

Arvind Kejriwal - jalan
http://techapj.com/arvind-kejriwal/

======
sgpl
For those unfamiliar with the Indian political scene:

Arvind Kejriwal is a rookie politician who defeated (three-time Chief Minister
of Delhi) Sheila Dikshit in the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections (held
today).

He co-founded a political organization named Aam Aadmi Party (Translation:
Common Man's Party) that won 28 of Delhi's 70 seats in its electoral debut,
just 3 shy of BJP (an established National Party), and more than three times
the no. of seats won by Indian National Congress (the incumbent party in
Delhi).

Relevant background information on Arvind Kejriwal [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal)

[Edit: corrected figures based on child comment]

~~~
denzil_correa
> He co-founded a political organization named Aam Aadmi Party (Translation:
> Common Man Party) that won 27 of Delhi's 70 seats in its electoral debut,
> just 6 shy of BJP (an established National Party), and almost three times
> the no. of seats won by Indian National Congress (the incumbent party in
> Delhi).

AAP won 38 seats and BJP won 30 [0]

[0]
[http://eciresults.nic.in/PartyWiseResult.htm](http://eciresults.nic.in/PartyWiseResult.htm)

~~~
CGudapati
I think you meant 28 and 31

------
prateek_mir
The case study of this party is kind of a _Proof of Concept_ , if you will,
showing that -

1\. Elections can be fought with clean money, ( and the kind of donations that
they received (in terms of quanta of individual contribution), where the mode
should be well below 20$s per cap. makes it kind of a crowd funded campaign )

2\. The part that social media can play in mobilizing people and getting point
across when traditional news media blacks you out.

3\. Targeted manifestos, like targeted advertisements engage people more as
compared to conventional 1-state-1-manifesto approach..

4\. That there is a space for clean politics.

I am curious about how things will turn out for Delhi now, and for India in
the coming LS elections.

~~~
pratik661
The case study should note that:

The constituency of Delhi is:

1\. More educated than the rest of the country 2\. Has a higher level of
income than the rest of the country 3\. Generally more cosmopolitan than the
rest of the country.

I can provide sources for the first 2 if you would like. The third is
debatable as the only evidence I have is anecdotal.

~~~
arshedg
Point 2 is wrong. Tripura and kerala are more educated(94.05 and 93.65), Delhi
is only having 86.3%.

~~~
pratik661
You are correct. However, when I say "rest of the country", I mean national
average. There are many parts of India that fare better than Delhi on a host
of social indicators (ie. Kerala). That doesn't change my argument.

------
CGudapati
I am very happy for Arvind. He could have been a millionaire while doing his
IRS job. He left all that for his principles. He was maligned and constantly
criticized. Still his party overcame all the hurdles. His rivals could afford
funds(guess where they came from?) which are in orders of magnitude larger
than his party's tiny 20 crores(less than budget of a Hindi movie). I wish
nothing but best to him and hope he brings the change that India desperately
needs.

~~~
harichinnan
correction: Not if he wanted to do it honestly. He would've become a
millionaire only if he had taken bribes.

------
sanjkris
Theres actually 2 other HUGE winners in these Indian elections: 1\. The
Election Commission of India that galvanized 60-80% of the voters to turn out
(normally its 30-40%). 70% women voter turnout. 90% 18-29 voter age turnout
2\. Youth voters < 29 yrs of age

India will see 500-600 mln voters turn out in May for the LokSabha elections.
The US could learn 2 lessons from all this: 1\. How a true democracy with 60%
voter participation works 2\. You can send a man to the moon but cant have a
woman President. How do other countries integrate women politicians and why it
works

~~~
gameshot911
>You can send a man to the moon but cant have a woman President.

That's not a fair critique at all. Had Barack Obama (first black president)
not won, there's a very real possibility that Hillary Clinton would have been
elected president. Both of which represent political firsts and a changing
system towards greater integration.

------
piyushpr134
For those wondering why this is relevant to HN: AAP or Common man's party
(translated literally) is like a crowdfunded startup. This guy is a rookie in
politics who managed to get significant number of seats in this election using
crowd funding(through AAP's website). AAP, in itself, is like a startup which
is trying to completely disrupt an industry which has been in control of two
parties(mostly) so far.

