10 December 2013
Are we having a 'Storming the Bastille' moment?
The massive response to the Aam Aadmi Party, which won 28 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections, shows that we are having our 'Storming the Bastille' moment in our own unique Indian way. The anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party, now a State Party, is the symbol of the uprising of a modern nation. The party has a broom as its election symbol reinforcing its ideology that this is a party that has the plight of the common man--the aam aadmi--at its heart. India is still very much a feudal country, and the feudality is on many levels - caste, creed, economic status, and on and on. Though equality and justice form part of the constitution of India, life in reality is far - very, very far removed from this. This party has formed its platform on the fact that the common people of India are unseen and unheard. The politicians in Delhi move in their own elite orbit periodically descending to mingle with the people whose reality lies in dust, heat, and primitive conditions of living. 'This is my fate', this is my karma', is how the common man passes off his condition. That he has the right to a dignified life is almost an impossible dream. How can he, the aam aadmi, bowed down by his fate and his karma and his inherited station in life even think of aspiring to reach for the pole star? He has been bludgeoned into thinking that he as the aam aadmi has no rights, no nothing. It is not in the psyche of the masses to have a 1789-style revolution, but the winning of the Aam Aadmi Party is our brand of revolution. Now we have a channel to ask for accountability and good governance. Could it be that this is the beginning of the end of feudalism for us? Are we at last to have a chance at Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité?