The Aam Admi Party and Indian Politics: Winners and Losers

I had written a brief analysis of what the rise of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) means for Indian politics for the Rising Powers blog.  I forgot to post it, and though its been almost a month, I thought I'd post it.

The Aam Admi Party and Indian Politics: Winners and Losers

The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) spectacular victory in the New Delhi state elections is a continuation of the churning in Indian politics. It presents a warning for both the main national political parties but particularly to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which won equally spectacularly in the national elections last summer and in a series of state elections subsequently. The AAP’s prospects beyond New Delhi are still unclear and its path is likely to be difficult, especially because this will depend at least partly on its performance in Delhi. The AAP represents both the future and the past of Indian politics: it is responding to a politically weak but growing and restive middle class that has not yet found a political party home, while its ideology, especially on economic policy, represents a failed past.

The AAPs victory is not record-setting in the Indian political context, but it is close: its 67/70 seats result has been bested only twice, both times in Sikkim. In 1989, the Sikkim Sangram Party won all 32 seats in the Sikkim state legislature, a feat repeated twenty years later in 2009 by the Sikkim Democratic Front. But nonetheless, considering the importance of New Delhi, the fierceness of the campaign in which Prime Minister Modi himself took part, and the BJP’s performance in the recent national elections (when it won all seven seats from Delhi), the result was a clear defeat for the BJP.

AII-Lowy Institute Indian Foreign Policy Poll

The Australia India Institute (AII) and the Lowy Institute for International Policy have released a poll that largely (but not exclusively) focuses on Indian foreign policy attitudes.  This is very welcome: polls on attitudes towards Indian foreign policy among Indians are few and far between.  The full data and analysis are available from AII and from the Lowy Institute.  Amitabh Mattoo and Rory Medcalf wrote a short essay in The Hindu today outlining their key findings.  The report was presented earlier today in New Delhi at the Observer Research Foundation.

Some key points after a quick read:

• Indians feel warmest towards the US by a sizeable margin and coolest (coldest?) towards Pakistan, again by a wide margin.  China is in the middle.
• When asked to compare between US, China and Pakistan, fifty percent want to see ties with the US improve "a lot" over the next decade, while only 33% want for the same for China, and only 15% for Pakistan.  
• Pakistan and China are seen as the most serious military threats by far
• Indians generally rate environmental threats, water shortages and food shortage as higher threats than war

Sixth India Trilateral Forum, Stockholm

Jyoti Malhotra, Abraham Denmark, Dan Twining, me and Francois Godement at the 6th India Trilateral Forum, Stockholm

I attended the 6^th India Trilateral Forum in Stockholm recently (April 12-13, 2013).  The India Trilateral Forum’s are organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, with support from the Swedish, US and Indian governments.  I had attended the previous two meetings too and it is the only meeting that brings together such a diverse group: scholars, practitioners and some business people.  Since most of the academic meetings I attend include only the first category (and a sprinkling of retired members of the second group), this was an interesting change.  In previous meetings, I found business leaders more optimistic and somewhat less cynical than academics, and it was no different this time. 

Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s Essay on Institutions

I find Pratap Bhanu Mehta one of India’s most readable scholar and commentator.  His latest essay in the Indian Express is a particularly good one.  He points to the manner in which institutions have been eroded by India’s political class.  A more important point he makes is that the the "vast majority of our politicians simply do not understand the meaning of one word: institutions."