India: AAP's refusal to declare support for gay rights in its manifesto

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AAP's refusal to declare support for gay rights in its manifesto shows it can confuse populism for democracy
What does this say about AAP's claim to represent a politics of principles?

by Shivam Vij

So it turns out that it wasn't an oversight that the Aam Aadmi Party failed to say anything about decriminalising sexual minorities in its manifesto. A party member explained to some lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists in a private email, "There is a larger strategic perspective with regard to the numbers here... We need the numbers in Parliament, if we are to tangibly do something about it [decriminalising gay sex]... If we do not get the numbers and neither does the Congress...the BJP will manage to defeat it on the floor of the house."

This is strange, not least because the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have both said in their manifestos they would support legislative reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, the law that makes consensual sex between same-sex adults a criminal offence, punishable with life imprisonment. In 2010 the Delhi High Court had declared the law ultra vires of the Constitution but in December 2013 the Supreme Court had reversed the decision. Thereafter, AAP along with the Congress and the CPM publicly opposed the Supreme Court judgement. The one major political party to support the Supreme Court judgement was the Bhartiya Janata Party.

Having once publicly come out against Section 377, what are the votes AAP fears it could lose by stating its position in its manifesto, especially given that the Congress and the CPM don't think that would lose them votes? AAP leaders are taking to Twitter to clarify that they stick by their position, so why not say as much in the manifesto? In the unlikely event that AAP forms the government, how is anyone to hold them to their promise if they don't give the voter that promise in writing? To say that not writing it in their manifesto doesn't matter because everything is not written in the manifesto is to indicate that this wasn't important enough. But it is very important at a time when the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the government's curative petition against its December judgement.

Perhaps the party, like the Supreme Court, felt that the queer community is too small in number to take such a risk. The fact is that no one really knows the real size of the queer community as it is largely silent. But it does have a vote. A survey of the queer community by Pallav Patankar of the Mumbai-based Humsafar Trust, conducted presumably before the AAP manifesto was out, found that 45% of those surveyed planned to vote for the Congress, and 41% for AAP.

These supporters were then asked how confident they were of their favourite party doing something for their rights. AAP had the highest number of voters who were "highly confident" of the party's stance on queer rights. That confidence is now broken, and AAP is sure to lose a few votes. It is not clear which votes it would gain by its careful calculation to not upset conservatives who would read its manifesto. It is not as if there has been large-scale public outrage in India over the existence of homosexuality.

Another reason why this is strange is because AAP has taken positions in its manifesto that could make it lose the votes of one section of society or another: it talks about speedy justice for Muslims accused in terror cases, it talks about demilitarising Kashmir and amending the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, it supports caste-based reservations by making them preferential to those whose families have never benefited from reservations.

The Aam Aadmi Party seems to often confuse populism for democracy. It advocates power to the people, but often comes up against the hurdle of having to answer: which section of the people? Does it want speedy justice for Muslims because it genuinely thinks Muslims are being falsely implicated in terrorism cases, or is it only to woo Muslim votes? If the commitment is genuine, why not promise to amend the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the draconian law used to put the terror-accused in jail for long periods with thin evidence?

Ditto with their policies in Delhi. The law minister of their 49-day state government goofed up so badly that the furor forced him to express regret for leading a raid against an African resident in the city's Khirki village. He wasn't sacked from his post, because the party felt his mistake was minor. But even where the party thinks it did a great job, it was confusing populism for democracy. It won over Delhi's autodrivers, the real rulers of the city, by promising them everything they demanded, and then some. It distributed 15,000 new auto licenses to members of the scheduled castes. What it did not do was to end the license-quota raj in the auto-rickshaw economy. That would have been opposed by the powerful auto unions. But ending the license-quota raj could have been a win-win solution for the woes of both passengers and those who want to run autos to earn a livelihood.

There are also other issues on which AAP may seem progressive when it is being conveniently populist: its opposition to foreign direct investment in big retail, for instance, is a clear attempt to woo small traders, the bedrock of the Bhartiya Janata Party.

There's a point at which tactical compromises don't remain tactical, only compromises. AAP will have to decide, sooner than later, if it really wants to shape a new politics as it claims to, or be shaped by the easy path of populism just like everybody else. This is not the only party that is trying to be everything to everyone, offering one inducement or another to every section of society. But as the Congress party found out in the 1990s, you can't please everyone all the time – and you can't fool all the people all the time. Someday, the contradictions hit home.


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[SEE ALSO:
AAP skirts LGBT issues for ‘strategic’ reasons http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/aap-skirts-lgbt-issues-for-strategic-reasons/article5880844.ece ]