Who Plays Dice Better

                           Who Plays Dice Better

             Aap jaisa koi 

                        Zindagi main aaye

                        Baat ban jaaye

This is the song all through Delhi echoing from the posh Upper class localities through the middle class homes of the babus, small traders and kinara shopkeepers to the poor class in the slums and Jhuggi Jhopris. Kejriwall’s Tsunami has come and gone , sweeping away the BJP, the Congress and the others.  Like the Tsunami waves that have a comparatively far longer wavelength, Kejriwall’s rapidly rising tides had enormous destructive power that drowned all other parties through the length and breadth of Delhi. The Capital will no longer be the same as before. It is not easy to indulge in crystal gazing unless one recourses to astrological predictions that look at the planets and  the stars to tell us about what awaits us in the Capital. On the contrary the future remains crystal clear that AAP has emerged as an alternate political force in Delhi that has come to stay not just for five years , but more than that. If it has devastated and destroyed the two national parties  - the ruling BJP and the dead Congress, it has also beamed a light of hope of providing a corruption-free government at least for the next five years- (as per its slogan Paanch saal Kejriwall ). Kejriwall’s ‘mann ki baat’ has touched a chord with the people.

Modi won last year on his promise of development. His only promise that has come true is to bring about a Congress-mukht Bharat. But little did Modi foresee that as per the law of nature, whenever there is a vacuum, there will be a rush of air to fill the empty space.  So when Modi created an empty space by freeing Bharat from Congress infestation, AAP waves rushed in to fill it up. Modi was not prepared for Kejri’s tsunami that was triggered by the deafening explosions of the Sadhvis and Sadhus, of the Sakshi Maharajs and Yogi Adityanaths about Ghar Wapsi, Love Jihad, burning and desecration of Churches, extolling Godse and disparaging Gandhi and his own deafening silence on all these issues that rocked the foundations of Indian pluralism. Kejri was astute enough to step in where Modi lagged behind. Modi’s development agenda that failed to make any impact over the last eight months of his governance was deftly adapted by the AAP. His feel-good  phrases like Good governance, swachh Bharat ,  Make in India, Acche din aayenge, and his promise to bring back the entire black money stashed abroad within 100 days and to  fill up every Indian citizen’s bank account  with 15 lakhs from the recovered money and  bring down inflation proved  to be empty words .  Instead the development agenda that Keri skillfully panned out was an action plan to provide Delhi citizens their essential needs like water, power, schools, colleges, women’s safety, and hospitals to make life in Delhi better and safer. AAP brought the action plan directly to the people and it had its impact. This time around one did not see AAP going the full hog only with the social media. Though one cannot vouch for what they told the common people that swayed them, it is clear that a direct personalized communication with them had greater power than messaging through the social media. That had no relevance for the poor people.  Modi and his party were over confident of the Modi wave that they preferred the conventional rallies and high pitched election speeches instead of direct connect with the common people. The eight months of  governance did not bring down the power tariff nor ensured water supply to those in slums and jhuggis nor did the price of vegetables and fruits and essential commodities come down despite the tumbling of fuel prices all over the globe.  Tall promises, negligible ground results and no path breaking reforms except a U –turn to adopt the earlier government’s policies which while in opposition, it had opposed. The only perceivable change was the change of policy names.  Delhi, a cosmopolitan city which is a mini India is home to a large number of aspirational youth and middle classes from different parts of the country. During these eight months, they  perceived the aggressive sabre rattling of the BJP’s Hindutva votaries and sensed the inherent dangers of communal polarization, the flaunting of cultural atavism through the  imposition of Hindi at the expense of English and in the re-writing of History and text books,  eulogizing ancient wisdom that conflicts with the scientific temper of the modern age. The huge mandate BJP had received made them dispense with all subtlety required for working out its hidden agenda. There was uncalled for hype about  the PM’s visits to foreign countries conferring on him a status of a rockstar and equally exaggerated publicity to  visits by leaders from US and China  and all these fell flat as the ground reality hit the people of all classes. It is better, Delhi decided,  to trust the promises of a fledgling party with a fresh and honest face than wait for the promised manna to fall from the ruling establishment.

Will AAP be able to keep up its promises of free water and power to the aamadmi? Can it protect the aam aurats of all sections and give them the freedom to walk or ride a bus at nights? Can it restore law and order and root out corruption of the small babus and cops with whom the common people have daily dealings? Will it make Delhi a livable city of world class?  Will the AAP promises become a reality or will they also turn out to be empty words?

Herein lies the Uncertainty Principle of politics.  The Uncertainty principle that Physicists speak of does not and cannot conform to scientific determinism. Even scientific determinism cannot predict the future accurately when we factor in the presence of chaos or the apparent randomness in the universe. Einstein’s famous statement “God does not play dice” meant that behind the randomness in the universe, there is an underlying reality- reality that must be known to God , though we, mortals do not perceive it. But Einstein’s view has since been contradicted because of the way arbitrariness overrules any possibility of hidden reality. It is now said that even God is also bound by the Uncertainty principle and He seems to play dice with the universe. New experiments and new scientific theories such as quantum mechanics and Wave motion have emerged that seem to confirm the Uncertainty Principle and state that predictions about the future of the universe are impossible. Professor Hawking has said that Einstein was wrong when he said God does not play dice; “Not only does God definitely play dice, but sometimes he confuses us throwing them where they can’t be seen… God still has a few tricks up his sleeve.”

If predictions are not possible after all the scientific experiments, it holds truer of politics . Politicians are constantly playing dice with the people, giving them hope that this time around, the dice will fall in their favour. The world has been churning around political and ideological –isms and nothing has provided the world with a certainty of stability, peace and happiness  for the majority of people. AAP has invented a new term “compassionate capitalism” to displace “crony capitalism”. The success of AAP depends a lot on many factors over which it presently has no control. It needs land reforms, control of police, generation of power, quality of education and many more reforms, the most important of them being anti-corruption bill(Jan Lokpal). It is easy to make promises, it is wonderful to dream of a corruption-free Delhi, it is heartwarming to hear about policies that address the grievances and problems of the common man. The time starts now for AAP. Can Kejriwall and his party succeed in creating a swachh Bharat which in metaphorical terms will sweep away the cobwebs of corruption both of the mind and money? Will Kejri play the dice ? Has he a few tricks up his sleeve? Will Modi pick up the dice and will he play according to his rules? The Uncertainty Principle looms large except for the certainty that Kejri and AAP are going to last at least for five years.

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