Alok KejriwalThink of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as apps. Clearly, Obama was “downloaded” (as in voted) many more times than Romney was. When the final downloads were totalled, Obama came on top and Romney was second. As a guy who makes mobile games for a living, I see a spectacular correlation between apps and politicians. Read on to enjoy my bizarre thesis and learn a thing or two about apps!

Be Like An Android

The least corrupt countries in the world are iTunes and Android. Why do I say that? It’s based on the way they function and how they allow their citizens called apps to live and thrive. Genuine citizens aka mobile apps go about their business (of getting discovered and downloaded) without intervention, rules, regulations, conditions and favours. For example, think of the game Angry Birds. Even if you haven’t played it, I bet someone close to you has.

Now consider how Angry Birds got downloaded. Angry Birds did not bribe iTunes or Android for “permissions” and “contracts” to do business and become popular and profitable. Angry Birds did not “acquire licences” at throwaway prices. Because to operate as an app in the app world, you don’t need a licence. All that Angry Birds did was to adhere to a standard code of conduct and dedicated itself to being creative and innovative!

The lesson politicians can learn from this is that self-regulating, non-intrusive and massively scalable economies such as iTunes and Android can exist and thrive. By killing rules, regulations, licences and permissions, model citizens can truly focus on inventing things, rather than on navigating the sticky cobwebs of politics.

The App World is Flat

There are no reservation quotas on app stores. You may be the son of Darth Vader or the illegitimate child of a politician of Uttar Pradesh or a farmer from Bihar, when you submit yourself on the app stores you are treated at par with everyone else.

No app gets preferential treatment. No officer from Apple calls the manager of iTunes “to move the file quickly”. Sure, if Angry Birds submits new apps, they do get noticed faster. But that’s like Viswanathan Anand asking for an urgent passport renewal so that he can go and thrash the Russians all over again. I doubt any Indian would grudge him that.

Politicians can get things done and that power is granted to them to be used for mass benefit — not for singular use. What politicians can learn from Angry Birds is that 1 billion people have downloaded the game (almost the population of India), without special status or being the son-in-law of someone. When good things are exposed, magic happens. In the same way, politicians must understand that the ordinary can become extraordinary, on its own merit!