After hearing some interviews of Mr. Kejriwal and his comments on Economical and Political issues, I was very curious to figure out the difference between basic agenda of AAP and other political parties like Congress and BJP. BJP or Congress both are the representative of business class of India, and it is well known to most of the people, but Mr. Kejriwal’s AAP party present themselves as an option to these political parties. From outside they look different and many educated people who can do their work in a right direction of change, they are now in the influence of this propaganda. So, my main attention is to understand the agenda of AAP, not the political-economy of BJP and Congress, which already know to all.
We will focus our discussion around a letter of Mr. Kejriwal to the businessmen of India. Below is the link of letter on AAP website: http://www.aamaadmiparty.org/page/letter-by-arvind-kejriwal-to-businessmen
I am taking this letter line by line and try to put some of my doubts and questions in the front of Mr. Kejriwal and AAP members as well as every individual, either supporter of AAP or not.
Mr. Kejriwal started his letter with the following lines,
“I hail from a business family although my father was a serviceman but most of my relatives from the both sides of my parents are involved in small scale business activities for their livelihood. Hence I'm well aware about circumstances surrounding a businessman.
“Indian businessmen lives in a fearful environment created by different govt. officials and organizations/authorities. Even though a man is running his business without any legal flaws or fraud, he/she is compelled to please those officials by unlawful favors in form of money or gifts.”
At this point we don’t comment on this “fearful” environment for the businessmen. More we see below,
“Most of the common businessmen are in favor of running their business with honesty and peace except few of those who are involved in fraudulent and illegal activities. There are rules and regulation imposed by government which are practically very hard to attain and as an Ex-Income Tax Commissioner I know how tricky those rules are. These rules and regulation are used as a means to scare common businessmen and extort money from them by those government officials. Helpless Common businessmen lives in fear even after he pays his hard earned money to everyone.”
We should have some more patience to listen to it at this moment. But I think here he tries to say that rules and regulations for businessman should not be hard and more in numbers, so that they can do business freely. What does more freedom to the businessmen means? From the stand of a worker it means that they can appropriate more and more surplus and suck more and more labour of their workers in their own way without much control of rules and regulation created either by government or due to presser of workers unions. This is basic hypothesis of freedom, and actually freedom in the capitalist system is the freedom for bankers and property owners to exploit labor; and freedom for workers is nothing more than freedom (in reality freedom of workers is their helplessness) of selling his labor power to some businessmen to earn his livelihood. We see it next in detail. See more below what Mr. Kejriwal says,
“Business-class is known as a Vote Bank of BJP but has BJP ever solved any of your problems except using you as their Vote Bank during elections? Is your business flourishing in BJP ruled states without any fear? From last 15 years Congress is the ruling party in Delhi and in those 15 years has they ever done any thing good for the Businessmen Community? As a matter of fact even a smallest govt. employee can snatch some of your hard earned money from your pocket in Delhi despite of how big businessman you are or how large your business is?”
At this point it becomes very clear that Mr. Kejriwal is not talking only about petty-bourgeoisie, but he is has all capitalists including monopoly capitalists and giant financiers in his mind. But, he had not said a single word about the workers who work for these businessmen and after working like robots live their life in misery? Now it is very clear that “corruption” for Mr. Kejriwal means bribing only!! But, we further proceed to read the remaining of this letter for now,
“'AAM AADMI PARTY' wants to change this system as we know how hard a businessman works to earn. With that hard earned money he runs his family at the same time he pay tax to the government which helps in development of our Nation. Govt. owes a responsibility to provide business-class a proper place from which they have been deprived off till this date. 'AAM AADMI PARTY' wants to create a system where running a business with honesty is smoothly possible.”
