPS/IFS officers and their families, questioning why the armed forces and paramilitary personnel are not given equal consideration; a note pointing out that a June 2013 Freedom First article on ‘Newspapers in India’ omitted Malayala Manorama, with background on that paper’s history; and a correction on the proper spelling of freedom fighter Bhikhaiji Cama’s name.

• Antonio Peregrine da Costa (Panjim, a subscriber since 1997) reaffirms his long-standing appreciation of the magazine.
• Brigadier Gautam Narain (retd.) criticises a policy funding overseas medical treatment for civil-service officers and families at taxpayer expense, arguing the armed forces, BSF, CRPF and Assam Rifles deserve equal consideration.
• Mammen Varghese (Kottayam) notes the omission of Malayala Manorama, founded 1888 and published from Kottayam since 1890, from an earlier Freedom First article on Indian newspapers.
• Minoo Mody (Mumbai) corrects a January 2014 misspelling of ‘Bhikhaiji Cama’ as ‘Bhikaji Cama’, explaining the Parsi naming convention distinguishing male and female forms.

Editorial

By SVR

The unsigned editorial (initialled ‘SVR’, i.e. editor S. V. Raju) reacts to a southern economics journal’s rhetorical question about whether the AAP is converging on old Swatantra Party economics, prompted by Rajmohan Gandhi’s endorsement of AAP. The editor recalls Swatantra’s 1967 offer to Rajmohan Gandhi to contest the Junagadh seat (which he declined) and the party’s other courageous 1960s recruits — industrialist K. Sundaram and Olympic hockey player Charanjit Rai — who risked real establishment retaliation under the licence-permit raj, unlike today’s AAP joiners. It closes by recalling Minoo Masani’s principled refusal to compromise as Swatantra general secretary, in the Rajagopalachari tradition, and declares any Swatantra–AAP comparison ‘odious.’

• Responds to an economics journal’s question on whether AAP’s economics resembles the old Swatantra Party’s.
• Recounts Swatantra’s 1967 offer of its election symbol to Rajmohan Gandhi to contest Junagadh, which he declined.
• Contrasts 1960s Swatantra recruits (K. Sundaram, Charanjit Rai) who risked real retaliation under the Nehru-Indira licence-quota raj with today’s AAP joiners, who the author says risk nothing.
• Recalls Minoo Masani’s refusal to compromise Swatantra’s principles even at the cost of losing, in the party’s Rajagopalachari-era ethos.
• Concludes that the comparison between Swatantra and AAP is ‘odious.‘

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

By Bapu Satyanarayana

H. R. Bapu Satyanarayana catalogues a litany of UPA-era failures on the eve of the 2014 election: the oil ministry’s capitulation to Reliance’s pricing demands, a health-secretary removal seen as protecting a scam-tainted regulator, a DLF land deal near Rashtrapati Bhawan, a Rolls-Royce/HAL kickback scandal, a structurally flawed Lokpal Bill, repeated Navy accidents blamed on bureaucratic neglect of the armed forces, missing anti-corruption files, and stashed offshore wealth that neither Congress nor BJP seriously pursues. It closes, however, by listing achievements — scientific and technological strength, the scale of the coming election — as reasons for optimism.

• Lists UPA-era scams: an oil-pricing dispute involving Reliance, a suspicious health-secretary removal, a Rashtrapati Bhawan-adjacent DLF land deal, and a Rolls-Royce/Hindustan Aeronautics kickback allegation.
• Criticises the passed Lokpal Bill as toothless because the selection committee is not bound by the search committee’s shortlist.
• Notes a string of Navy accidents, including the INS Sindhuratna fire, blamed on Defence Ministry bureaucrats prioritising archaic rules over military needs.
• Flags an RTI response showing UN anti-corruption convention files are untraceable within government ministries.
• Accuses both Congress and BJP of merely gesturing at the issue of untraceable offshore wealth without acting.
• Closes on an upbeat note, citing India’s scientific talent pool, diaspora, and the scale of the 2014 general election as grounds for optimism.

The Economic Legacy of the UPA II Government

By Sunil S. Bhandare

Consulting economist Sunil S. Bhandare reviews the outgoing Finance Minister’s 10-point ‘Vision for the Future’ as an implicit admission of the UPA II government’s own failures, working through fiscal consolidation, current account deficit, price stability, financial-sector reform, infrastructure, manufacturing, subsidies, urbanisation, skill development, and centre-state fiscal relations. He argues the government’s record on nearly every point — from a fiscal deficit disguised by ‘financial engineering’ to a stalled National Manufacturing Policy and counter-productive subsidy reform — falls well short of its own stated aims, leaving the incoming government a formidable repair job.

