People Power

As the leader of the Aam Aadmi party Arvind Kejriwal is sworn in as the chief minister of Delhi, all Indians across the world will be watching this historic event with interest. Of the lakhs of voters in Delhi who gave such a strong mandate to a fledgling new party, or the hundreds of thousands of supporters across India and the globe who participated in this struggle and made this happen, the emotion will be jubilation, exhilaration and a feeling of having made the “near impossible” happen.

Others who were on the fence, and earlier doubtful that a new party, with such impractical ideals of transparency and accountability, could make any serious inroads in the entrenched political game of money and muscle, will be feeling a grudging admiration and a feeling of  “Wow, not quite sure how they pulled this off but these people are certainly worth taking seriously”. Many such people are flocking in large numbers to join this political revolution as this wave for clean politics sweeps across the nation. 

The emotion in corridors of administrative offices in Delhi where corruption was an accepted everyday phenomenon may surely be one of trepidation and unease as they see their bastions of power crumbling and an uncertain fate ahead. There are media reports of files being shredded and tossed and officials scrambling to get transfers out of Delhi.

So how did such a transformative change happen in such a short period of time defying all conventional political wisdom? What was the secret recipe for success of the stunning victory of the Aam Aadmi party? Even political opponents, long established parties like Congress and BJP, are doing some soul searching and looking for what they can learn from this turn of events. Rahul Gandhi himself has acknowledged that Congress will need to learn from the Aam Aadmi party.

What was the goal that the Aam Aadmi party had set out to achieve? To clean Delhi of corruption and then do it in the rest of the country. Their slogan or “mantra” was, “A corruption free india is not our request, but our demand and obsession”. Go to their website and this is the first message that greets you. There is clarity and firmness of purpose here.

But why should this be so difficult to achieve? Are not most people in India on the receiving end of corruption, and only a small fraction are beneficiaries of it? So why should it be difficult to change this state of affairs in the world’s largest democracy? Would not every Indian naturally want this, and vote for clean politics? What forces had created a system where only the corrupt could survive in politics and people were forced to choose between lesser of two evils? Was it that people indulging in corruption were really smart and hid their tracks and fooled people most of the time? That does not seem too plausible in an environment where mega corruption scandals are exposed at alarming frequency and skeletons tumble out of the closet as an everyday occurrence? So what was it that was causing this state of affairs to continue? What forces were keeping this system from moving to the desired future state of a corruption free country?

Experts of Change management talk about two ways that you can make change happen. By putting in place “drivers” that create a force towards the desired future state or removing “barriers” that prevent a system from moving to the desired future state. In fact, it’s often easier to change a system by removing “barriers” rather than putting in place “drivers”. The desire of majority of Indians for a corruption free country was a “driving” force for change, but at the same time there was a sense of helplessness or powerlessness, a belief that it’s the way it is and nothing can change it, that became a key barrier to this change. Removing this barrier was critical to allow the system to change.

Psychologists have studied the phenomenon of “learned helplessness” where people who have been put in a prolonged situation where they are unable to get results from their actions, give up trying, and thereafter, helplessness becomes a learned behaviour. I would venture to say that large segments of Indians had succumbed to the phenomenon of learned helplessness, and felt powerless to change the state of affairs regarding corruption in the country. With that being the case, a central task for the Aam Aadmi party was to undo this sense of helplessness and make people feel empowered to rise up and fight for change. A lot of key messages of the Aam Aadmi party were aimed at this.

The very name of the party created this sense of empowerment. The name Aam Aadmi party made every Indian who donned the Aam Aadmi Topi feel that they were the party, they owned the party. The Topi became the crown that made them feel like the king of the party.

Central messages of the party also built on this feeling of empowerment. “The Aam Aadmi will go to Parliament and clean corruption”, “the Aam Aadmi will be selected as a candidate”, “The Aam Aadmi has won from this constituency and will live not as a minister, but as an Aam Aadmi, rejecting the trappings of a VIP political culture”

Not only did the Aam Aadmi feel empowered, he felt heard. The tragedy of Indian politics in the past several decades since independence has been the growing irrelevance of the Aam Aadmi and his troubles and woes. Politics became a game of buying and manipulating votes to win elections and then driving the very people who voted for you into a corner, extorting from them through any unfair and corrupt means, and making their lives untenable. The door to door campaign of the AAP made the Aam Aadmi feel heard and empowered. The Mohalla Sabhas of the AAP to create assembly manifestos made the Aam Aadmi feel heard and empowered. Even the decision to form the government in Delhi was taken to the Aam Aadmi in one of the largest referendum exercises in politics. Even while the opposition scoffed at this, it made the Aam Aadmi feel heard and empowered. If any other political party wants to learn lessons from the AAP, they need to learn the ABC of empowerment.

As we celebrate this moment that may very well be remembered in the years to come, as the turning point that changed the trajectory of India’s development, and made the common man relevant, many are also asking the question, how long will this last? How long will Congress allow this government of the people to continue? How long before the corrupt forces band together and strike it down? My answer to this question is that the journey from learned helplessness to empowerment is only a one way street. It cannot go backwards. Once empowered, people cannot go back to feeling helpless or powerless. The people of India have woken up, feel empowered and will not settle for less any more. They will demand clean candidates, they will demand transparent political funding, and they will demand that money to be spent on the needs of the Aam Aadmi. They will insist on having their voice heard and participating in the political process. Hail to the power of the people in the world’s largest democracy!

Shalini Gupta is an Organization Development Consultant in Chicago, IL who has led many large scale transformational change initiatives and has been coordinating the AAP Global supporter group