Probably no one will consider this an important enough subject of debate, given the plummeting value of the rupee, the threat of a sovereign debt default in Europe or, of course, the frenetic posturing taking place in the BJP firmament on who is to be the prime ministerial face of the party in the next Lok Sabha elections.

After all, does it matter in any way who is travelling in a car with a red beacon fitted on its roof which, nowadays, is not noticed at all by those who live in cities and towns across the country?

SERVANTS OF THE PUBLIC

And yet, the Supreme Court has recently thought fit to focus attention on the subject, for a reason which catapults the phenomenon to the level where one usually finds matters like corruption, etc, ruling the roost. Corruption is, of course, a national scourge, which is slowly and silently eating into the entrails of the national character, affecting not just the ruling segments of society but also the average citizen, who today finds himself unable to pursue the business of living unless he is prepared to grease the palm of the lowliest representative of the State, sitting across the table in the dingiest of rooms.

It can be no one's case that corruption is condoned by the Constitution. Similarly, no one will suggest that the use of a red beacon on top of vehicles is sanctioned by the Constitution for every Tom, Dick and Harry, who has been successful in getting a Government job, or is employed by organisations such as municipalities and the like.

This, in fact, is the central message which the Supreme Court has sent to the nation at large, when it decided last week to convert a petition filed before it, into a public interest litigation, to enable it to (as reported) “examine the guidelines governing grant of security to VIPs to prevent its misuse”. One of the two judges, before whom the petition was placed, is quoted as having said: “Public servants are actually servants of the public”, the inference being that, being so, these “servants” have no business to misuse the privileges given to the most important among them and, in the process, upset the daily routine of life of the Indian public.

PAST COLONIAL GLORY

The petitioner's counsel, who will argue the case before the court in the middle of October, stated unequivocally, that the very principle of public servants flaunting “a posse of security and beacon-attached fleet of cars” needs to be revisited, specially now, when more than six decades have passed since the country gained its independence.

The point was made that “it was time to remove these colonial period instruments, elevating public servants to a class above the common man,” which was perhaps a necessity during the colonial times but is, emphatically, not so now. The counsel reflected the widespread view that, “unfortunately, it is now a common practice among those who hold public office, or are connected with political parties, to seek security as a status symbol.”

Put simply, a Government employee, even a Constitutional personage, need not broadcast to the public that he is a special human being, particularly when he is out in the streets in his conveyance.

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