Very Indian Pursuit

When the Union minister of state for external affairs worked up a rage at the Indira Gandhi International Airport recently, insisting on VIP privileges he was not entitled to, he was banking on a general lack of systemic outrage about such things. After all, the list of worthies exempted from the routine drill of pre-embarkation checks is long. So why, indeed, must Anand Sharma stand in line? Like an aam aadmi! On cue, after the airport flare-up, instead of ticking off its minister for stepping out of line, Sharma’s obliging government is actually looking at the possibility of expanding the list of VIPs exempted from the security checks to include ministers of state. Meanwhile, as another report in this paper details, the ministry of shipping, road transport and highways waits — as yet in vain — for a new toll policy that rationalises and downsizes the categories of VIP vehicles that need not pay user charges on India’s national highways.

These are snapshots, all, from a government that proclaims loud devotion to the aam aadmi while ensuring that its privileged and powerful don’t ever actually have to rub shoulders with him. But these instances also speak about the stubborn persistence of an older culture. It is a culture of subservience and prostration to authority, especially governmental authority, which feeds the arrogance of the VIP who wears his many privileges and exemptions as a badge, demands them as his due. As Sharma’s inelegant midnight tryst underlines, India’s minister is not yet reconciled to the humbling of government in New India, and he gets away with it.

But this attitude and mindset is not just out of place in post-liberalisation India. It has an equally pronounced lack of fit with a democracy that has drawn the admiration of the world. Democratic politics in this country has proved to be a space of equal opportunity, it has accorded upward mobility to minorities and marginalised groups. As Sharma et al prove over and over again, India’s government has a long way to go before it can fulfill the radical promise of its politics.