In spite of laudable efforts on the part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the VVIP culture has survived the change of government and still plagues India
In the light of a stadium in Delhi being emptied of practising sportspersons (and God only knows how sportsmen and women in India, other than cricketers, have to slog with little funding and media interest), when a top bureaucrat wanted to walk his dog, it is necessary again to take a look at Indian VVIP culture, which is an Indian National Congress legacy.
As in the Soviet Union, the Congress — and Jawaharlal Nehru in particular — compensated the low salaries of politicians, bureaucrats and police, by giving them disproportionate privileges. The tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi, and later of her son, Rajiv, worsened this VVIP culture by adding security cover as an extra symbol of power. We know how much discomfort this VVIP culture has caused to the common man everywhere, besides triggering widespread corruption.
With the advent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), everyone had high hopes that this VVIP culture would be slowly dismantled, as many of the new rulers of India came from the rank of the RSS, which picks up its cadres from the common people and makes sure they stay in touch with this very strata of Indian society. Indeed, in the first two years, the new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, tried to extricate himself from the straightjacket of VVIP culture, by attempting to minimise the security around him, drive to the airport without blocking all the roads, and generally reach out to people, shake hands etc. He also instructed his ministers, as he had done in Gujarat, to have daily open durbars, where ordinary folks could meet the ministers. I remember both in Gujarat and in the first years in Delhi, seeing ministers, who sat in ordinary rooms, with only one secretary taking notes, and in front of him or her, rows of plastic chairs, where one sat till one’s turn came. It was simple, effective and made you love the system of democracy.
But this welcome change was beaten by two factors: One, the Indian bureaucracy; and two, the Nehruvian system. The Indian bureaucracy remains the ultimate power in India, never affected by change of governments and time. With a few exceptions, it has a Nehruvian bent of mind, even at the highest level; it thinks it knows it all and wants to control everything.
Once we did a presentation of the Shivaji Maharaj Museum of Indian History, Pune, to the then Maharashtra CM, Devendra Fadvanis. He was genuinely enthused by the project and immediately allotted Rs 1 crore of the CM Fund. However, his bureaucrats in the culture department (who never even bothered to visit the Museum which is unique and has 20 pavilions) argued that it was not a real ‘artifacts’ Museum and so the money was not allotted. So much for the power of a chief minister…
Much of the middle and lower bureaucracy did not like PM Modi’s reforms, which were attempting to bypass them to reach the common people. So they put brakes on them. The Swachh Bharat project, for instance, has definitely petered down in the South, with Bangalore and Pondicherry being as dirty as ever, if not more. But it is in the domain of finance that bureaucracy showed its real power: they resisted the visionary reforms of PM Modi and today corruption — at least at the lower levels — is as vibrant as ever.
The Congress legacy in terms of access to VVIPS has also survived because of the number of persons surrounding VVIPS: A minister has at least four or five private or personal secretaries (PA & PS), who themselves have undersecretaries at their beck and call. Undersecretaries have lower bureaucrats, who themselves have peons, switchboard operators, etc. These people would have, for the most, become irrelevant if Modi had succeeded in bypassing them. So they did not allow it and today, as it was in the time of Congress, it is absolutely impossible to get through to a minister, even if you have genuine work. You have to go through at least five layers of bureaucrats, before he or she sees your request. So only the old tool of access remains functional: Connections. If you know someone, who knows someone, and that someone has some clout, you will be able to reach one of the PAs directly. But even then, it can be difficult, as my own till-now failed efforts to meet the Union Home Minister suggest.
I remember one time, a very high-level member of Modi’s government agreed to inaugurate a history exhibition in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Centre for Arts on the two brothers Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. The idea was to show how Dara was a Sufi scholar, who thought Islam was inspired by the Upanishads, while his brother was an Islamist fanatic who imprisoned his father, beheaded his brother and razed thousands of temples. First, we were advised that it would be better to show only the exhibition on Dara Shikoh, not on Aurangzeb. Then, though it was only a small event, we were given a set of strict security guidelines (nobody to enter the room where he will freshen up for 24 hours, how to get up when he entered, how to greet him, etc).
When the VVIP came, I asked him after the event, as I had known from before and that he came from the RSS, why such strict rules. He answered that in terms of security and protocol, there is a ‘Blue Book’ made by the Congress — and that it would require a new legislation to change it. I met him again later at one of the World Hindu Conferences in Chicago and it seemed to me that he had well and happily settled in this VVIIP straightjacket, as most of Modi government ministers have today, except a few like Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, or Ajit Doval, who remain approachable. In defence of politicians and bureaucrats, there are so many people in India, that they would be overwhelmed if access to them was not restricted.
In spite of laudable efforts on the part of PM Modi, the VVIP culture has survived the change of government and still plagues India. It would need a kind of revolution to break the backbone of VVIP culture. It would require an indomitable spirit and unbreakable will power on the part of the powers-that-be to accomplish this massive task.
The author is a French journalist and author of ‘A History of India as It Happened’ (Garudabooks.com). His upcoming book ‘Aurangzeb’s Iconoclasm: Illustrations from Primary Source’ will be released by UP CM Yogi Adityanath in June. He is also building a museum of true Indian history in Pune. Views expressed are personal.
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