Commentary/Vir Sanghvi

Why such Jumbo trappings, prime minister?

Why force Air India to take the plane out of commission for weeks (it takes a long time to build your special cabin)? Why force the airline to cancel scheduled flights and inconvenience thousands of fare-paying passengers?

Why don't you simply repeat the domestic experience? As is well known, the Air Force has two Boeing 737s for the use of the President, vice president and prime minister when they travel within India. All you need to do is buy a third plane (a medium-to-long haul aircraft) that is large enough to accommodate your party without approaching jumbo dimensions. The Air Force can run it, and nobody will be inconvenienced. Of course, there will be no caviar for the boys and gift packs thoughtfully provided by Air India, and no seats for free-loaders and long-lost cousins, but we can live with that, can't we?

Consider also the single-most idiotic stipulation of your securitymen. Do you know that before a VVIP flight lands or takes off, all aircraft must go into a holding pattern for 20 to 30 minutes? Effectively, the airport is shut down.

Why should this be so? Frankly, nobody seems to know. They say, 'It is a regulation'. As far as I can gather, 12 years ago somebody came up with this rationalisation: what if an Indian Airlines pilot decides to launch a kamikaze attack on the PM's plane as it is taxing?

Honestly, prime minister, this would be laughable if it wasn't so annoying.

It gets worse. Now, as we all know you are a friendly sort of chap. This means that you often stay longer at functions than is scheduled. You meet an old pal or make a new friend and decide to settle down for a half-hour chat.

The problem is: nobody tells the airport!

Suppose you are supposed to take off at 6 pm. They stop all air traffic at 5.30 pm. But then, you don't turn up till 6.30 pm. Your plane finally takes off at 6.45 pm. So, from 5.30 to 6.50 pm thousands of passengers wait in the air or in the airport because nobody can land or take off till you've left.

I doubt if you even know that this happens. Or that the announcement, "We will be delayed because of VVIP movement," draws groans and abuses from passengers all over. If you did realise this, I'm sure you would be concerned.

The trouble with VIP security is never caused by the subject of the security; it is caused by those who are supposed to protect him. I'm sure that you were told when you took office that there was a security drill for prime ministers and that you had no option but to follow it. Such is the security climate that when V P Singh declared that he did not want the Special Protection Group cover given to ex-prime ministers because it inconvenienced too many people, he was told that he had no choice in the matter. That was the law, those were the regulations. And if he didn't like it: tough!

Nearly everything I have complained about in this letter predates your accession to office. Some of it was started by Indira Gandhi and much of it was consolidated by Narasimha Rao. But the problem with the imperial prime ministership is that it can only be dismantled by a prime minister himself -- and that too, only if he really pushes.

I believe, prime minister, that you have no desire to live and travel in a manner befitting the president-for-life of a banana republic. It is not just an inconvenience for the people of this country; it is an insult to the democratic character of our country.

Such are the compulsions of governance in your kind of coalition, that it will be hard for you to be remembered for having put your stamp on the government. For nearly everything you want to do, there will be at least two factions in the government that will jump up and oppose the initiative.

But here, at last, is something that you can do.

You have an opportunity to be remembered as the first prime minister in recent times who recognised that he was here to serve the people and not to rule over them. The United Front government may well become a footnote in the history books, a mark of a transition to a more stable political arrangement. But what is true of the government is not true of the prime minister.

Seize the initiative. Throw away the trappings of power. Dismantle the imperial prime ministership. Remember that you may be prime minister of India today, but you will always be plain old H D Deve Gowda from a small village in Karnataka.

Do all this and people will stop sniggering when you keep referring to yourself as a poor farmer. They will recognise that you are a simple man who is trying to do his best. And they will remember you as the one prime minister who had the guts to say that he was happy to be himself.

Yours truly,

Vir Sanghvi

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