Myopia, Distortions and Blind Spots in the Vision Document of AAP

The Vision Document of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)¹ springs no surprises. It puts down in black and white what its main protagonists have been saying for the last two years. It contains the same unthinking hyperbole, self-righteous condescension, superficial reasoning, loud sloganeering and a good deal of reactionary politics that is sought to be smuggled under a veneer of sympathy for the aam aadmi.

It must be said to the credit of the authors that for once they have acknowledged that there is something like the Constitution of India whose preamble they have quoted with approval. But that should not mislead one into believing that they uphold the basics of the parliamentary democracy or democracy per se. Otherwise they would not have blatantly asserted in the very first section of the document: Hum satta ke kendroko dhvast karke rajnaitik satta seedhe janata ke hathme dene ja rahe hai (After destroying the centres of authority, we are going to hand over power directly to the people). Surely they are aware that the Parliament of India is a supreme centre of political authority under the Constitution. The authors of the document seem to be oblivious of a queer mixture of anarchism and Bonapartism that characterises their statement.