Why I support AAP conditionally

As an active citizen of India, I can only offer conditional support to political parties and candidates because I am married to India's cause and not to a given political party, candidate or ideology. I don't believe my responsibility starts and ends with voting but rather by closely following individual public policy developments (not TV debates pls) and supporting or rejecting particular policy proposal based on my independent research and analysis. Essentially, my engagement with India's political process is wholesome and I call upon my friends to do the same to whatever degree possible if we are to see sustainable change across the vast swathe of land that is India.

Given below is my current opinion which I reserve the right to update for above mentioned reasons:

Why I support AAP in first place:(Conditions in a separate section below)

• Courage to challenge the blindly accepted paradigm of India's development model which includes massive environmental and civil rights violations in the pretext of capitalism. Over last 5 years, India's economic policy has increasingly tilted toward neo-liberalism making it the sole economic policy supported both by ruling as well as opposition party. Projects in different states smack of crony capitalism (Eg: Lavasa in Maharashtra, Adani port in Gujarat and POSCO in Orissa) although Gujarat was especially vigorous in land grabbing by violating all and sundry laws to support large  monopolistic industries. Despite that, Gujarat's model was singled out as the ideal future economic model. There promulgation by Guj Govt and public announcements by Modi bordered on false propaganda and deliberate misinformation. At the same time, some friends and acquaintances - regional journalists and activists - depicted a different picture of this land, a place where RTI requests were routinely ignored and dissent arm twisted in to acquiescence. It was especially shocking that none of the leaders of national stature questioned the obvious discrepancies in numbers and statistics of Gujarat state. I myself spent as week in Nov 2013 discussing even further were university scholars, farmer leaders, workers groups who provided a sinister picture of how law of the land had no place in Gujarat. Arvind Kejriwal was the first leader with national media attention to challenge this blindly accepted paradigm. His courage to actually visit Gujarat despite the hostile environment and communicate his findings (which were consistent with my independent learning) caused me to trust AAP to raise the most pertinent questions about neo-liberal economic model.
• No apparent bias toward Congress or BJP: As much as BJP criticizes AAP today, it was AAP that broke the hallowed citadel of the Gandhis by exposing serious irregularities in Vadra deals in Haryana. When figures like Baba Ramdev were expelled, the last vestiges of religious symbolism were uprooted from AAP's precursor, IAC. But the defiant questioning of the Gujarat model made it clear that AAP was truly an independent party and will spare neither Gandhis nor Modi.
• Personal information of Arvind Kejriwal's committment: I have gotten to know Arvind Kejriwal and his work over 8 years through several common friends and I understand him to have the highest degree of personal probity and honest in public life. Same is true for Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Medha Patkar. There is no other party where I feel the same about such 4 senior party figures.
• Grass-roots activists as politicians: AAP has given tickets to many grass roots activists across the country whose work I have followed and vigorously supported for several years like Soni Sori and SP Udaykumar. Over the years, as it became evident that some of these activists were also good public speakers or possessed acute inter-personal skills, I wondered if some political outfit will give them a platform to run for political office. AAP answered those questions.
• Environmental Issues: Although discourse of environmental issues is discouraging absent in Indian elections, 

I support AAP on these conditions:

• Inner Party Democracy: As founder and convener, Arvind Kejriwal should bring more democracy and transparency within AAP because inner party democracy is fundamental to expanding nation's democracy.
• Include Grass-roots Workers: AAP must deepen relationships with people having real world grass roots experience like Medha Patkar and Soni Sori as against relying solely on statistics provided by Technical Experts from computers while sitting at home.
• No Populist Measures to Gain Votes: AAP will not indulge in populist measures to create a welfare based vote bank. Welfare measures should be used only in rarest of rare scenarios and not as a standard policy to ameliorate poverty. 
• Genuine Inclusion of Women: AAP continues on the path of supporting strong women candidates based on proven accomplishments rather than their whittled down version to create a facade of support for women. Today, women's representation is not commensurate with their contribution to society.
• Political and Economic Decentralization: Actively supports 73rd and 74th amendment to augment Decentralization Process with specific bills to address shortcomings. 
• Encourage Industry: Takes measures to encourage small and medium scale industries as against creating giant monopolistic corporations. Recent history in western world has shown that such corporations secure capitalist incentives from state to grow and once they are too big to fail, they shamelessly turn to socialist welfare measures to salvage themselves (Multi-Billion Dollar loan from government). 
• Zero Tolerance to Crony Capitalism: Clearly delineate and communicate the difference between crony and pure capitalism. Step up prosecution of crony deals and raise vigorous debate on the floor of the house and at the corner tea stall about the pros and cons of capitalism in Indian context (not in abstract terms) before deciding on a policy.
• Development and Ecology: Revive debate on ecology and its relationship with development. For a country with 25% of world's population, we will have gigantic impact on world's ecology and there is not a single political party raising these environmental debate.
• Energize Radical Viewpoint: Create mechanism within the party to ensure more members of the likes of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are nurtured and buoyed by the party rather than sidelined for their seemingly radical views. 
• Transparency in financial dealings: AAP is the only party that voluntarily publishes all donations publicly on web.

