How the Aam Aadmi Party came to resemble Animal Farm

George Orwell would’ve been bemused to see not one, but two of his fictional regimes, come to life in the land he was born. While the party at the Centre, BJP is trying to do its best Big Brother impersonation by trying to ban offending stuff, censor art, rewrite history and science, and use education as propaganda (1984), the Aam Aadmi Party could be swapped for the characters of Animal Farm. 

Both ousted members – Yogendra Yodav and Prashant Bhushan – compared their removal to a Stalinist purge. Yogendra Yadav said: ‘Unfortunately, what we are witnessing looks nothing different from a Stalinist purge. It reminds me of Animal Farm again and again.’ Prashant Bhushan wrote in an open letter: ‘The removal of the Lokpal, us and others who questioned the manner of our removal, reminds one of Stalin's purge of dissenters in the Communist Party of Russia. You should read Orwell's Animal Farm to see the parallels between Stalin's Russia and what is happening in our party today.’ 

Stalin’s Great Purge 

To understand the history behind Animal Farm, we must first recall the events that took place in the Soviet Union. In 1921, the Russian political landscape was dominated by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin (The Bolsheviks) who ousted the provincial government in place after the Czar of Russia was abdicated forcefully. Lenin was the leader of the party and stated that both Stalin and Trotsky should succeed him. While many considered Trotsky the heir apparent, Stalin was far more ruthless. Coming to power, he got rid of all dissidents; exiled Trotsky and the regime executed 681,692 people and detained 1,548,366 (according to declassified Soviet archives). 

Animal Farm 

Written between 1943 and 1944, Animal Farm is considered one of the finest pieces of satire ever written. Back then, the Soviet Union and England were allies in the Second World War, and Orwell actually had a lot of trouble finding a publisher because the book could hinder the war efforts. It was finally published in 1945 in the UK and 1946 in the US, as the war drew to a close. The novel talks about an imaginary farm where an old boar called Old Major (based on Lenin and a bit of Marx) asks animals to drive out the humans and take complete control. The farmer who runs the farm is driven out and for a little while, all is good. With Old Major’s death, the firm is led by two leaders – Snowball (based on Trotsky) and Napoleon (Joseph Stalin) who revolt and drive out the humans. 

While Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, Napoleon teaches them about the principles of Animalism. The original commandments of Animalism were: 

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

However, in time Napoleon makes a scapegoat out of Snowball, has his followers chase him away from the farm, convinces other animals that Snowball was out to sabotage the farm and takes complete control. As time passes, the pigs start to resemble humans and by the end of it there’s no difference between the leaders of the farms and the humans they hated. Over time, the tenets of Animals are changed and condensed to one cardinal rule: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

Replace Napoleon with Arvind Kejriwal and his coterie of supporters; Snowball with Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and other dissidents in AAP; and AAP with the farm and you have the exact same story. Like it became impossible to tell the difference between pigs and humans, it’s now impossible to differentiate AAP from any other political entity.  All pretence of being a movement by the people for the people has been done away. The various stings showed that Kejriwal was willing to do anything to come to power which included throwing out the dissidents who questioned his methods. 

In fact, the way Kejriwal’s supporters mock dissidents is very similar to other trolls (MSG fans, NaMo Bhakts, PTs, Salman fans, etc.) on the internet who attack people who say things even mildly critical. They have become like blind sheep and AK is the only icon that defines AAP. And that makes you wonder how Big Brotherly AAP will be if they come to power at the Centre.