~~~
linux_devil
Its just like crowd funded start-up who even stopped asking for funds when he
had enough to fight for elections. Lot of Indians in India and other countries
did help in donations. He was fighting from people's money for the people of
the country . Fought election for first time and that too against veteran 15
year term serving chief minister and won.

------
primitivesuave
Some details for anyone who doesn't know about the systematic corruption in
India:

Suppose you are running a business that has to pay tax on something (excise
tax, tariff, etc). Every month, you put together the amount of tax you have to
pay, along with a fixed bribe of around 5000 rupees (approximately 85 dollars)
on top. Obviously, if you don't pay the bribe, the IRS will fuck with you
until you do pay the bribe, so you pay the bribe.

The tax collector, along with collecting the calculated amount of taxes for
each business, has to send 100,000 rupees to his boss every month. This is a
fixed amount, the boss will usually not care how much the collector made in
bribes as long as he gets his 100k. This boss will have to send 2,000,000
rupees to his boss, eventually culminating with the CM (Chief Minister)
receiving a massive amount of bribe money each month.

However, the CM does not keep all of this money. Because the CM is dependent
on his political party to keep his job, he will send a large percentage of
this money to the party fund (which is usually under his control). During
election season, this money is used to blatantly trick/pay off people to
guarantee more powerful status for the party, which inevitably leads to a more
powerful position for whichever corrupt person is at the top of the food
chain.

Suppose you were an idealistic tax collector in this system of corruption, and
one month you took some mushrooms or whatever and you decided you would no
longer contribute bribes to the system of corruption. Your boss will not
retaliate by having you killed or tortured, he/she will simply transfer you to
a remote village with no electricity or running water. There, you will be
hated by the villagers as the asshole tax collector. The mere prospect of
uprooting one's family and lifestyle is more than any tax collector is willing
to accept for the sake of idealism, so the systematic corruption continues,
even today.

So, as this article suggests, there might finally be a guy at the top who will
end the corruption and improve the system of taxation. His background as a
tax-collector-turned-activist provides him with a high level of credibility,
and I'm sure he'll go very far.

------
known
Indians are brainwashed to believe that 'voting in elections = democracy'.

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-07/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-07/news/44909513_1_kapil-
sibal-democracy-true-meaning)

~~~
prateek_mir
In-fact, It is the very same philosophy that AAP stands for, that 'voting in
elections != democracy',

------
techaddict009
I am surpised to see "AAP" Aam Admi Parties name in CIA's website :
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/fields/2118.html) (Check out India) You can see its clearly mentioned
in the note that "India has dozens of national and regional political parties;
only parties with four or more seats in the People's Assembly are listed" then
how cam AAP is already there ?

~~~
yati
I can see AITMC at #3

~~~
techaddict009
Sorry My Mistake Have edited above answer.

But how can AAP be present in list. Election result got declared today and
still they do not have even 1 assembly member (Signature are yet to be made.
There is situation of reelection).

AAP was in the list since so many days...

------
prateek_mir
This needed to be shared, thanks for putting in the effort ! [ I was
_thinking_ of writing a similar piece myself, but you just DID it ]

~~~
jalan
Thanks, indeed this needs to be shared. Glad you liked it.

------
dangoldin
What a timely post! I'm in Delhi now for a wedding and there's definitely a
ton of celebration going on. Here's hoping this gets past the honeymoon phase
and turns into something bigger.