• The FM’s fiscal-deficit target of 3% of GDP is judged a facade, achieved only via ‘financial engineering’ such as squeezing PSU dividends.
• Current Account Deficit-to-GDP drifted from a healthy 1% in 2006-07 to 4.8% in 2012-13, forcing ‘fire-fighting’ interventions on the rupee.
• Double-digit inflation during 2009-13 is attributed to fiscal misadventures, over-generous welfare schemes, and rising minimum support prices rather than external shocks.
• The National Manufacturing Policy’s targets (12-13% growth, 25% share of GDP, 100 million new jobs) have gone unmet amid industrial deceleration.
• Technology-based subsidy reforms (e.g. Aadhaar) have been undercut by simultaneous expansion of existing and new subsidy schemes.
• Concludes the next government must resolve unclear centre-state fiscal sharing, alongside the other nine legacy problems, to restore growth momentum.

Towards a New Tax Regime

By D. R. Pendse

Economist D. R. Pendse offers a terse, numbered eleven-point manifesto for tax reform: lowering the marginal personal income-tax rate for very high incomes, rewarding consistently prompt taxpayers with a tax-free year, eventually abolishing individual income tax altogether and redeploying Income Tax Department staff, honouring high taxpayers publicly, gradually cutting corporate tax rates, capping total government expenditure rather than chasing more revenue, and encouraging commercial-style inter-ministerial transactions. He closes pessimistically, arguing vested interests and a ‘censorship of fashion’ against unconventional economic views will keep any of this from being implemented.

• Argues India’s tax regime is ‘beyond repair’ and should be replaced rather than patched.
• Proposes lowering the marginal personal income-tax rate from 30% to 25% above Rs 2 crore of income.
• Proposes a tax-free sixth year for taxpayers with five consecutive years of full, prompt payment.
• Proposes eventually abolishing individual income tax and closing the Income Tax Department, redeploying staff.
• Proposes a one-percentage-point annual cut in the corporate tax rate for five years.
• Argues government should not seek additional revenue but instead impose an absolute ceiling on total expenditure.
• Concludes such reforms will not be implemented because of vested interests and a social ‘censorship of fashion’ against unconventional views.

The Rural Perspective: Why Different Yardsticks for the Farmer Community?

By Sharad Joshi

Farmers’-movement leader Sharad Joshi, writing (in Marathi originally, translated here by Supriya Panse) about a RBI Deputy Governor’s disclosure that big corporates protested a 2008 farm loan waiver while themselves benefiting from larger bank write-offs, argues that Indian society and the judiciary apply a discriminatory double standard to farmers. He traces farmer indebtedness to government-suppressed crop prices and ‘negative subsidy,’ profiles pre-partition Punjab leader Sir Chhotu Ram as a farmers’ champion never honoured with major state awards, and contrasts this neglect with the unrecognised contributions of Lal Bahadur Shastri and M. S. Swaminathan to India’s food self-sufficiency.

• Cites RBI Deputy Governor K. C. Chakravarty’s disclosure that Rs 11,000 crore in corporate loans were quietly waived even as corporates protested a Rs 60,000 crore farmer loan waiver in 2008.
• Argues farmer loans are rendered ‘unlawful and immoral’ under the Indian Contract Act because government-imposed non-remunerative prices and negative subsidy make repayment impossible.
• Recounts a personal study of jailed farmers finding most imprisoned for land-dispute violence, none literate or English-speaking, evidence of a class-biased justice system.
• Profiles Sir Chhotu Ram, pre-partition Punjab’s Unionist Party leader, who protected farmer land via the Land Alienation Act and opposed bringing religion into politics, yet was never honoured with a major national award.
• Contrasts this neglect with the also-unrecognised contributions of Lal Bahadur Shastri (Green Revolution, ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’) and M. S. Swaminathan, neither of whom received the Bharat Ratna.
• Concludes the caste system may explain society’s and government’s ‘abhorrence’ of the farming community.