So, we see the real Mr. Kejriwal and true stand of AAP party. Not going in the detail of the political economic analysis of the business and businessmen of Mr. Kejriwal, I just want to put a very simple question here. Suppose there is a very “honest” businessman and for simplicity we can consider that initial capital of this businessman is inherited capital. This "honest" businessman runs his business and hires many workers to do work for his business in exchange of wages. Today many intellectual workers are available to manage all work and capital flow in any business, so businessmen needs not to do much by self. I think this don’t need further elaboration as Mr. Kejriwal must know it well, as he has already worked in the Income Tax department of Indian government. So, now we see that this “honest” businessman has nothing to do by himself, except few meetings and hiring of few working people for his business, and most important, investing his initial inherited capital. Many big Banks and share market is doing this work for big business giants. Now, if this “honest” businessman yearly making 40 or 50 percent of profit on his total initial capital, and living his life 100 times or 1000 times higher standard than the workers who actually do all the work in his business, then what type of honesty is it, and what type of system Mr. Kejriwal is promoting where one person (businessman) appropriate surplus from the unpaid work of many workers doing work in his business. Is not it a corruption? Actually it is the base of all other corruptions and the real fact that will be responsible for the crash of capitalist system (those who know history must know that it has already happened in the history). Now, Mr. Kejriwal cannot say, as many middle class people say, that individual person cannot do anything for it, because he call himself a political representative of the people of Indian, so he must not say it. So is not this “honest” business in itself a fraud, and is not his activities will be called illegal out of the framework of capitalist system. And is not surplus appropriation a stealing, a theft of the hard labour of the working people??
It also looks clear that AAP don't talk about businessmen in regards to a historical role of capitalist class in the industrialization and leading of transition of society from the chains of feudalist economical-political system. This capitalist system is now reached to saturation in itself, and has become parasite of the masses. But, for Mr. Kejriwal they are not surplus appropriator and parasites, they are “victim” of the political system?? But, the actual situation of the society looks very different, in fact reverse, where all the means of production are in the control of businessmen and many workers and peasants are daily dispossessed from their work and land, and all the wealth of the society keep on centralizing in the hands of these businessmen, not because of bribing (As Mr. Kejriwal tell us), but because of capitalist production relations. Corruption and bribing effects the common people, not as Mr. Kejriwal present it, but it is a way to hand over control of public wealth and created by working people and natural resources to the private businessmen. It can be seen in the many resent exposure of scams, where from spectrum, coal, to the gas all is handover to private businessmen without any public interest. So, present political system exist for business, to manage surplus appropriation and profit driven production and distribution, while thousands are daily starved to death and billions are living in fear of loss of their source of livelihood.
Now, we further proceed to the remaining part of this same letter,
“People should be given their chances to makeover their mistakes in past due to corrupt system that forced them to do so and allow them to carry their business with honesty in future by forgetting their past. And those shall be punished who carry on their foul business even after the rectification of corrupt system. VAT system in Delhi has turned into a nightmare for businessmen hence they usually bribe government officials in order to save themselves. Tax System needs to be simplified.”
There was a time when leaders and representatives of the people speak and stand up for the people, but now these people who call themselves representative of common man (Aam Adami), talk about the well being of section of the society that is no more than 5 percent of the total population, and who is exploiting 80 percent of the remaining population for its profit.
A report is published recently, which says that wealth of top 100 businessmen of India have increased by $29 billion in last one year (DNAIndia.com). While looking at this report we also need to see another side of the coin, that income of 77% of Indians is below INR 600 (20 per day) per month and income of 90% of Indian is below 5,000 per month (The Hindu 12 July 2013). If we do a simple calculation with these figures (see at the end of article)* we get following result: Each one among top 100 people of India have 17 Lac times more wealth than 84 crore (77%) population and 3 Lac times more than top among 110 crore (90%) common people. In what condition these 90 recent people will be living and what problems they have been facing daily don’t need any explanation. It can be visualize easily. Now a question is arises, “who produced this wealth?” And answer is that no other then work of common people. Actually this is materialized form of the labour of millions of the people directly or indirectly working for these businessmen. Another question is how this centralization happened; it is not because of bribery as Mr. Kejriwal said at many place, but because all the means of production are in the hands of these businessmen and all the working people of the nation are doing wage slavery for increasing their wealth. Appropriation of surplus value, with the unpaid work of working people is the real source of this centralization.
