To the thousands of fellow Aam Aadmi Party supporters around India and the world - hey, we fought the good fight, and theres many more fights to come. I am no official spokesperson for the party, but I do want to thank you all for coming together and making a difference, however small or big, in these elections. Im writing this at 8 am - I have no idea what the final tally will be. Some say 0 seats. Some say 5. I - the eternal optimist - have been saying 50 :) Even in terms of the share of the vote, some say 2% - thats a crore of votes. Some say twice as much. And some say even more. But whether it turns out to be, what is undeniable is that we were able to make a difference. Especially for a party and a movement that is barely a year old, up against behemoths with dozens of years and dozens of billions of dollars of funding behind them. Both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have had to personally contend with pretty serious opposition from AAP in their constituencies. Theyve needed to be more interactive, more transparent, and live up to more questioning than ever before. So have other candidates, around the country. (Take your mind back to 2009 or before - candidates then had a easier time compared to whatever scrutiny they had to go through this time.) Urban India and young India - once derided by politicians as the hypocrites who complained but never voted, have come out and voted - or fought for the right to vote - in droves. As we say in the business, market badal raha hai. But the difference is even more clear behind the scenes. The businesses backing the candidates for their own gains have never had it so tough. The way a Dhirubhai bought politicians and parties was so much easier than what his son Mukesh has to do to buy them and keep them bought today. Yes, we will almost certainly see a huge rise in the price of gas, and yes, the gains will accrue to Reliance, but the difference now is that we all know why. Yes, Adanis future is seen as much brighter now than it ever was - but the difference now is that we all know why. Thieves like to operate in the dark - but now, more than ever before, we can shine a light on the people and the corners of this country that havent ever been lit up - to expose and fight the theft. This has also been a year where a lot of the media was, quite literally, purchased by Mukesh Ambani and used to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). We can look at the downside and bemoan the loss of editorial independence. But I prefer to look on the bright side, and believe this will simply accelerate the death of these channels and websites, be it CNBC or CNN-IBN or ETV or FirstPost or FirstBiz - because so many of us have lost faith in them. Somewhere in the death of these mouthpieces will be the emergence of a different crowd-sourced media and a better informed public. Whatever the result today, I believe folks a few years from now will look back and say 2014 was the emergence of a revolution in India. Sure, unlike Egypt or the rest of Arab Spring, it may not happen in one quick, continuous process. Were a far bigger country - and itll take long, maybe five years or more to bring the change we need - but this is the start point. Whatever we might win this time, five seats or fifty, one crore votes or three crore votes - its that many more than this movement has ever had before. Its a start. And a pretty damn good one. The next step is to work to win more and more presence in the state assemblies, drive the corruption out of the states, and, wherever we win, to govern well and be known for doing so. Our time will come. No one can stop a good idea from winning. But as the cliche says, Rome wasnt won in a day. This is a long war. 2014 was the first battle. Whatever the result, pat yourself on the back. You fought the good fight. Its not the end of the road. You dont have to pack your bags and go to Pakistan. You have to stay here, be alert, and make sure the thugs dont turn this into another Pakistan :-) Thank you all, have a lovely weekend - and yes, todays a dry day - but go out and have a few to celebrate the fight well fought. Life and work will start again on Monday. Launch into it, knowing youve already made a permanent difference. Cheers! Mahesh Murthy
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 03:20:59 +0000
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