Prior Background of Political views:

• Tryst with Nehrus, Gandhis and India's farmers: In my Teens, I had extensively read up on Gandhi, Patel, Nehru and other founding fathers. As a kid, I had an opportunity to interact with farmers, politicians and executives due to my father's role as a Managing Director in a large Milk Cooperative.
• First slice of Congress Vs BJP: I was naturally inclined to Congress party having known its historic contribution and ideological proclivity to secularism and democracy. This was more apparent in the backdrop of Advani's deliberate extremist position to galvanize Hindu vote bank. 
• Moderate voice within extremist party: I found myself modestly accepting BJP's Vajpayee government as it served as a good democratic counterpart to balance the Congress party which could otherwise become smug in its invincibility.
• Sonia Gandhi and her Public Policy: Subsequently, my engagement became more intense and consistent with all strata of Indian society and appreciated Congress's first term (2004-09) for its efforts to spread economic benefits of a global, liberal economy to wider sections of Indian society and mitigate the divide. 
• Successful Policy Vs Poor Governance: Over the course of the second term, as I formed my independent views on each policy, I found Congress increasing fall short on governance, communication and connect with the aspirations of New India. Unabashed arrogance of ministers like Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Chidambaram was the last nail in the coffin.
• Alternative Paradigm and Future of India: As I rummaged for alternatives, I warmed up to a possible Non-Congress government sans Hindutva-focused ideology. Figures likes Shivraj Chauhan (BJP) and Nitish Kumar (Third Front) represented those feelings. 
• Emergence of AAP: AAP emerged as an alternative to Non-Congress Non-BJP government. Although I generally support Anti-Corruption movement, I hold reservations about the specifics of IAC's Jan Lokpal Bill draft. Having said that, AAP has single handedly changed the political landscape in India and brought hitherto brushed-under-the-carpet issues right into our living rooms. When was the last time we discussed Gas Pricing by the way? For this courage and other dashing moves, I am willing to bet on them and wait a little longer to prove their governance and feasibility.

No More NaMo

There are many reason why I single out Narendra Modi in my criticism but I will highlight 3 most important factors:

1) Modi is the worse performer on all parameters - Who owns nation's public assets especially natural resources:

• The dictator has signed Multi-Billion dollar MoUs with leading corporations promising to hand over public assets. These companies are supporting Modi for that one simple reason, nothing else - Access to widespread public resources. In this context, efficient administrator means 'Hand in Glove' with big business houses.

2) Suppression of civil rights and Abrogation of fundamental freedom:

Most people seem to think that 2002 riots was the only violent episode. Quite on the contrary, the bloody trail continue over the decade from Haren Pandya's murder to Amit Shah's UP episodes. 

• 2002 riots took place under his watch as CM and right under his nose as he was present in the very region of the riots.
• Therefore, he is either an incompetent administrator who cannot control the worse genocide in Gujarat or he is an accomplice. Which one is he? You decide
• In either case, he must sincerely apologize. He has not done that for 13 years. Apologies are to be offered not just because of I will not accept him as my PM. 

3) He is the only leader who has escaped public or media scrutiny because as the chief administrator of the state where these violations occurred, he had the administrative machinery at his disposal to suppress slightest hint of dissent. Congress is already much maligned in media and social networks. Instead of questioning Modi similarly, many of his supporters aggressively suppress informed debate. Under such uneven circumstances, it is even more urgent that I express my resistance on social media.

Comparison of 1984 riots with 2002 riots: A brief overview of the context for the excited

Comparison of 1984 riots with 2002 riots: A brief overview of the context for the confused and the excited

Who was in charge? Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and HKL Bhagat were congress MPs/leaders without any administrative power. On the contrary, Modi was the CM and led the home ministry which directly controls Police and other administrative machinery of the state

Who got the green signal? The congress leaders or anyone for that matter can incite a crowd based on their clout but cannot lead a official meeting. Modi, in fact, held an official meeting in which he allegedly said - Lets not obstruct the Hindu rage. 

Day to Day operations? MPs constitutional mandate is to participate and vote in lawmaking. CMs constitutional duty is to manage day to day operations and protect state citizens. Both groups engaged in inhuman actions but one has a much larger potential for misuse of power due to huge official machinery. In business terms, MPs are shareholders while CEO is in charge of daily operations.

