I admit I'm excited. Not because I'm a card-carrying member of the AAP, or particularly invested in the AAP, but because change and what causes change fascinates me endlessly.
I'm amused by the plethora of write-ups that continue to emerge, trying to 'understand' and 'explain' the AAP 'phenomenon'. That's too many inverted commas already, but so what. It reminds me of the write-ups that tried so desperately to explain (but couldn't really) the London riots.
Sometimes, one just has to watch from the sidelines, until one has a better idea of what exactly it is that they're seeing, as opposed to presuming one knows exactly what.
A shift is occurring in electoral politics. A shift has occurred in electoral politics. And evaluating the import of this shift is not a matter of evaluating how well the AAP delivers in Delhi. We should not for a moment forget that the AAP has also emerged out of society, it will contain within it the type of contradictions that colour other everythings. Why should we expect it to be other from society?
No, in evaluating the import of this shift we need to focus on people's ideas of what democracy and politics looks like today. And let us not dismiss the latter as post-ideological, as if post-ideological (whatever that is!) is post-political. Politics is not about what should be but what is.
I'm amused by the plethora of write-ups that continue to emerge, trying to 'understand' and 'explain' the AAP 'phenomenon'. That's too many inverted commas already, but so what. It reminds me of the write-ups that tried so desperately to explain (but couldn't really) the London riots.
Sometimes, one just has to watch from the sidelines, until one has a better idea of what exactly it is that they're seeing, as opposed to presuming one knows exactly what.
A shift is occurring in electoral politics. A shift has occurred in electoral politics. And evaluating the import of this shift is not a matter of evaluating how well the AAP delivers in Delhi. We should not for a moment forget that the AAP has also emerged out of society, it will contain within it the type of contradictions that colour other everythings. Why should we expect it to be other from society?
No, in evaluating the import of this shift we need to focus on people's ideas of what democracy and politics looks like today. And let us not dismiss the latter as post-ideological, as if post-ideological (whatever that is!) is post-political. Politics is not about what should be but what is.