------
sreeni_ananth
Corruption is the main reason keeping India from being a developed country.
Hope this guy brings the change India needs.

~~~
wsxcde
Not really. India's problems are almost entirely due to colonialism. At
independence, life expectancy was 30 years, literacy rate was 15% and the
population was about 300 million and IIRC the avg per capita GDP was approx
$300 in today's dollars. (If these numbers seem unbelievable, I suggest
looking them up. They are easy to verify.)

Combined with this, India inherited a dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy
and law and order system which was aimed at preserving British control over
India and not really do the actual job of governing the country. The founders
did the best they could, and copied a bunch of seemingly good ideas from a
bunch of western economies. This failed miserably because they overlooked the
fact that western economies were fuelled by slavery, colonization, reckless
industrialization and exploitation of natural resources. India doesn't have
the natural resources like the US because there isn't any land left to be
stolen. Exploiting colonial resources like the European powers is also out of
the question. Bonded labourers etc. were (are?) present to some extent, but
large-scale disenfranchisement and exploitation of entire demographics similar
to the model used by westerners fifty or so years ago is not really tenable in
today's world.

The point is, it's now obvious that the western model was bound to fail, but
unfortunately this wasn't obvious back in the 50s. It's only now that India is
making visible progress towards the goal of development, but this is largely
because of the ground work laid in the last 50 or so years in raising levels
of education and healthcare (which of course still have quite a long way to
improve) to a reasonable baseline.

~~~
dataworx
I'm confused.. India's "dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy and law and
order system... failed miserably" because it was cloned from the west. But
you're also saying the government laid the groundwork over 50 years to raise
levels of education and healthcare so that India is now making "visible
progress".

I don't think @sreeni_ananth's comment was discounting the role of
colonialism, but rather looking at the way out. There's not much we can do now
about what was done to India in the past (except maybe harboring ill will
against 'the west'?). But looking to India's future, I'd have agree with him
that the main issue standing in the path of India's full recovery and health
is corruption.

~~~
wsxcde
> _India 's "dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy and law and order
> system... failed miserably" because it was cloned from the west_

A lot of governmental bureaucracy and the mechanisms for implementing law and
order was cloned from the British not the west and the "redesign" that Nehru,
Ambedkar and friends attempted, tried to borrow ideas from the US and Soviets
without any real success. Just one example of the inherited system failing
miserably is the judicial system which is a clusterfuck today purely because
it simply doesn't scale. India has 1 judge per 100,000 people, while the US
has something like 1 per 1000 while Sweden has 4 per thousand. Why is this?
Partly economics and partly because the British weren't really interested in a
working judiciary. They wanted a kangaroo courts to put dissidents into jail,
not enforce law and order.

In retrospect, the ideal solution would have been to legitimize, educate and
train the native law enforcement mechanisms like the panchayats. But again,
this didn't happen because the (a) the british weren't interested in solving
this problem and (b) Indians were enamoured with copying the west.

> But you're also saying the government laid the groundwork over 50 years

Yes it did and not because they had any brilliant ideas or execution here. Far
from it. But instead, for the first time in about 200 odd years somebody
actually tried to do what was good for the Indians instead of bleeding the
country dry.

> There's not much we can do now about what was done to India in the past
> except maybe harboring ill will against 'the west'?

This is a mistaken notion. I'm reminded of Obama quoting Faulkner, "the past
isn't dead and buried and in fact it isn't even past." That's very much true
today and it's important to point out that western riches weren't gained by
brilliant ideas but were simply stolen at the cost of great human suffering in
Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas.

The least we can do now is campaign for free immigration. If westerners really
think all humans are equal, they shouldn't discriminate for jobs based on
imaginary lines in the ground. Of course, they don't really think so and they
want to preserve their stolen wealth so they won't agree to this but we
mustn't be afraid to point out their hypocrisy here.

> I'd have agree with him that the main issue standing in the path of India's
> full recovery and health is corruption.

You're very very very mistaken. I suspect you come from a privileged middle-
class background and think of the bribes you have to pay in government offices
as problems that India needs to solve. Even if all corruption stopped
instantly today - what would that actually achieve? Do you think the 40% of
the country that's living without toilets would get access to them? And more
importantly, do you they think would start using these toilets if they had
access to them? There are toilets being used as godowns in various places
across the country. Think about why this is. Do you think hundreds of millions
of malnourished children would suddenly have food in their mouths? Do you
think the millions of students learning from incompetent teachers would
suddenly get better teaching? Would they even get better facilities? Do you
think electric plants would magically appear and solve the power crises across
the country?

None of the above would happen. Don't confuse the effects of corruption and
incompetence. Incompetence is the real problem in India, and that's mainly
because of a poor education system. That in turn is because you can't start
from 300 million people who couldn't read/write 60 years ago and somehow
magically produce the hundreds of millions of people in a highly trained and
educated workforce, which is what India needs today to solve its challenges.