I want to ask Mr. Kejriwal whether this centralization of wealth in the hands of these 100 businessmen without any bribing is not corruption.
After reading these comments many AAP supporters will become angry, but there is no point of anger, it is a big question to think!! Many people think that if someone speaks different then what is correct then he is not dogmatic thinker, and many baseless arguments are praised by these people, not because they understand them, but because they cannot understand it at all, and neither the person who speck them has any material basis for his “original” thoughts. I have added nothing in this letter, it is present in the website of AAP party, and you can read every line of the letter there as it is.
Now, if someone talks about the nation what does he understand by it? Whether workers and poor peasants of the India made country or the businessmen? Our Aam Adami representatives don’t want to mention workers and peasants and production relations of the society in their political agenda, they see present capitalist production relations as eternal and call it their “original” world views. I can be said original in some other sense, but there is nothing even real in it.
Many people mostly talk about harmony of every person in the society, and suggest that Mr. Kejriwal want the same and so he don’t create disparity between workers and businessmen. But, the fact of disparity is quite wide and daily increasing without his mentioning it, as we have already seen. But, this argument of the AAP supporters is also wrong. If he don’t want to mention any special class and don't like to mention anything on social production relations among working people and business class then why he cry about businessman only, while never touched any problem of working class. In his whole book Swaraj he just mentioned labor at one place, and nowhere had I found anything about social production relations, centralization of wealth or the role of trade unions of the workers in the industrial relations.
Either it is lack of their knowledge and understanding of the society, for what these people are shouting to change, or they speak the lie about representing Aam Adami. A big doubt arise, “when you don't know what you want to change then how will you change that?” Look at it below,
“Central government wants to bring FDI in retail and they have supported their decision with multiple of reasons. When 'AAM AADMI PARTY' analyzed those reasons thoroughly, not even a single reason came out promising enough to support their decision. In fact all of them were bunch of lies and it seems like government has taken huge amount of money from those foreign companies to pass FDI in Retail. And slowly a number of evidences are also coming up to firm this allegation.
“'AAM AADMI PARTY' strictly oppose FDI in Retail because 'AAM AADMI PARTY' thinks if FDI will enter into Retail sector then Crores of small scale Indian businessmen will come on road as they will lose their business and so as their livelihood.”
Mr. Kejriwal nowhere talked that he feels any pain as billions of the working people are already on the streets without work, but he cry when an Indian businessmen come on the street and loss his business!! Even these businessmen who come on street still have sufficient wealth to live a comfortable life, while major population of the society normally don’t have, but still businessmen got all the attention of Mr. Kejriwal. What push small businesses to streets is not bribing or corruption, but, under capitalist production system it happens without any corruption as we have already seen in above paragraphs. Anyway, we can leave it for now. But, what we cannot leave is this; he says that due to FDI many small scale businessmen will come on roads, but what about those small scale businessmen who are coming on the streets without FDI, due to multiband-retail shops of big Indian monopoly capitalists like Reliance, Tata, Big-Bazaar etc.? (For detail you see Editorial of Aahwan December 3, 2011 http://ahwanmag.com/archives/593]) What is the difference if these small businessman dispossessed either by big Indian businesses or by foreign businessmen through FDI? Indian businessmen also suck labour of Indian workers and then sometime export produced commodities or invests their capital in the other countries to earn more and more profit. So, what is the difference between “Deshi” businessmen or “Videshi” businessmen, while workers have to struggle for livelihood in the present of both? For now if we accept arguments of Mr. Kejriwal, the coming on street means becoming a “free” worker, and we see that most of the population in any society is always “free” workers. Does Mr. Kejriwal think that becoming a worker is not good for businessmen? But, why is it so?