Cornucopia (Manmohan Singh — A Political Obituary / President Modi / My Totally Unscientific Poll Predictions)

By Firoze Hirjikaka

Firoze Hirjikaka’s regular Cornucopia column comprises three linked pieces. ‘Manmohan Singh — A Political Obituary’ portrays the outgoing Prime Minister as a career bureaucrat who chose deference to the party high command and studied invisibility over confrontation, squandering the reformist legacy of his 1991 finance-ministry years. ‘President Modi’ argues Narendra Modi’s presidential-style, personality-driven campaign is astute politics given public disenchantment with a ‘timid, vacillating’ incumbent, but warns his likely rule will be more authoritarian diktat than consensus. A closing ‘Totally Unscientific Poll Predictions’ section forecasts a hung result: BJP as the largest party needing allies, Congress avoiding total collapse, and AAP as a potential 40-plus-seat kingmaker.

• Portrays Manmohan Singh as having treated the premiership as a ‘post-retirement sinecure,’ avoiding confrontation with coalition ministers and the National Advisory Council.
• Credits Singh’s early-1990s reforms as Finance Minister with dismantling Nehruvian-era economic stagnation, contrasting it with his passive decade as PM.
• Argues Modi’s Presidential-style campaign (‘Modi is the BJP and the BJP is Modi’) is a shrewd response to public fatigue with the incumbent leadership.
• Warns a Modi government would likely mean ‘governance by diktat rather than consensus,’ with a stronger centre over the states.
• Predicts the BJP will emerge the single largest party but need allies; Congress may avoid a rout; AAP could become a decisive 40-plus-seat swing bloc.

Point Counter Point (Elections-2014 / Freeing Rajiv’s Killers / Tainted Leaders / Indian Mujahideen)

By Ashok Karnik

Ashok Karnik’s ‘Point Counter Point’ feature presents paired, opposing perspectives on four topical issues: the unusually competitive 2014 general election; the Tamil Nadu government’s remission of the death sentences of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins; political parties fielding tainted candidates despite anti-corruption rhetoric; and the National Investigation Agency’s charge sheet against Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal, including claims of ISI/Al Qaeda links.

• On the 2014 election, one view stresses genuine voter choice for the first time since 1977; the counter-view stresses reckless, unfunded populist promises from all parties.
• On the Rajiv Gandhi assassins’ remission, one view frames it as a legitimate use of CrPC Section 432 by the Tamil Nadu government; the counter-view warns of a dangerous precedent for releasing convicted terrorists to placate regional politics.
• On tainted candidates, notes the Supreme Court’s ruling that a convicted legislator is automatically disqualified, but criticises parties (citing Yeddyurappa, Lalu Prasad Yadav) for continuing to protect or ally with tainted leaders.
• On the Indian Mujahideen, the NIA charge sheet reveals ISI funding and Al Qaeda contacts, including an alleged (and likely implausible) plot to obtain a nuclear device to detonate in Surat.

Exercise or Military Coup?

By Suresh C. Sharma

Brig. Suresh C. Sharma (retd.) examines India’s recurring anxieties about civil-military relations, prompted by a January 2012 troop movement that briefly triggered coup fears. He recounts Nehru’s foundational mistrust of the military establishment (illustrated by the Thimayya ‘treasure chest’ anecdote), Defence Minister Y. B. Chavan’s 1966 direct query to Army Chief General J. N. Chaudhuri about coup risk, and the constitutional ambiguity over whether a President could order the Army Chief to act, concluding the Constitution offers no clear answer.

• A January 2012 movement of two military units toward Delhi, coinciding with Gen. V. K. Singh’s age-dispute litigation, briefly triggered coup allegations later dismissed as a routine exercise.
• Traces the ‘legacy of mistrust’ between India’s civil and military leadership back to Nehru, who reportedly viewed the armed forces with suspicion from the outset of his premiership.
• Recounts the Thimayya anecdote: Nehru’s tour of a locked steel chest, jokingly told by the new COAS that a coup plan was kept inside ‘under my personal care.’
• Recounts Defence Minister Y. B. Chavan’s 1966 direct question to General J. N. Chaudhuri about coup possibility, likely prompted by Indira Gandhi, and Chaudhuri’s confident denial.
• Concludes constitutional ambiguity remains over whether the President could order the Army Chief to act independently of the Council of Ministers, especially regarding war powers exceeding six months.

