Shekhar Gupta has an excellent article in the IE. Gupta who also anchors the program “Walk the Talk” for NDTV, sounds much better in the written word than the spoken. Here he presents an effective case against the pervading VIP culture :

And, of these, nothing is more important than our rapidly proliferating VIP culture. The janata identifies anybody political — or powerful — in any way as a VIP and hates him. It can be the white ambassador with red light and two armed policemen bearing down on you at a traffic intersection, a minister accompanied by security men swinging him past airport barriers and security, his motorcade flying past, leaving your village under a pall of dust, and, most of all, people jumping queues all over the place, from airports, railway stations to hospitals.

Delhi these days seems to be full of Ministers and their egos. At airports Ministers coming through get ridiculous welcomes, garlands and hangers-on all ready to honor the important personage. Why should Ministers and their ilk get to not pay tolls, or breeze through security checks the rest of the citizens are subject to ? But then as Gupta points out, VIPdom is less about privileges and more about status.

BUT VIP-hood is not so much a matter of avoiding inconvenience as of flaunting status. What is the point of becoming a minister if I am taken so lightly that even a CISF sub-inspector can give me a pat down?
. . .
This is because VIP culture is not so much about freebies, convenience or perks as about pomposity of rank. It is to tell the janata who their new royalty is, and who matters in this country and who (the fare-paying citizen) doesn’t.

It seems ridiculous to me that in a country which is so concerned with the “aam aadmi” , that the very term VIP (Very Important Person) still exists, and was not abolished along with the princes and their privy purses.