Zuckerberg and Indian politics...

Four political trends are emerging strongly in Facebook which in my view is very limited in coverage to change fortunes of national politics…it may have a relatively/selectively better impact in regional politics..The trends-

·       Manmohan n Rahul G bashing…deservingly

·       NaMo glorifying—undeservingly

·       AAP glorifying—justifiably

·       AAP bashing (by NaMo supporters)—intriguingly

Its one thing to support NaMo but its amusing why his followers are critical of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal..Any sane person would know that all political parties hitherto (at an overall level with individual exceptions) are corrupt and self-centered…AAP is a welcome change and looks like walking the talk (by and large) under a relatively able leader…Its understandable that the seasoned politicians are critical of AAP coz here is a party that can potentially wipe their decades of party-building (reminiscent of the antagonist’s dialogue in the movie Mudalvan aka Nayak)..Wonder why Anna Hazare is not supporting AAP…If he thinks he can fast unto death and change current politicians without dirtying his hands himself, he must be dreaming..he is so worried about the law on a piece of paper but not the faulty execution of law by tainted political class in power..would have been sensible for him to back AAP as a political outfit carrying the collective ideologies forward…Afterall the peerless Mahatma played an active role in politics himself until a certain point…AAP may not be the best or ideal solution but it surely looks the better of the available ones !

NaMo supporters are criticizing Arvind for using 5 BHK house and yielding to covering himself with security etc..these are trivial and not the biggest of worries..he is well-learned and has served civil services and for the last several months has been working hard to understand problems faced by citizens…that’s good enough to raise him above most of our Netas..In fact, letting congress support to form government can also be overlooked by the Nayagan logic of “anything is fine if it does good for 4 people”..:P

The real problems facing AAP are scaling up at a national level in just 4 months before Lok Sabha elections (not that this is the last chance) and maintaining integrity when it does manage to scale up..Swaminomics expresses cautious optimism on AAP’s expansion nationwide by pinning hopes on urban India..Personally it may not be as easy for AAP to win in Urban India as well considering the sizeable not-so-well-off population that lives in slums and so on..it would be interesting to see what percentage of the urban voters are from the well-off (including middle class) section..The fear is, a significant portion of the well-offs don’t generally vote…and the slum dwellers for sure are not going to know AAP…the “AAP glorifiers” bunch in social media are ecstatic about Infy Bala, Capt.Gopinath, RBS Meera and the like joining the party..but that’s not going to help in getting votes..this reaction can be compared to the India Shining campaign that flopped as IT services growth helped only a small fraction of our population and India was definitely not shining then !

By now, AAP is well known to middle class and upper middle class..they can hope that most people other than NaMo fans may vote for AAP…it may not be a bad idea for AAP to focus completely on urban poor only for the upcoming lok sabha elections..its unimaginable to cover the Indian rural landscape between now and the elections and therefore, its important to do some targeting..almost tempted to say that AAP can resort to any means to achieve the right end..if liquor and biriyani works with urban poor, so be it..