‘Dragon’ (Bull) in the China Shop: A Complex Challenge Confronting the US and the World

By B. Ramesh Babu

International relations specialist B. Ramesh Babu surveys China’s increasingly assertive maritime posture across the Asia-Pacific, its ‘nine-dash line’ claims, coercive bilateral diplomacy against neighbours, rapidly rising defence budget, and doctrine of ‘strategic asymmetry.’ Drawing on Ashley Tellis’s Carnegie Endowment study, he outlines a four-fold recommended US policy response and concludes by calling for a US-Japan-India-led countervailing coalition, with a second instalment promised for the following month.

• China’s ‘nine-dash line’ maritime claims lack legal basis and are being challenged by the Philippines at international arbitration.
• ASEAN nations feared a possible ‘dual hegemony’ of the US and China after President Obama reportedly floated the idea during a state visit, which China rejected.
• China’s defence budget rose 12.2% in 2014 to $130 billion, the third consecutive double-digit annual increase, amid rising tensions including the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute with Japan.
• Ashley Tellis’s study recommends the US bolster regional actors, selectively deepen China’s global integration, rebuild its own military capabilities, and reinvigorate its economy.
• The author advocates a US-Japan-India-led coalition, potentially joined by Russia and Australia, to restrain China’s expansionism while accommodating its legitimate rise.

Ukraine’s Unending Crisis - Losing Crimea Forever?

By R. G. Gidadhubli

R. G. Gidadhubli traces the escalation of Ukraine’s domestic conflict into a global crisis over Crimea, covering the fall of President Yanukovich, Russian troop involvement in Crimea, the scheduled 16 March referendum on joining Russia, and the diplomatic and economic-sanctions standoff between Russia and the West, complicated by European trade dependency on Russian energy and Chinese support for Moscow. A postscript notes the referendum passed with 97.6% support for joining Russia.

• Traces the crisis from three months of protest against President Yanukovich’s refusal to sign an EU agreement, through his flight from the country, to Russian intervention in Crimea.
• Notes Crimea’s roughly 58% ethnic Russian population made a referendum outcome favouring Russia effectively a foregone conclusion, while Crimean Tartars threatened a boycott.
• Details Western debate over sanctions against Russia, complicated by Germany, France and Ukraine’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.
• Notes Russia’s diplomatic backing from China, which urged the West not to isolate Russia over the issue.
• A postscript confirms the 16 March referendum passed with 97.6% voting to join Russia.

Right To Reject and Right To Recall — Workable Electoral Options Or Democratic Fantasies?

By Aditya N. Raut

Lawyer Aditya N. Raut critically examines the Supreme Court’s September 2013 ‘right to reject’ (NOTA) ruling, arguing it is a half-baked option vulnerable to misuse and unresolved edge cases (such as what happens if NOTA votes outnumber the winning candidate’s). He then proposes a detailed alternative or complementary ‘right to recall’ mechanism restricted to runner-up candidates, exercisable only twice per five-year term, with safeguards including disqualification for candidates who fail a recall attempt, intended to keep elected representatives accountable without inviting chaos or harassment.

• Critiques the Supreme Court’s NOTA (‘None of the Above’) ruling as failing to address what happens if rejected votes exceed the winning candidate’s tally.
• Warns NOTA could be exploited by parties with no local presence to encourage negative voting against rivals, and could unintentionally elect low-vote-share candidates.
• Proposes a ‘right to recall’ restricted to candidates who contested against the winner in that election, to prevent misuse by unrelated proxies.
• Proposes the right be exercisable only twice per five-year term, with a failed attempt permanently barring that challenger from future elections as a misuse safeguard.
• Proposes recall be executed via constituency referendum administered by the Election Commission, with the successful challenger serving only until the next scheduled election.
• The printed table of contents lists this article at page 15, but in the rendered PDF it is actually printed on pages 25-27.

Book Review: Democratizing the Police Indian Scenario by Dr. G. R. S. Rao

By Reviewed by Ashok Karnik

Ashok Karnik reviews Dr. G. R. S. Rao’s ‘Democratizing the Police Indian Scenario,’ praising the author’s grasp of the police’s problems while criticising the book’s workshop-derived repetitiveness. Karnik agrees the police should become more people-friendly but argues the author’s call for police involvement in ‘social transformation’ is utopian given the force’s already-stretched core security function, suggesting other state instruments should share that burden instead.

