Our headline
preoccupations are actually surface trifles – oneupmanship over
presidential candidates, corruption cases, one lot holding up Sonia
Gandhi as goddess while another lot bows to Mamata Bannerjee as
sovereign, and so on. The reality behind the surface is that our
democracy is being vandalised by its very beneficiaries, the MPs and
the MLAs. They have become more self-serving than at any time since
elections began.
In the early
days their selfishness was limited to getting increased salary and
allowances. Compared to what was to come, those were days of
innocence. Even then, perceptive leaders were able to sense a
dangerous trend. Among them was Nanaji Deshmukh, a veteran
nationalist whose mind soared above the RSS with which he was
identified.
In 2005 he
wrote an open letter to express his anguish over MPs voting
themselves yet another salary increase. He was a member of the Rajya
Sabha, yet he wrote: “Much of the privileges and perquisites of
MPs, former MPs, and former PMs look more like privy purses and are
unconcerned with any public purpose”. He noted that salaries of
MPs had gone up 90 times in 50 years, “a mockery of democracy”.
Nanaji
Deshmukh would be left without words to describe the highway robbery
that's happening today. In something of a national scandal,
Air-India recently worked out a “high quality handling protocol”
for MPs. It stipulated procedures no one would have believed
possible: Air-India should depute staff to facilitate an MP's
check-in, an attendant should take his hand-carry bag into the
aircraft, cabin crew should constantly inquire about his comforts,
the captain himself should come and greet him and, at the arrival
airport, the duty manager should receive the MP.
Adding
insult to injury, the protocol was moved when Air-India was sick and
haemorrhaging, pilots were on strike, losses were running into
several crores a day. But MPs, guardians of the country and its
assets, could only think of how to secure more privileges for
themselves free of cost. The don't-care attitude was voiced by the
don't-care aviation minister himself. Ajit Singh justified the
protocol by declaring: “We are just saying give them due respect”.
To MPs of
this kind, what respect is due? To MPs who use diplomatic passports
to smuggle Indians to Canada, MPs who take bribes to raise questions
in Parliament, MPs who get elected while they are lodged in jail
cells, what respect is due? Let's not hear insipid arguments like,
all MPs are not bad. Of course they are not. But all MPs are
responsible when Parliament is stalled for every day of an entire
session, and when instrumentalities like House Committees are used
to unilaterally secure privileges at citizens' cost.
A Lok
Sabha House Committee has now asked for a protocol of privileges in
Delhi Metro: special ticket counters, staff to guide MPs to their
seats, etc. MPs have also demanded higher positions in the Warrant
of Procedure at public functions, lifting from 21st
to 17th
position in the gradation of VIPs and of course Lal
batti on top of their cars. Mercifully,
they have not asked for all traffic to halt when they are on the
road. Well, not yet.
These VIPs
(Very Irregular Persons) actually rob the country in addition to
squeezing it. MPs have voted themselves the privilege of 1.5 lakh
free telephone calls a year. Many exceed this and don't pay. There
are sitting MPs who owe 9 lakhs and 3 lakhs rupees each. But no
action can be taken against them because MPs have provided to
themselves “rules of immunity”. So the tax-paying citizen must
bear the cost. What respect is due to such MPs?
The final
straw comes from UP Assembly. The MLAs there have moved for special
privileges for those members who are in jail: A-Class status, phones
inside the cells, office facilities, incarceration in their home
constituencies. Their excuse is a variation on Ajit Singh's theme:
Respect due to public servants. No country is governed by a more
shameless class.