05/07/2017
Old habits die hard, and so does the deeply ingrained feudal mindset of our rulers who feel that they are and shall always remain more equal than all others, no matter if the country they live in transpires to be a democracy that promises equal rights and liberties to every denizen. So they are not liable to facilely give up one of their numerous privileges ~ the utilization of a symbol of potency to flaunt. It was first the ubiquitous red beacon, which then mutated into the blue beacon and now it has metamorphosed into a flag, of different sizes and shapes. A mere tokenism like the Central GovernmentтАЩs order precluding utilization of all kinds of beacons by ministers and bureaucrats; it was not expected to make any earnest dent into the entrenched feudal mindset of our rulers. However, one was woefully misconstrue in believing that the rulers and rule-makers will at least show the courteousness to comply with rules. One forgot that they are kenned more for bending the rules to suit their desiderata ~ in this case, their prurience for clinging to the vestiges of some imagined power whose charm and pertinence are expeditious evanescent in a modernising India that is gradually shedding its medieval appendages.
The beacons, in red, yellow, blue, amber and white, designated the sundry shades of our VIP culture and our sacred feudal inheritance. At the optical discernment of these propitious lights, traffic gets cleared instantly while all others are made to wait, toll plaza barriers are hoisted automatically with no fees charged and obligation officers intellectively stand up and salute the cars carrying the holy agents of our Mai Baap Sarkar. But then a thoughtless Central order has spelled the ultimate doom for these fabulous privileges relished by the mighty and potent in this land of the mundane and the impalpables.
From May 1, the Centre has ostracized the utilization of beacons on cars utilized by VIPs ~ ministers, politicians, bureaucrats and all other dignitaries. The proscription doesnтАЩt exempt even the countryтАЩs highest dignitaries ~ President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice. Only ambulances and conveyances of emergency and security accommodations ~ fire brigade, police and army ~ are sanctioned to utilize beacons, for reasons no one will question. But the lal-batti culture, equated with the status symbol ever since the colonial rulers had introduced the embroidery, was sought to be ended once and for all, albeit no one expected the colonial mind that has nurtured and flaunted it to be reformed overnight. Rule 108 the Central Motor Conveyances Rules, 1989, that gave the states the puissance to decide who should be sanctioned to exhibit red and blue beacons has been amended, abstracting Clauses 1(iii), 2, 3, 5 and 6 vide Gazette Notification dated 1 May 2017 and the states now have no potency to amend these rules to reintroduce the omnipresent beacons widely vilipended by everyone other than their users (beneficiaries?).
West Bengal has now found a unique and ingenuous way to beat the CentreтАЩs beacon proscribe for regime conveyances. The state seems yet to retain some residue of its once-famed brainpower, albeit it is now counted among the laggard states in India in terms of scholastic standards, economic prosperity and political violence, indeed factors that are driving its remaining aptitude expeditious towards the greener southern pastures of the country. The West Bengal regime has just notified a scheme under which senior officials of the Indian Administrative Accommodation, who represent the regime at sundry levels, can utilize variants of flags on their official conveyances.
As per the тАЬflag schemeтАЭ, three types of flags ~ rectangular, swallow-tailed and triangular ~ have been notified depending on the rank of the official for use on the bonnet of their designated conveyances. While the rectangular, 10тАЭX6тАЭ, navy blue colour flags will be utilized by the Chief Secretary, Supplemental Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries, the Secretaries will be sanctioned to utilize swallow-tailed flags. The Divisional Commissioners can utilize only a rectangular flag, while Commissioners can utilize only a triangular flags. Not to leave out the districts, the District Magistrates have been sanctioned to utilize triangular flags. The Personnel and Administrative DepartmentтАЩs notification justifies the scheme utilizing a q***r logic, тАЬIn view of the paramount elevate in the caliber of interaction with sundry international and national level ascendant entities, it is felt that a flag for use on conveyances being utilized by senior officials of the state regime shall convey a more preponderant sense of governmentтАЩs intent and enable smoother interactions without compromising protocol.тАЭ
Even afore the proscription came into effect, the West Bengal Chief Minister was not kenned to utilize any beacon or even a pilot conveyance, like many Cumulation and State Ministers, among them the CMs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, Arvind Kejriwal, Yogi Adityanath and Captain Amarinder Singh, and Cumulation Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Kiren Rijiju. While most ministers and officials in the Amalgamation and the states have gracefully abided by the decision, some have obdurately relucted. There are many instances of conveyances of VIPs, officials and unauthorised persons defying the proscription in West Bengal, Bihar, Karnataka, and other places, including even lower-level politicians and officials, on the pretext that such an ostracization could pose challenges in case of law and injuctively authorize quandaries and for enforcement (which in any case has not been affected by the ostracization).
KolkataтАЩs Shahi Imam Maulana Barkati had earlier defied the orders, verbalizing the beacon has been there for тАЬhundreds of yearsтАЭ and incriminated the RSS of endeavoring to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra, which was ostensibly being facilitated by abstraction of the beacon. He was, however, persuaded to abstract it. In Karnataka, the Minister for Aliment and Civil Supplies relucted to abstract the red beacon, querying how such a move would avail poor people and abstract their hunger, implicatively insinuating that by flaunting the beacon he was authentically availing their cause. West BengalтАЩs PWD Minister, Arup Biswas, and the Chairman of Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Ascendancy were visually perceived utilizing the beacon long after the ostracization had come into effect, while the Bihar Convey Commissioner RK Mishra had verbalized that the proscription on beacon lights would not be enforced in Bihar till the central regime had тАШresolvedтАЩ remonstrations raised by the state against the already amended Rule 108. Pellucidly, the Convey Commissioner did not care for the convey laws of the country. But VIPs in our country are always a law unto themselves, as demonstrated pellucidly by the recent unruly comportment of Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad and TDP MP Diwakar Reddy.
Let alone abstracting a potent symbol of potency, the proscription is unlikely to be followed in a country where concepts of public accommodation, civic sense, decency, civilised deportment and democracy have all acquired perverted denotements. All endeavors to do away with such symbols of depravity had failed earlier. The ostracization has come three years after the Supreme Court had called the widespread utilization of red lights тАЬreflective of the Raj mentality and the antithesis of the concept of a Republic.тАЭ On 10 December 2013, the Court had ruled (in Abhay Singh Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others) that conveyances fitted with red beacons will be sanctioned only for dignitaries and directed all ascendant entities to enforce these orders within a month. Nothing authentically transpired. The initial list of five dignitaries was expanded to 12 and then to 27 while state officials and politicians merrily perpetuated to flout all rules. An American academic on his first visit to India a year ago, with whom I was travelling in Lucknow during the peak morning office hours, was optically canvassing with keen interest the passing ambassador cars flashing red beacons, their windows screened, and white lace curtains. I was regaled by his remark that he had aurally perceived of the famed Indian Jugaad, but never kenned that ambulances could be innovated and reconstituted in such an exhilarating manner. I had to expound it to him that these were not ambulances run by hospitals for mundane patients, but ambulances run by the state machinery for people sick with a sense of potency they did not possess. While authentic power perpetuated to drift away from their inept hands, they had been clinging to the symbols ever harder. They shall never let these go.