• The book diagnoses deep-rooted public hostility toward the police as linked to a malignant political process and ‘Gross Social Conflict.’
• The author recommends integrating police with panchayati raj institutions (police patils, munsifs, mohalla committees) to build community trust.
• Reviewer Karnik finds the diagnosis repetitive (attributing this to the book’s origin in multiple workshops) but the proposed remedy incomplete.
• Karnik argues the police’s essential character as ‘an instrument of state power’ cannot be reconciled with an added mandate of full ‘social transformation.’
• A boxed sidebar by Brig. Suresh Chandra Sharma compares per-capita income to highest currency denomination across the USA, UK and India.

The Right to Education Act (22) - Conclusion

By Suresh C. Sharma

In the twenty-second and concluding instalment of a series on the Right to Education Act, Brig. Suresh C. Sharma concludes that the RTE Act, despite shortcomings, is a worthwhile empowerment tool that will need modification as implementation experience accumulates. He warns that mixed-classroom experience so far shows children from marginalised sections face discrimination on gender, caste and ethnicity grounds despite constitutional prohibitions, and urges teachers to guard against this and the Act to remain open to revision.

• Frames the RTE Act as an imperfect but worthwhile tool for universal education, expected to be refined through practical experience.
• Argues that even basic school attendance has value for children’s discipline and behaviour, regardless of initial learning outcomes.
• Warns that compulsory admission of Economically Weaker Section children needs careful handling given differing ‘attitudes, beliefs, habits, customs’ across classes and castes.
• Cites current Indian experience with mixed classrooms as discouraging, with marginalised children discriminated against on gender, caste and ethnicity lines.
• Calls for teachers to actively guard against such discrimination and for the Act to be revised as needed rather than frozen.

Bitter Sugar Belt: Muzaffarnagar Riot Victims as Refugees

By Alka Panda

Student contributor Alka Panda reports on the aftermath of the August 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, describing 50,000 people displaced across camps in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts, the breakdown of the traditional Jat-Muslim alliance, the political mishandling by the Samajwadi Party government, and the callous public response of state officials to reports of children dying of cold in the camps, contrasted with a lavish government-organised entertainment junket in the same period.

• The riots, beginning 27 August 2013, left 59 dead and 50,000 displaced from 24 villages, sheltering in ill-equipped camps for five months.
• Attributes the riot’s spread partly to a pre-existing sugar-belt economic dispute in which minister Azam Khan’s interference undermined administration efforts to resolve deadlock.
• Notes the traditional Jat-Muslim alliance broke down, with displacement spreading to rural areas dominated by Jats and Muslims alike.
• Reports lasting communal anger among both communities five months on, likely to shape the 2014 election, with Jats shifting toward the BJP.
• Contrasts camp deaths of children from cold with a 20-day foreign ‘study tour’ junket by 22 UP ministers and MLAs and a lavish jamboree in the Chief Minister’s hometown, and quotes officials dismissing the camp deaths.

Riots Demonstrate a Dangerous Trend

By Dr. Rita P. Bhambi

Dr. Rita P. Bhambi analyses the Muzaffarnagar riots as revealing a dangerous new trend in which incidents of eve-teasing and sexual assault were distorted and weaponised for communal polarisation ahead of the 2014 election. She traces the escalation from a disputed harassment incident in Kawal village through retaliatory killings, a Khap panchayat-organised mahapanchayat, and the first deployment of armed force to control UP communal violence in over two decades, and closes warning that all major parties (Samajwadi, BJP, BSP) are exploiting the tragedy for electoral gain.

• Notes contested narratives over the riots’ origin, including a disputed story of a Jat girl harassed by a Muslim youth, followed by his killing and retaliatory murders.
• Reports the district administration’s imposition of Section 144 prohibitory orders and deployment of Rapid Action Force, PAC and RAF to prevent a planned Khap panchayat ‘mahapanchayat.’
• States this was the first instance in two decades that Uttar Pradesh’s civil administration needed armed force to control communal rioting, the previous instance being the 1992 post-Babri Masjid violence.
• Notes Union minister Beni Prasad Verma called the riots bigger and more tragic than the 2002 post-Godhra Gujarat riots.
• Observes the BSP stands to politically benefit if Muslim voters shift away from the Samajwadi Party, while warning both AAP’s and Modi’s rise reflect a ‘majoritarian’ turn that risks normalising communal deaths.

The Aam Aadmi Party: Events Leading to Its Formation

By Ajinkya Chogle

Student contributor Ajinkya Chogle narrates the origin of the Aam Aadmi Party from the 2011-12 split between Anna Hazare, who wanted the Jan Lokpal movement to remain politically neutral, and Arvind Kejriwal, who believed direct political engagement was necessary. It traces the party’s formal launch on 26 November 2012, its structure (a 320-member National Council and 23-member National Executive), its registration with the Election Commission in March 2013, and its strong second-place finish in the December 2013 Delhi assembly election.