~~~
dhaneshnm

        Do you think hundreds of millions of malnourished children would suddenly have food in their mouths? 
    
    

Yes.Because part of the problem is that the distribution system is broken.It
is broken because the system is inefficient.It is inefficient 'cause it is
corrupt.If you reduce to a level where it is not an acceptable thing for the
society,it would be far easier to deal with all other problems you talked
about.

    
    
       Don't confuse the effects of corruption and incompetence

No.There are states like kerala where all of the above problems have been
solved in past.(ie Malnutrition,food security,education etc) They pretty much
have the same education system and political system like rest of India,just
that society is less tolerant to mass corruption and mismanagement.So issue
number one is corruption and the value system that tolerates it.

~~~
wsxcde
_It is inefficient 'cause it is corrupt_

Corruption contributes, but you're utterly clueless if you think all
inefficiency will go away with corruption. For starters transportation
infrastructure is poor, fuel is much too costly, people don't have the
facilities to cook. Just throwing rice at kids won't work. You need
vegetables, you need clean water, you need stoves. All of this is just not
there. If you'd been to a village you would know people still cook using
firewood and a three thousand year old stove design, they don't have easy
access to drinking water, they're utterly dependent on self-grown vegetables.
They don't have refrigeration or electricity. Fixing all this will cost
serious money on top of organizational and logistical skills which simply
aren't there at the scale that is required.

 _There are states like kerala where all of the above problems have been
solved in past._

Bullshit. Did you even try a google search for malnutrition in Kerala before
making this claim? Kerala is better than other Indian states for sure, but
it's nowhere near the levels of a developed country. The communist government
and associated land reforms have a lot more do with Kerala's successes than
"reduced tolerance for corruption". Which isn't to say Kerala is less corrupt
than the other states, it's just that you have the causation the wrong way.

~~~
dhaneshnm
Did I say corruption is the only issue? no.But corruption is the main issue.
Competence won't get any better if corruption does't come down to "acceptable"
level. The communist government and associated land reforms have a lot more do
with Kerala's successes than "reduced tolerance for corruption And why did
that happen? Because the land reforms were executed well.And it was executed
well because system was not corrupt.People generally don't think that "let us
dupe the system and get away with that".

------
dhaneshnm
Mr. Kejriwal is by no means a "common man".He has a history in politics,though
not in electoral politics. But I do agree that this election reminds scenes
from some movies like "Nayak" and "Yuva". Overall a nice Article though :)

------
justplay
seeing this post in front page of HN clearly proves that it has many Indian
users.

~~~
deadslow
It only proves that HN has at least 16(points at the time of this comment)
Indian users.

~~~
deadslow
And Now it proves that 117(points at the time of this comment) people(Indians
or not) found this article interesting. :)

------
known
AAP is not scalable across India like
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala)

------
linux_devil
He belongs to state X(Haryana) and lives in state Y(U.P) and challenges 3 term
chief minister of the Z(New Delhi) and wins . Political hack it is , sounds
like proxies and socks in use.

~~~
pavanky
Delhi is not a state. Indian politicians have contested in constituencies they
have not resided for a very long time. Kejriwal hasn't done something new
here.

~~~
chetanahuja
Delhi is a state for most practical purposes.

from wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi)

 _" A union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today
more closely resembles that of a state of India, with its own legislature,
high court and an executive council of ministers headed by a Chief Minister."_

