ANALYSIS
AAP’s choice of candidates — Soni Sori, Dayamani Barla and Medha Patkar in a list of 317 accomplished individuals — is a step towards a revolution of sorts
There is no doubt that the 2014 elections are a watershed in India’s not-so-long tryst with democracy. A jaded electorate has finally found an alternative to the tried, tested and worn-out dynastic politics and relentless onslaught of communal parties riding on the promise of development. With the Aam Aadmi Party’s emergence, the rules of the game have changed. Its choice of candidates, the political discourse it has triggered and the hope it had inspired in the hearts of millions is a sign of the changing times.
More importantly, the party has brought into its fold the very people who had earlier fought the system and tried to change it from outside. Their inclusion in mainstream politics offers a tantalising prospect that the country might finally get what it has long been denied: transparency and accountability in governance and freedom from corruption and the politics of hate.
By inducting people like Dayamani Barla, the Iron Lady of Jharkhand, an epithet that speaks volumes about her contributions in the Adivasis’ struggle against displacement and deprivation, the party has given voice to an oppressed and marginalised section. Little wonder that Barla’s fight had landed her in jail and earned her the wrath of the State, which has always considered the rights and sentiments of the aborigines secondary to the interests of mining giants and steel companies.
With Soni Sori, the party has taken an enormous leap of faith and courage and radically moulded public imagination. Branded as a Maoist, incarcerated and tortured for two-and-a-half years, Soni, who used to teach tribal children in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada, has been a symbol against State oppression. It has come for a price though: Now AAP is being projected as a Maoist sympathiser by political opponents.
Then there is Medha Patkar, a firebrand activist who had taken on the government during the Sardar Sarovar project, a dam that displaced lakhs of people in the name of development.
Its ninth and the latest list, bringing the tally to 317, like the earlier ones, features an array of accomplished people. Santosh Kumar is a tribal activist and a labour union leader who has fought against illegal mining and exploitation of tribals in Bastar. Jinti Gogoi from Assam, contesting against Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s family, is an RTI activist and former publicity secretary of the Nari Mukti Sangram Samiti, the women wing of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, an organisation for peasants.
Gurudev SH is a computer science engineer and an environmentalist fighting to preserve the fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats, which faces serious threats from mining and hydel power projects.
Kutubuddin Kazi is a farmer who fasted for 33 days to compel the Indian railways to ensure a new rail connection in Karnataka’s Hubli division.
Perhaps, the most inspiring of this lot is the visually-challenged Shivakumar N Tontapura whose many achievements include rehabilitating the physically exploited women and children, and running residential schools for orphans and children of labourers.
One fervently hopes that the courage and solidarity that the AAP has shown in these cynical times is rewarded. Though it lacks the money and muscle power of the established political outfits, and often finds itself at the wrong end of media criticism — print and electronic journalism too are beholden to corporates for survival — it is still putting up a formidable fight against the Goliaths who perhaps want a return to the status quo, albeit under a different dispensation. That in itself is a remarkable thing.
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