Apology? In a Gandhian moment of moral clarity, Congress Prime Minister apologized to Sikhs for the 1984 riots although he was not personally involved in the same. We are still waiting for Hindutva Samrat to apologize to victims of violence in his backyard.

Why target Modi?: All 3 MPs and pussy cat Namo should be indicted by legal process. Even if that fails, conscious citizens should openly censure all 4, irrespective of their party affiliation. Political career of the 3 congress leaders was more or less finished after this incident. Modi's career has actually flourished since the crisis. There is no reason for us to give a blank check to Modi and we should absolutely question if we want a bigoted zealot to be our PM. We would do exactly the same if any one of the 3 congress leaders was seeking any senior role.

My brief views on India's and Gujarat's Development Model

• We must question the unjust and undemocratic neo-liberal development model blindly followed by all parties in our country. In that sense, I disagree with several Congress leaders especially M S Ahluvalia, Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram and their ilk. In following this model, everyone has violated almost all environmental laws and flouted several land acquisition provisions. 
• However, in following this model and destroying India's natural resources, Narendra Modi stands out for promising big business houses unobstructed access to our country's assets at fire-sale prices. This abuser of democratic values will menacingly crush every legal process and pugnaciously suppress every dissenting voice. Do you know that we are entitled to a public hearing when a large scale public land is handed over to a private party? It is our land folks. Letting it go for dirt cheap price directly leads to increase in taxes without any substantial increase in government services.This deepens poverty and pushes the marginalized ever so more into an abyss from which they will only come out dead. An entire generation of destitute are sacrificed at the altar of this modern development model. I vociferously deny any support to such lop-sided and illegal development model. I have voiced my concerns against all 

Gujaratis always at the forefront of enterprise and growth; Nothing to do with Narendra Modi

Gujarat's Economic Journey in brief:

• Since its creation on 1st May 1960, Gujarat has been among the leading states in India
• It is also one of the first industrialized states in the country throughout 80s, 90s and 21st century
• Its per capita GDP has always been one of the highest in India
• Gujaratis are and have always been among the most enterprising merchant-industrialists thriving in India and across the world. 
• When Indian economy liberalized in 1991, anyone with elementary knowledge of economics understands that the state with more entrepreneurs and merchants will thrive even more.
• To attribute this success to Narendra Modi is nothing but falling prey to propaganda that overhypes and plays up growth indicators with hyperboles.
• And when a Gujarati living in Gujarat himself attributes this to Narendra Modi, he is like a gullible person who attributes the fruits of his own hard work and innovation to Modi just like historically some laborers worked the farm but attributed the yield to their feudal lord as their messiah.
• Having talked of Guajarat's high points, lets be sure to understand that Gujarat was not and is not the #1 state on any economic indicator and never ever was a #1 state in any human development index. It is among top rankers but not top ranked.
• In 2002, since businesses were already thriving, what one would have liked to see under Modi is improvement on human development indices and reduction in ecological damage.
• On the contrary, small and medium scale industrialists are suffering while Gautam Adani is thriving.
• As for ecology, that debate has not even begun in India yet for the educated middle class. wait a minute? So, are we really educated because our debate is just like illiterate?

My personal journey in Gujarati company:

• Although Gujju entrepreneurship can be verified by statistics and social observations, I can also vouch for it personally as I grew up with 89 Gujju/Jains among 90 students in a fine hostel in Pune where the air wafted with the smell of Thepla-Khakra every evening and every morning dawned with a plate full of fresh Mug-Puri. 
• In far flung North-East, I have met with Gujarati and Marwari Jain merchants running little stores and made friends with Gujju industrialist families from as south as Chennai. More recently, on an amazing safari to Tanzanian wildlife parks, I closely got to know a Bohri Gujju CEO of the professional tour company I traveled with. Gujjus contribution to Mumbai's economy is not secret. 
• I have broken into impromptu gig and danced to Garba music and Gujju girlfriend/wife's tunes all for a decade now. 
• Two of my favorite political idols are Gandhi and Patel, both Gujaratis and my inspiration for continuing public policy work despite the air of despair and apathy around me. 
• I have about 25 friends whom I depend on emotionally. At least 20 of them are either Gujaratis or Marwari Jains. For someone who has resolved to dedicate his life to nation building, there are many dark and grim days full of melancholy and depression. These friends are my pillar of support and I am proud to say so many of them are Gujaratis. 
• I hope this note serves as a clarification to those who react as if I am against Gujaratis whenever I write something against Modi. I am Pro-Gujarati and Anti-Modi. Yes, that's possible.

Statistical Proof:

The above text is deliberately personal rather than scholarly but those who prefer academic evidence, Please refer to this Outlook Article