AAP Mohalla Sabhas want to bring the bureaucratic decision making of the government to the general public through participatory democracy at the neighborhood level, albeit without any well thoughtout strategy. My non-exhaustive objections to AAP Mohalla Sabhas are as under:
- It will not reduce or curb corruption, rather it will increase it many fold because politicians, especially the local level politicians, are most corrupt.
- The large groups can’t make important decisions. The larger the group, the more stupid the decision. This is a scientific truth. Team work is different from group decision making.
- There would be no accountability for the decisions. Each decision would be a collective decision of aam aadmis, and one aam aadmi can’t blame another.
- Though identified as collective decisions of aam aadmis, these would actually be the decisions of a few powerful local level politicians. The decisions, however, won’t be subject to judicial scrutiny for their arbitrariness as being identified as collective decisions. This would thus create a breed of “big bosses” in the form of the said local level politicians.
- It will infringe the privacy rights of the people in the name of larger good of the neighborhood.
- It will introduce police raj as the local leaders, who act in tandem with the police and are basically their agents, will be recognized even further as governors.
- The mohalla sabhas, esp. in unauthorised colonies where public and private spaces are not well delineated, may lead to institutionalized tresspass of private properties.
- The nuisance created by community spaces will be regularized by Mohalla Sabhas.
- The people will lose faith in judiciary even further as the judges will find it convenient to leave judicial decisions to mohalla sabhas through formal or informal procedures.
- It will be a serious attack on the individuality of creative people like scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, etc., who, naturally avoid politics.
- It will infringe minority rights.
- It may increase violence because of repeated conflicts, not competition, between contenders for power — competition is when the adversaries are not known; most people understand it wrongly.
- The uneducated and less intelligent local leaders will make below-par decisions.