Communism is a destructive, all-consuming ideology that
invariably degenerates into autocracy or dictatorship. Despite its damaging and
chaotic effect, it has not only managed to survive to date but there are people
who are ready to live and die by it. For example, India risks losing more than
30% of its land to the red forces today. Without an effective command and
conquer structure, and a unifying military ideology this would be impossible to
achieve. To extend it a bit further, I would argue that what is true for
communism is true for any other kind of cult, extremism, or dogma (like
theocracy and fascism).
These cancerous ideas need the right kind of environment to
flourish. Unfortunately, that is not hard to find or create. At minimum, you
need is a perception of injustice and inequality. This can be made worse by
corruption, poverty, lack of education, absence of an effective law and order
machinery, and high handedness of the officials & the well connected. When
people feel that everything is hopeless and there is nothing to lose, a
demagogue can easily lead them down the path of a revolution that ultimately benefits
nobody except the leader. The fact that such leaders are able to manipulate a
large number of people is an indictment on the governance system that lets it
happen in the first place.
In our recent history this pattern can be clearly seen in at
least two instances.
First, in India a charismatic left leaning leader came to
power in the 70s by promising to remove poverty within no time, and then went
on to destroy and degrade the standard of politics & business, nearly
turning India into a Communist dictatorship. Second, the mass poverty in Nepal
enabled Prachanda to come to power, but it has not really made things better
for the common people.
Presently, I strongly feel that this pattern is being
duplicated by Arvind Kejriwal (AK) to engineer the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party
(AAP), based on the promise to eliminate corruption. His tactics (freebies,
simplistic solutions, revolutionary mind set, conspiracy theories,
romanticization of poverty, and misinformation) would make Hugo Chavez proud. For
all we know, Lokpal may be an attempt to introduce dictatorship from the
backdoor. Who knows? What is remarkable about AK’s rise is that he has been
able to rise despite of having no money power, no dynastic background, and no
military background. His meteoric rise indicates a well-thought strategy,
overwhelming frustration of Indian public with corruption, luck, and sheer
determination/ will power/ charisma of AK. Whether he is successful or not,
this is for sure that he is going to be an influential force in Indian politics
for time to come unless he makes a major strategic blunder.
AAP and AK are a product of the broken Indian governance
system that has let it people down with a dysfunctional justice system and
rampant rights without responsibility/ accountability. The weaknesses of the
system are now being used against it. It is a wake-up call for the law makers
to wake up and make changes, or risk losing it all. Whatever their intentions,
AAP has made corruption centre-stage. This should lead to at least some
improvement in the quality of legislators and reduce visible corruption. That
is already a big step forward. However, this was not by design. In terms of
actual intent AAP has offered only simplistic, nonsensical solutions and shown
a strong left bent. Its strategy is of a party who wants to win at any cost
rather than of a party which is serious about reforming the system. India
desperately needs economic development, judicial reforms and government
services reforms to both go ahead and contain corruption. Judging by its
actions to date, it doesn’t look like AAP is going to deliver it any time soon.