In his book Swaraj, and also on his website, I searched hard to find anything related to the working people and their problems, but he nowhere talk about it. He left the base of the society who runs the society by their work. AAP never talk about the strengthening of labor laws, rights of workers or providing them better control on the produce of their labor. But, everywhere they talk counter of it, like providing better environment to the businessmen, making simplified system of tax for businessmen, so that they keep appropriating more and more surplus out of the work and misery of working people. He nowhere concerns about providing better system for the handling of workers grievance in their work area, and strengthening of the trade unions. From this short article we can say that it will not be a surprise if one day we all wake up and read in newspaper or hear on the TV that AAP is saying that Trade Unions are the greatest obstacle in the progress of the business in the India so they are not needed! Businessmen, and their representatives may not think about it, but working people must think about it and force others to think.
In the end Mr. Kejriwal has written,
“'AAM AADMI PARTY' is dedicated to our Country. We want to change this system but this hypothesis for a change in the system is incomplete without participation of the Business-Class.
“So with all respect I here by invite you to join in this fight for a change in this corrupted system.”
Some people who believe more on faith than logic and on worship more than rationality, they may say that whenever someone try to do something people like us start criticizing him. Many times these types of people try to mislead all the logical points of discussion with their “faith” and start giving suggestion that why you criticize these people who are very “honest”? But, how it can be ignored that an honest person can lead to a harmful path due to his ignorance, and how we can accept that this wrong way of an “honest” person don’t do any harm. But, in a society that is divided in classes no one is absolutely honest because honesty is also class honesty.
Some people may be thinking that this is the strategy of Mr. Kejriwal. Some people try to imagine, without any basis of their imagination, that it can be the part of the tactics of AAP. But, after reading this letter line by line, it cannot be said from any angle that it shows tactical alliance of AAP with the business class. Practically it is theoretical political line of AAP.
AAP doesn’t see anything wrong in the process of surplus appropriation, in the process of production under capitalist production relations, and also ignores rise of all other problem due to this appropriation. Mr. Kejriwal has broken the pitcher of corruption and all the problems on the head of bribing by individual. But this Aam Adami leader has great theoretical sympathy with the surplus appropriator class!
Just as Congress or BJP has been talking about trickle-down approach in the capitalist development and promoting free capitalist system since many years for the “benefit” of public, in the same way Mr. Kejriwal is talking about providing fearless environment to the businessmen for the “benefit” of common people. He want to feed the tramp bull so that he will someday give golden eggs that will solve every problem, but bull don’t give golden eggs, it can produce only dung after digesting everything you feed it. Is not it very clear that either trickle-down or trickle-up, all are same in their contents, all are the representative of bourgeoisie who misguide and fool working people, sometimes on the name of religion, other time with just mongering.
These types of utopian and false assumptions and empty dialogs cannot change anything except creating more misery for the masses in the coming days, and destroying more natural environment for the personal profit of few privileged (whom Mr. Kejriwal call businessmen). We need to think in detail and do practice with a proper understanding of the society, to understand what are the material basis of the production in the society, what are the production relations, what is the status of the ownership of the means of the production, what are the relations among different sections of the society, what are their economical and social status and how every struggling classes can be join with the mass moment of the working classes. Only then we can call ourselves the representative of Aam Adami, and only then a way can be made for the liberation of society from the slavery of capital.
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* [Calculation: Present wealth of 100 people is $250 billion that was $221 in last year. So increase in wealth $(250 - 221) = $ 29 billion = INR 29 * 60 billion= INR 1740 billion per 100 = 17 billion per head. = 1700 crore per head per year increase. An Average 77% Indian earn INR 20 per day = INR600 per month means INR 7200 per year, if we do a rude round off it will become 10 thousands per year.
Take another set of people few top of 90 percent of the Indian they earn INR 5,000 per month = INR 60 thousands per year.
Now we have three categories of the disparity 1700 Crore, 60 K and 10 K, we get ration of 1,70,00,000 : 60: 10 that is 17,00,000 : 6 : 1 ]
