Is This The Intellectual Depth Of Aam Aadmi Party?
![]() Aam Aadmi Party founders like @VinitaDeshmukh and @ArvindKejriwal derive inspiration from US governance. What lessons, if any, from the USA?.
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Query to Vinita Deshmukh, brought no reply. Possibly, in her view, this message was axiomatic – what in Indian classical idiom will be called pratyaksh satya. | Tweet Text – My observation: Governance in USA revolves around Citizen Safety and Citizen Convenience. Just love it! | Twitter – VinitaDeshmukh- My observation- Governance … 2013-04-26 10-02-32 | Click to go to original message.
very remarkable thing in India is the effect English has on Indian minds.
For instance, Arvind Kejriwal‘s Party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.
Out Of Our Minds
For instance corruption.
Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the expenditure by US Department of Defense. US$ 8 trillion is nearly all the money that India has spent on defense in the last 65 years.
Yet a founder of the AAP tweets on US governance. Not surprisingly, it based on ‘optics’ – not on any critical appreciation of the US.
For instance, let us look at the US Supreme Court.
Slavery vs Freedom
In March, 1857.
About 1 month before India went up in flames, against the British Raj, the Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS) covered itself in infamy. On March 6, 1857 the US Supreme Court, in a complex judgement, upheld slavery (Dred Scott v. Sanford). This judgement closed the door of US judiciary and stopped any slave from approaching US courts for justice.
In March 1857, while Indians were preparing to battle the British for freedom and independence, the SCOTUS was busy finding new ways to keep slaves – stooped, shackled and in chains.
It took another 100 years of protests, assassinations of leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even a Civil War to change rampant discrimination in the US. But, above all, finally an acute shortage of factory labor and soldiers forced the US Government to withdraw its support to entrenched racism.
The SCOTUS just did not stop at slavery.
SCOTUS supported racism (United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923)), segregation by Plessy v. Ferguson 1896.
This tradition has continued. Most recently, SCOTUS stopped a vote recount that would have declared Al Gore the President – but instead, George Bush became the US President for the second term. Books have been written, news journals regularly compile their ‘favorite’ lists of Worst 10 SCOTUS judgements.
Unlike the SCOTUS, the Indian SC has not allowed such unjust judgements to escape its portals. The Indian Supreme Court, in its’ short history has been a remarkable body in juridical operations.
But …
I could repeat big data here
- How the US imprisons more people than the next 10 biggest police States in the world.
- How 1 in 3 Black Americans are imprisoned
- How the US police are brutal force which tramples on US citizens’ rights, every minute, every day.
- How the US secret police is bigger than any police State ever in the history of mankind
- How the US prosecutes more than 1.4 crore people through its judicial system – which I have pointed out above is covered in tar.
If Arvind Kejriwal and Vinita Deshmukh of the Aam Aadmi Party will take a 2ndlook.
Having said all this, Arvind Kejriwal’s idea of a citizen police force for women safety is a step in the right direction. While the BJP, Communists were all clamoring for more police, more judges, more courts, more costs, Arvind Kejriwal differed.
We cannot have an expanding State. Do we want more and more brutal policemen.
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April 26, 2013 at 8:19 am
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July 8, 2013 at 11:49 am