The Aam Admi Party's election campaign in New Delhi, which has taken on all the established political parties, is being compared by American experts to David's fight against Goliath.
At a panel discussion on the theme "Democratic Reforms in India - will new political parties make a difference" held at Stanford University, experts, including American-Indians, observed that it normally takes decades for a political party to come to power.
Comparing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to David fighting Goliath, Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs and technologists said the weaknesses of behemoth parties are their addiction to corruption, their centralised decision-making and lack of appeal to young people.
"India's rapidly growing youth vote is critical and AAP seems to have energised the youth. Corruption needs to be rooted out and accountability and political decentralisation are a must," said Pran Kurup, former president of the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association.
"Existing political parties are too established to reform themselves. They are enmeshed in today's cesspool of corruption. New parties have the advantage of not having any baggage but lack the resources to fight big money and suffer from lack of name recognition. But these can be overcome by sustained campaigns," he said.
Summarising the experience of Loksatta Party, Kalyan Raman said it had worked hard over the years but bringing about change in India takes time.
"The question is not about if the change will happen, it's about when the change will happen," he said.
Comments
0 comment