Commentary/Vir Sanghvi
Why such security, prime minister?
It is not my case that you don't need security. Of course you
do. All prime ministers are under threat. In Rajiv Gandhi's day,
some nutcase shot at him on October 2, 1986, at Rajghat. And in
the last months of the Narasimha Rao regime, half the Congress was lining
up to sock him one.
But I will make two points. One: security of the Indian variety
has never saved anybody. Take the Rajghat incident. Even though
the Research and Analysis Wing had sent a message to the Delhi Police warning that an assassin
would hide in the bushes and shoot at Rajiv Gandhi that morning, nobody found the gunman. Or take the case of the
late Beant Singh, one of the most protected men in the country.
No amount of security could protect him from an assassin who was
willing to give up his own life.
The truth, prime minister, is not just that our security people
are not very good, but that no security can be fool-proof. Ask
Ronald Reagan. It wasn't the Secret Service that kept him alive
when John Hinckley opened fire. It was God.
Finally, if your time is up, then it is up. There is only so much
that any security can do.
My second point is that: of course your life is at risk. But are
you any more at risk than, say, John Major, who has already survived
one IRA bombing? It is hard to argue that any Indian prime minister
faces a greater threat than Major does or Margaret Thatcher did.
Consider then, the kind of security that the British prime minister
gets. He does not travel in a motorcade of 20 cars. They do not
stop traffic in London for half-an-hour till his car has passed -- they
don't even do that for the Queen. Thousands of policemen are not
asked to line the road in case a pedestrian suddenly decides to
open fire.
Why then, do you get this kind of intrusive and overt security?
If I were you, I would question my security advisers very closely.
Why should the elected prime minister of India be forced to travel
in a style that is more suited to a Latin American dictator or
an African despot?
I don't know how well you sleep at nights -- though the available
evidence might suggest that you have a sleep deprivation problem -- but
if you ever find yourself tossing and turning and wondering why
sleep doesn't come, then consider this: perhaps it is the
curses and the ill-will of the thousands of ordinary people you
inconvenience each time you move out of your house.
Have you any idea, prime minister, of how unpopular ministers
have become in today's India? Do you know that there is no filthier
acronym in our lexicon than VIP?
It isn't only because of you, of course. It is because of the
Rajesh Khannas and the Subodh Kant Sahays who are given scandalously
high levels of security cover at tax-payers' expense.
But finally, the buck stops at your desk. If your minders think
nothing of making ordinary people wait for hours while you decide
whether you should drop in on Surjeet before going off to see
Chandrababu, then other politicians will take their cue from you.
There is also the matter of the aeroplanes. In the old days, when
Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru went abroad, he flew Air India on a scheduled flight
and the airline kept the seat next to his empty as a mark of respect.
Apparently, security considerations mean that such a practice
is no longer possible.
But tell me, prime minister, why do you need to commandeer an
entire Jumbo jet? Do ordinary people know that one whole section
of the aircraft -- which would normally seat 110 passengers -- is completely
refurbished to create a luxurious cabin for you, complete with
bed and sofa? That junior members of your staff hog the 16 first
class seats and feast on Dom Perignon and Sevruga?
I don't want to focus on the unseemly controversy over your holidaying
relatives. That is a red herring. Even after they have restructured
the plane to give you the equivalent of 110 seats, there are still
307 seats left over and it doesn't make much difference if a few
members of the Gowda clan hitch a ride.
My point is more basic: why take the Jumbo at all?
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