Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain
For a long time Indian politics has been tri-polar. On one side of it remained Jan Sang and its reincarnate Bhartiya Janta Party. Other side of the space was occupied by Communists while Congress remained in the middle. Sole motive of the Congress has been to remain in power thus vacillating between the right and the left depending upon societal trends and its political expedience.
The left remained in proximity of the Congress in lieu of its support to global communist alliance. At the International level, Soviet Union found a reliable partner in India to pursue its agenda among third world and non-aligned countries. Dismantling of the Soviet Union, however, led to depletion of fortunes of Indian communists. The decline of communist parties culminated into end of the left era in West Bengal.
Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) experienced expansion of its constituency leading it to rule India for five years with the help of smaller parties. It was perceived that the process is irreversible and Indian politics will remain a bipolar phenomenon between the Congress led UPA and the BJP led NDA for a long time.
The youth who constituted core of the left activism were increasingly becoming career conscious leaving the political space open for BJP. Though for a while this phenomenon remained dominant and a huge chunk of youth got fascinated with the shining India slogan of BJP. The slogan, however, proved to be an illusion and frustrated youth started to look for an avenue of rebellion against the status quo. Recession of Indian economy increased the alienation of the youth who rallied around Anna Hazare in absence of a viable alternative.
Sensing the mood of youth, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bushan provided them with a platform in form of Aam Admi Party (AAP). The platform channelized energies of the youth for a change in Delhi. The mobilization that enchased the idealism of the youth was not ready for the real politic that was demanded of it on coming to power. It was out of this idealism that Prashant Bushan made a statement relating to his support for referendum in Kashmir.
Though Prashant Bushan tried to sugarcoat his stand and statement to make it less problematic for AAP, yet established political actors of India got a pretext in it to malign the nascent political formation. AAP and Prashant Bushan both were made to retreat this statement and declare Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India.
Support for referendum in Kashmir from Indian statesmen is not new. Prior to 70s of previous century, Raj Gopal Achariya and Jay Prakash Narayan often made statements in support of plebiscite in Kashmir. They were criticized but they didn’t budge to the criticism. The reason for their consistency was their indifference to power and political fortunes.
Prashant Bushan and Arvind Kejriwal on the other hand have to maintain a thin balance between their idealism and operational political expediencies. It is this thin balance that has plunged them into vacillation after their idealist stand. Their consistency on the other hand could have been epoch making giving a degree of realism to Indian foreign policy as well as they did confer upon the domestic politics.
Initial reaction would have died down with the passage of time and those resorting to knee jerk reaction to Prashan Bushan’s statement could have been humbled down in front of an idealist stand of the new breed of Indian politicians.
Kejriwal and Prashant Bushan should understand that the aam admi of India continues to suffer because of unaffordable defense expenditure of the country. The sole reason for ever escalating military expenditure remains nothing other than Indian stubbornness in context of Kashmir. The military expenditure extracted out of poor tax payers is invested simply to reign in a defiant population of Jammu and Kashmir.
The people who could not be coerced into submission for past seven decades can’t be expected to submit in near future thus remain a burden on the basic necessities of deprived Indians. AAP can’t expect to become a ray of hope unless it is ready to take the bull by the horns and face this reality of India as well.
