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Captain GR Gopinath founded Air Deccan and is considered a pioneer in the low-cost airline sector. He recently joined Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party)
What's a Gulag mindset? If you disagree you're anti party and if you're anti-party, you're anti -India. So let us banish the dissident.
We in AAP are already having a taste of it or is it a foretaste of things to come?
I have said on TV and in blogs (
Captain Gopinath on AAP's recent mistakes) that the AAP leadership must step back a bit and have a wider debate on major issues of policy be it economic, defence or foreign affairs. I specifically said that suddenly banning FDI in Delhi by overturning what was allowed by the previous government will erode the credibility of the party and the country. I also said that will risk AAP getting branded - like main-stream parties - of resorting to cheap populism and opposing for sake of opposing.
I stressed that AAP has national ambitions, and so a reversal of FDI policy will come across as being irresponsible as investors will fear that India is unreliable.
When I said all this, a new recruit to AAP who had joined just three days earlier, was quick to pounce on me and asked ferociously if I had read the 'manifesto' of the party? In an earlier TV debate too, a veteran founding member of the AAP party patronisingly and condescendingly declared that she was amused that once having joined the party, how could any one disagree with the declared objectives in the party manifesto published before elections?
That's how the old communist party during Gulag functioned and that's how the 'high command' politics of traditional parties be it Congress, BJP or the regional ones which are mostly run by dictators function. If you disagree with the policy espoused by the 'High Command' then you're a renegade.
We in AAP must also beware of zealots, ideologues, sycophants and those who are more loyal than the 'King'.
Kejriwal led AAP to victory on the plank of ridding the country of Corruption and providing good governance and simple ideals of honesty, openness, simplicity and humility. And this has drawn millions like us to the party.
Let us remember our great heritage, pre-dating all other civilisations, is one of inquiry, debate and dialogue. The founding fathers of our Constitution knew the value of doubt and how it can catalyse the evolution of ideas and provide solutions to the problems of humankind.
Therefore, they chose a system of government in which new ideas or ways can be developed and tried out and thrown away. As Richard Feynman, the great physicist and Nobel Laureate said, 'The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way, some day."
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