The political resurgence we have recently noticed with the rise of AAP in Delhi is significant where in other countries, such as Britain, the middle class is taking much lesser interest in politics. However, history tells us that there is less to thank the middle class for this revival of Indian democracy since most of the blame for the problem that Indian politics is in at present is goes to middle class, which votes wrong people into power.
Presently we have seen in England that middle class has complete disinterest in politics and many notable middle class personalities have stated that they are not interested in voting since the list of candidates taking part in elections was not good. We have seen similar trends in India also where middle class used to stay away from elections to avoid political change, the result of which they were not certain about.
The only thing middle class is never happy about is rise in prices. Previously we have seen political parties win elections on this single topic. In 1980, we saw Indira Gandhi won the election on the main topic of increasing onion prices. Same thing happened in 1998 when Congress defeated BJP on the context of onion price rise.
As long as things remain normal, they get decent wages and price of goods remain reasonable, the middle class is not bothered about quality of our politicians. If such normal life culture gets disrupted, only then they wake up and look at alternative electoral options which will solve the problems for them. The rise of AAP is not an effort of middle class to revolutionize politics in the country but rather a way to meet its own present concerns such as rise in prices and corruption, which incidentally match the agenda of AAP.
The middle class of modern India is certainly more knowledgeable than before but whether it is making a concerned effort to change Indian politics is still not something to say with certainty. We have seen similar rise of small parties earlier but the middle class soon goes back into its comfort zone.
Political activism by the middle class was best seen during 1974 when Jayaprakash Narayan stood against social injustice, price rise and corruption. Public responded and voted out the Indira Gandhi government from power. After that, it has been a long wait and recently we saw Anna Hazare fight against corruption, which resulted in formation of the Aam Admi Party.
The condition of Indian politics was not good until recently when the AAP surprisingly came into power in Delhi. However, experts state that global economic crisis give rise to similar parties in different parts of Europe but all such parties have started to lose their existence, it is yet to be seen whether the same happens with AAP.
