The writer is a BJD Lok Sabha MP.

The stunning debut of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recent Delhi assembly elections has created a flutter. Many commentators are desperately trying to recalibrate their crystal balls. Politicians too have been finally forced to sit up and take notice. The big questions are: Is this a flash in the pan or the beginning of a new kind of politics? And is it scalable to other parts of the country, particularly rural India?In a 2011 article in this news-paper titled ‘India’s Gilded Age’, i had drawn parallels between contemporary India and the United States a century ago. During the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the US experienced momentous changes that are strikingly relevant to us today.The period from the 1870s to the 1890s was dubbed The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner . During that time, the fast-growing US economy created a large middle class; second, vast fortunes were built by so-called “robber barons”, and tales of corruption they spawned were legend; and third, American politics was steeped in that corruption and largely run by old boys’ networks from “Tammany Hall” backrooms.From the 1890s through the 1920s, The Gilded Age gave way to The Progressive Era, when activists pushed through radical social and political reforms in the US that mirror what has begun to happen in India now. Investigative journalists nicknamed “muckrakers” exposed scam after scam. And besides advocating women’s issues, reform minded progressives attacked corruption and the entrenched, insular political party machines. Sound familiar?But until just a couple of weeks, most Indian politicians were dismissive of the disruptive potential of the anti-corruption body-turned-political party. And inured to ways of politics as usual, so were most journalists and political commentators. In fact, there was some basis for their cynicism: for instance, the fact that old-style politics had successfully stymied for a while the activists’ original goal, the Lokpal Bill. Moreover, their mostly middle-class supporters had not traditionally mattered in politics, being both small in numbers as well as too apathetic on election day.AAP benefited from others’ miscalculation but also did much that deserves to be understood. The middle class is now much larger and its deep anger was ripe for instigation beyond just ranting into actual voting. Long lines at voting booths after working hours proved this. AAP’s use of social media, also scoffed at until recently, was path-breaking. Sure, politicians from Shashi Tharoor to Narendra Modi have long been online stars, but no other party has used the nuts and bolts of social media better for mobilising its target base.AAP also did something well that many mainstream parties have simply forgotten how to: grassroots mobilisation. Its volunteers went far beyond the middle class and reached out to all classes of voters the old-fashioned way, by going door to door. Repeatedly. Most established parties, having come to rely on their leaders’ charisma and large election rallies, have simply lost the zeal for plain old legwork.Finally, and most importantly, was the matter of candidate selection. Most traditional parties have made themselves hostage to nepotism and old boys’ networks, often nominating suboptimal and occasionally disastrous candidates. This is where AAP shone, putting up fresh, clean candidates in a bottom-up process that gave it a real edge. This is very reminiscent of the US Progressive Era breakthrough, when the nexus of backroom candidate selection by party bosses was broken, rep-laced with primary elections to select the fittest candidates.Current Indian punditry on whether the AAP effect will be felt nationally seems to be focussed on upcoming elections and on its relevance to rural constituencies. It’s useful to remember that American reforms, though initially local, gradually went national, taking three decades to make their full impact.It may or may not take that long in India, considering the ubiquity of modern media and communications, as well as rapid urbanisation. But there is significant diversity across this country; anyone hazarding a guess would do well to bet on the long haul. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that even in the short term, modest electoral gains in urban India could yield considerable leverage in national politics.The irony, of course, is that in America a century ago, no new political entity was needed. Both main parties threw up reformers who came to be called the progressives, many of whom grew into national prominence. Two of them went on to become presidents: Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson.It is not as if there are no Indian political reformers outside AAP. For instance, my party, the BJD, has a track record of breaking with the norm, such as being first inside Parliament to welcome the Supreme Court’s judgment disqualifying convicted legislators. And colleagues from other parties too have joined me in several reform efforts, such as protecting the Right to Information law from dilution. But these efforts still struggle to get traction.The real question then is whether established Indian parties can overcome their inertia. For it is now clear that if they stay wedded to the status quo, India’s democracy will indeed reward new alternatives.