The current government has
continuously been taxing itself to introduce some ice breaking reforms both in
the economic and political landscape of the country. The decision to go away
with the beacons is one such decision taken by the Indian government
recently. Our honorable Prime Minister,
Sri. Narendra Modi informed the nation about the decision taken in a union
cabinet meeting by a tweet that read ‘Every Indian is special. Every Indian is
a VIP.’
In his monthly radio programme 'Mann
Ki Baat' he said that the concept of VIP should be replaced with
"EPI", meaning "Every Person is Important". He further
added "I did not know that people have so much contempt for the VIP
culture before we took the decision recently banning use of red beacons on
vehicles of ministers and others,"
However only time would tell
how far this symbolic decision to get rid of the beacons would be able to annihilate
the VIP culture from the mind of the so called VIPs. As of now, it seems that it would take a lot of
time to eradicate the VIP culture from the mindset of these VIPs. Recent cases
of various politicians’ and VIPs’ misbehavior with the flight crew, helping
staff or the toll staff show how deep the roots of VIP culture have been
penetrated into the minds of our VIPs and we need more efforts than these
administrative decisions to obliterate them. Even the Prime Minister iterated
this fact by saying "Although the 'lal batti' is gone now, nobody
can claim that because of this, the VIP culture which has gone into the mindset
would have also gone," he said.
Now that government has come up
with a decision to end the VIP culture that has been burgeoning since
independence, it must also make sure that this decision is implemented at all
the levels. Our bureaucracy and politicians must also understand that before
being a VIP they are the citizens of this country and must treat their fellow
citizens equally and respectfully. Only then we would be able to justify the
idea of new India which has been suggested by our Prime Minister at various
platforms.
