Millions of taxpayers’ rupees are expended every year on the Special Protection Group that provides various levels of security cover to very select political leaders and their families, bureaucrats, judges and MPs, including those who have remitted office. Arguments persist over whether some of them actually merit such high-grade cover, and the administration consequently is under pressure to downsize the privilege.
Delhi police have taken the lead in calling back nearly 100 police personnel assigned to VIP duty. While this is a welcome start, it is too little considering that about 6,000 police personnel are assigned to the 400-odd VIPs in Delhi and the police force not just in the national capital but also in other states across India is overstretched and understaffed.
The outrage against such excessive flaunting of power by our ruling elite reached a crescendo post-26/11. There is no good reason for chief justices of the Supreme Court and high courts or sundry bureaucrats and politicians to be guarded and tailed by security personnel round-the-clock. They are supposed to serve the citizens, but they make a public nuisance of themselves whenever they step out for a spin around town, accompanied as they are by a posse of security personnel in a train of cars.
Security guards, particularly the elite Black Cat commandos, have become prized status symbols among the VIPs. The size of the security contingent allotted determines the VIP’s rank in the pecking order. At the top of the heap are the VVIPs who merit a Z-plus ranking, which comes complete with customised Black Cats. Z-plus is followed, in descending order of importance, by Z, Y and X, with a corresponding scaling down of security cover in each instance. By such alphabetic reckoning, the common citizen would be very lucky indeed if he is rated A-minus.
The VIPs and VVIPs have become a much-misunderstood lot, particularly after 26/11. A lot of irate people have been asking a lot of questions about the often totally unnecessary security cover provided to the privileged class at the expense of the common citizen who increasingly is exposed to terrorism, criminality and other law-and-order problems, many of which arise because of shortage of police personnel for normal assignments.
According to recent reports, a total of 45,846 police personnel of various kinds are deployed to protect 13,319 designated VVIPs and their lesser sub-species across the country. Following outcry against such wastage of manpower for VIP security, there were reports of a re-look at the entire system of providing security at public expense. But such exercises have not made any perceptible change in the situation.
In 2006 the home ministry considered a proposal to make VIPs pay for their security, fully or partially, as most of the protected private individuals are not under threat in view of any public service rendered by them, and many are even rich enough to afford private security. But nothing tangible has come of it.
Providing state security to “very important persons” whose security is a matter of national or state concern is an accepted state function. The fact that a public functionary’s job involves functions and decision-making in the public interest that cannot possibly please all involved elements is reason enough to render him potentially vulnerable. Hence the need to put in place all possible security measures to safeguard against violent attacks.
But security is provided on the basis of threat perception assessed by intelligence agencies. This is often doctored to provide the individual higher security than he actually needs. There is also a category of persons for whom gun-toting commandos and a VIP red light on the hood of the armoured car are status symbols that add to the person’s aura.
Politicians constitute the biggest chunk of the so-called ‘endangered lot’. Security to them has to be provided not just when in power but at times also after they have demitted office. The threat could often be on account of the politician’s own misdeeds or his criminal record.
When the list of security-seekers extends to every sundry politician and bureaucrat, his kith and kin and socialites and activists, the business of “keeping VIPs safe” becomes a drain on the national exchequer. If a majority of this lot were made to pay from their pocket, there would be a more realistic assessment of the perceived threat. This emphasises the need for a policy for providing realistic state security for those who have come under actual threat in the discharge of their official duties, and not for pseudo, devious or pompous status-seekers.
This has become all the more important since even the ordinary citizen in India has become vulnerable and security conscious. Over time, the realisation has dawned that society’s primary security provider - the police - is really not in a position to give protection to all people individually at all times.
The Supreme Court has on several occasions expressed its displeasure in no uncertain terms with excessive deployment of police for VIP security, thus ignoring the safety of citizens, especially women. It has recently berated the proliferation of red beacons and sirens on vehicles and urged the government to limit their use to top constitutional authorities and ask all others to remove them.
Providing security to the common man is the primary duty of any government worth its salt. The police-to-population ratio in India works out to one policeman for 761 citizens, which is much lower than the average in most other democracies. Still the government, treating security as a political patronage to be extended to its favourites, continues to bleed taxpayers’ money for the incorrigible security drills that throw life out of gear for lesser mortals.
The politicians and the police brass seem to have a vested interest in keeping the bogey of terrorism alive as they all stand to gain. There is a need to break the police-politician nexus. If the country is unsafe for citizens, so it should be for politicians. So it is time the police got back to policing and stopped playing bodyguards. Let the VIPs and VVIPs turn off the beacon and get on with their work, which is to serve the citizens of this country.