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The Aam Aadmi party is adamant about transcending '20th century binaries' of the left and right. It emphatically rejects the 'socialist' tag that it's been labeled with in so many quarters. It's erudite professor-like leader Yogendra Yadav, pegged to be the party's CM candidate in Haryana told a TV channel recently that the only way economies can function effectively is through regulation and that both the state and the markets are here to stay - it isn't an either or option anymore, so branding AAP as a left-of-centre, anti-private sector outfit that's out to postulate the Marxist theory of state supremacy would be wrong.
Yet, its recent move to officially shut Delhi's doors to FDI in retail, though part of its election promise, will be construed by those in the business community as a further assertion of its socialist leanings; its doctrine based politics supported on foregone conclusions and dogma rather than on facts. It comes on the back of unsustainable ideas about subsidized water and electricity, seen as replicas of extant polices of dole-a-nomics.
It's been established quite plainly how both - the ills & the benefits of foreign direct investment in supermarkets have been embellished and exaggerated hugely by vested interests on both sides of the debate. Truth be told though, retail FDI isn't a panacea for India's problems in the food sector, nor the big encumbrance that its being made out to be by its detractors. In a sea of mom & pop stores that abound this nation, there is enough space for a couple of large Wal-Marts to happily co-exist. Propping up this issue therefore, especially when no big supermarket chain is willing to enter India under the current terms and conditions anyway, doesn't make sense unless it is to make an affirmative statement on one's economic ideology.
A statement AAP has made, in turn also managing to turn the hope it represented, into trepidation. Because ideology apart, Kejriwal's avowal on retail FDI also stinks of a brazen lack of concern for what a flip-flop in policy can do to investor sentiment in an already fragile economic climate. His assertion sends out a missive - that ideology, no matter on how diminutive an issue, scores over pragmatism.
AAP's hurried proclamation on FDI also exposes its insincerity about actually effecting participative democracy - an idea that it loves to project in TV studios. It would be legitimate to question Kejriwal on why he couldn't hold a referendum on the issue, or discuss it at his famed Mohalla Sabhas before withdrawing permissions for foreign supermarkets. Who knows, Delhi being a city that enjoys the highest per capita income in the country, could well have voted in favour!
AAP calls itself the natural inhabitant of the third space - a real alternative to both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Increasingly though, it is being perceived as the new Left, a party that lacks cohesion and believes in the same policies of reversal that its alliance partner in Delhi indulged in at the Centre. Corruption is the plank on which it won assembly elections, but it would take more explicitly thought out, ideologically non-rigid formulation of policy to sway the vote of the national electorate say experts. AAP's obvious existing biases if anything could scare the urban voter - the catchment area it is vying for along with Modi.
Mercifully, for every rigid ideologue from the Left rushing to offer AAP advice and support, it has a slew of corporate faces from Captain G R Gopinath to former Infosys Director V Balakrishnan, ex-banker Meera Sanyal and former Star TV CEO Sameer Nair to provide an antithesis to any economic imprudence. The question is, how much power they wield, and does their presence confound, more than contrive a sense of uniformity of thought in a party that seems to be lacking the cohesiveness needed to play on the national stage.
"AAP has people whom you would call traditional leftists, others who believe in a free market, some who are deeply critical of the left. Unlike traditional political parties, we are not based on the idea of one ideology. We are here to solve problems." Yadav told Business Today magazine.
Is that an advantage or a drawback remains to be seen.
