Re: [EMPOWERMENT] : Appeal To Take Informed Decision

Sunday, March 15, 2015, 5:48 pm

XXXXX YYYYYji,

Thank you very much for your response. I greatly appreciate you bringing up a very important issue to discuss. Indeed, I was planning on asking about this very issue in my next email. I hold views similar to yours.

You raised a very good question " can we mitigate these miseries by bring good governance alone, or we need to do something more basic  than that ? "

I have had this question in mind since the proposal of Smart Cities started floating in the nation. Now when I hear from AAP Leadership that we will concentrate on Delhi and will not go national, the same question rushes back to me in context of AAP.

First, I want to state that as of now, I am willing to bet that ALL AAP supporters firmly believe that Delhi government will deliver, its intentions are good and they are here to keep their promises to Delhi. No doubt in that whatsoever. 

Then, I'd like to take the opportunity to ask few questions as a follow up of XXXXXji's email. 

1. What makes the Delhi model sustainable and reproducible countrywide ?
2. How are feedbacks factored in?  For example, Like XXXXXji mentioned, if Delhi becomes an ideal city, it will see influx of people, and can easily see 'diseconomies of scale.' 
3. The above question leads to the next logical question, if #2 is holds, then is it "wise" or "myopic" to limit ourself to Delhi?
4. In other words, shouldn't we parallelly be thinking of "Smart Villages" and "Smart Sub-Urban Regions" ?
5. Lets say SWARAJ and Lokpal bills pass in Delhi, how will it benefit greater India by restricting ourselves to Delhi ?
6. If it is true that looking at the "Ideal Delhi City", other cities and states will be encouraged to replicate the Delhi model. May be true. But then why have we not seen this happen until now? Why has Bihar not adopted Tamil Nadu model which is by-far the best by several development indices ?

I want to believe that there is a plan. But what is that plan? Mission Vistar? In this regard, it was a sad learning curve for me. When I talked to some of the people volunteering in Mission Vistar, I came across questions such as these :

• Why should I volunteer to do all this, often with minimal support, if AAP Leadership has decided to focus on Delhi ?
• If ethics are being compromised in Delhi, why should I do this as a part of AAP? I did not join AAP to do routine dirty politics. If that's what AAP wants to practice, I wouldn't waste my time
• Our people did not go to volunteer just for Delhi. We had the nation in mind. We had alternate clean politics in mind. If its going to be business-as-usual, I will not volunteer in this effort

Raises Important Questions for Leadership :

1. Are we sure we are assessing the impact of delhi in-fighting fiasco aptly ?
2. Are we giving due attention to the dejection among volunteers?
3. Have we thought through the feedback of (1) and (2) on this movement? Will it discourage honest, dedicated volunteers and encourage opportunists ? 
4. Where will (3) lead us to ? Another routine party in long run??

In lieu of above thoughts, I appeal to all NC members and AAP leadership to treat this situation in all seriousness. It indeed is a matter of the future of AAP. Act and decide very judiciously. If I were the national convenor of AAP, this would ring an alarm to me and I would step up and make some hard decisions to save AAP, the movement.

Dear NC members, Please take the time to think through --- what are we actually here for? Are we going to get there?  If yes, may I request the Leadership to communicate this to its supporters? If no, what should we do? What is the solution?

Satyameva Jayate! Jai Hind 

Falguni