Of AAP and Gramsci.

Disclaimer : I am not a student of political science and whatever I am going to explain is with what little knowledge I have gleaned from secondary sources. A little knowledge is dangerous. So read it at your own discretion.

The Aam Aadmi Party has transformed the discourse of Indian politics. That has to be accepted without any argument. However, certain recent incidents and the near-to-devotional adulation of the AAP by certain sections of our society has led me to try and analyse the party from a very different perspective.

Now to do so, I have to introduce to you the famed neo-marxist scholar, Antonio Gramsci and build upon his views. In his work 'Prison Notebooks', he introduces a wide variety of concepts.

I will pick out a few of them. He maintains that in a capitalistic society, dominance( A term used to describe how the bourgeoisie/ruling class maintains control over the proletariat/the working class) is exercised through a combination of various strategies. He divides the state(roughly the government) into the political society and the civil society. The political society is composed of the armed forces, the police and others which have coercive power. The civil society is composed of social instituions such as the educational system, religion and the media which possess soft power. 

He then points out that the state exercises hegemony(roughly, indirect imperial rule) mainly through the civil society. The ruling class establishes a sort of cultural dominance by using the civil society and succeeds in justifying the social, economic and cultural status quo as beneficial to everybody. Gramsci then talks about challenging this hegemony and differentiates the war into two - a war of position and a war of maneuvre. The latter implies a direct assault on the state involving a physical overthrow(This can be compared to the Naxal ethos.). The former implies a kind of resistance to the cultural domination. A famous example of this kind of a struggle would be our own independence struggle as led by Mahatma Gandhi. This mantle was taken up in recent times at the grassroot level by a variety of NGOs, social activists etc(We from a layman point of view wrongly conclude that they comprise the whole of civil society.) Gramsci believed that a war of maneuvre will not threaten the dominant groups in modern democracy as long as their credibility is firmly rooted in civil society.

Now, here's where I diverge. While Marxism and even Neo-Marxism believed in the complete overthrow of the state, I do not. I believe that a communist society is a Utopian concept. It cannot exist without succumbing to some form of dictatorship as evidenced in the so-called communist nations of today. However, the eternal struggle between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces is important.

Prior to the formation of Aam Aadmi Party, Aravind Kejriwal could have been described as a champion of the counter hegemonic forces. Through Parivartan, he agitated for the Right to Information. Back in 2012, he was one of the leading figures of the India Against Corruption movement. But, once he establised AAP, I believe that he has in fact become a part of the various forces trying to obtain hegemony(Since ours is a democracy, simply put, 2014 LS Elections). This is neither good nor bad but what is to be pointed out is the fact that in his effort to obtain this hegemony, he'll be waging a war of position from the hegemonic side. So, he'll be performing such acts which will win him popularity(cultural dominance) because popularity translates to votes. 

The Khirki Extension issue, his celebrated subsidies in electricity and water(Similar to the Food Security Act and MGNREGA that Congress, another contender to this position of hegemony, implemented at the Centre), his condoning of Khap Panchayats, his talks with controversial Maulvis etc can all be classified as such acts. And again, this is not something bad in the short run atleast. This is exactly what the BJP and the Congress(as already pointed out) are doing. To win, in a country like ours, stoking prejudices will almost always result in better electoral results rather than trying to reason out with the electorate. It's exactly similar to the Brutus-Mark Antony effect we have studied in Shakespeare's celebrated play, Julius Caeser. And Kejriwal is doing it brilliantly. He has succeeded in portraying everyone else except AAP as "the corrupt political class." Whether he is right or wrong, is not the question. But his strategic campaigns are paying off in a brilliant fashion whereby he is manufacturing consent by sending out of a picture of himself as the Hercules cleaning the Augean stables.

So what exactly is bad? As I have already pointed out, while a final overthrow is not desirable, the struggle between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces is. In fact, both sides are relevant to this current scenario. We need an opposition to the state which would question them on their every action and inaction. We also need a state which has a will of it's own and does not succumb to every wishes of the majority/proletariat. Democracy cannot be encapsulated into majoritarianism. Only out of a struggle, will good governance come. The problem with Kejriwal and the AAP is the fact that they have managed to blur the line. Most of the aam aadmi still count Kejriwal as one of them. He is not. The moment he set his eyes on the system, he has changed into somebody who will do anything to get into the highest position in the system.(That is not per se bad, as I have mentioned earlier). What is bad is if the majority like you and me, decides to sit and clap at each and every one of his move in blind devotion. That is the equivalent of the counter-hegemonic forces succumbing in the war of position. The same applies to the legion of devout followers, that Narendra Modi has managed to obtain.

The proletariat needs to engage in a counter hegemonic struggle against each and every one of the contenders to hegemony. We need to counter their propaganda and we need to counter the kind of belief systems they are instilling in us. We need to analyse and criticise each and every single proposal they have. We need to stand up and raise stinging questions against all their little faults. The ying needs to be balanced by the yang. The forces of counter-hegemony should have an equal footing in this struggle for dominance.