• AAP originated from a September 2012 irreconcilable split between Anna Hazare (wanting political neutrality) and Arvind Kejriwal (wanting direct political engagement).
• The party’s name and campaign focus reflect concern for ‘the common man,’ with 320 National Council and 23 National Executive members appointed at its founding.
• Formally launched in Delhi on 26 November 2012 and registered as a political party by the Election Commission in March 2013.
• Won 28 of 70 seats in the December 2013 Delhi assembly election, forming a minority government with conditional Congress support.
• An Ipsos opinion poll cited found 44% of respondents in India’s eight most populous cities would vote for AAP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

The Party’s Objectives

By Akshada Sawant

Student contributor Akshada Sawant describes the Aam Aadmi Party’s stated objectives and ideological self-positioning as pragmatically anti-ideology, organised around an interpretation of Gandhian ‘swaraj’ emphasising self-governance and decentralisation. The piece narrates a timeline of AAP protest actions through 2013 (the electricity-bill fast, the auto-rickshaw driver agitation) culminating in its 28 December 2013 formation of a minority Delhi government with Congress support and Kejriwal’s accession as Chief Minister.

• AAP asserts it is not guided by fixed ideology, willing to draw solutions from left or right as pragmatically useful.
• The party adopts an interpretation of the Gandhian concept of ‘swaraj,’ stressing self-governance, community building and decentralisation as its organising tenet.
• Details Kejriwal’s 23 March 2013 indefinite fast against inflated Delhi electricity and water bills, claimed to have drawn support from 100,000-300,000 people.
• Describes a June 2013 agitation supporting Delhi auto-rickshaw drivers against a government ban on rickshaw advertisements.
• On 28 December 2013, AAP formed a minority Delhi government with ‘not unconditional’ Congress support, making Kejriwal the second-youngest Delhi Chief Minister.

Euphoric Outburst for Change

By Anita Pasbola

Student contributor Anita Pasbola interprets the Aam Aadmi Party’s rapid rise as an expression of deep, long-accumulated disillusionment among ordinary voters after ‘sixty five years of post-independence misrule,’ crediting Arvind Kejriwal’s simple manner and anti-corruption message with successfully connecting with a neglected electorate cutting across caste and religious lines.

• Frames AAP’s rise as an ‘uprising by the neglected and disillusioned electorate’ reflecting contempt for politics of denial and inequitable development.
• Argues successive governments of all political hues failed to bridge the socio-economic gap between haves and have-nots, breeding public cynicism.
• Credits Kejriwal’s ‘simple mannerism and selfless and sacrificing attitude’ with successfully voicing the grievances of the common man.
• Argues AAP achieved a paradigm shift in political discourse by promising transparent governance, an end to VIP culture, and decriminalisation of politics.
• Concludes AAP’s outreach struck a chord across religious and caste lines, giving it an unusually strong start for a new political party.

China and Tibet’s Revolution in Exile

By Thubten Samphel

Tibet Policy Institute director Thubten Samphel, reprinted from the Huffington Post, argues Tibet poses no military threat to China but remains a unique challenge because of what Tibetans are doing to themselves: 127 self-immolations since 2009 demanding the Dalai Lama’s return, met by intensified Chinese repression. He argues the more consequential story is the quiet cultural and institutional renewal the Tibetan exile community, under the Dalai Lama’s leadership, has achieved in India through democratic governance and monastic re-establishment, concluding China’s rejection of the Dalai Lama amounts to spurning an entire rejuvenated civilisation.

• Notes 127 young Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009 calling for the Dalai Lama’s return and Tibetan freedom, met by tightened Chinese control rather than dialogue.
• Chinese officials reportedly dismiss the self-immolation protests as posing no real danger, comparing them to ‘a fly flapping its wings against the king of mountains.’
• Neither the Dalai Lama nor the Central Tibetan Administration dispute China’s sovereignty claim over Tibet in any future settlement.
• Argues the more significant story is the Tibetan exile community’s quiet cultural and institutional renewal in India: re-established monasteries, cultural networks, and a functioning democratic political system.
• Concludes China’s rejection of the Dalai Lama amounts to spurning “a composite, rejuvenated civilization and all the goodwill that goes with it.”

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