However, it appears that the people are no more willing to wait for VIPs. These may be minor acts of resistance to a political culture that has created the VIP species and endowed it with special privileges, but they indicate a trend. People are tired of making way for the red lights and blue lights that scurry past during peak traffic hours.
Why is that judge in a tearing hurry when he, probably, will take a decade to write his judgement? Where are the ministers/advisers buzzing off when the Government is wrapped up in red tape? People have had enough of VIPs and now the anger seems to be spilling out, which is not so good either. Public anger can at some point transform itself into mob fury.
Some of these public servants and officials do need the security since the offices they hold make them liable to terrorist attacks. But there is a distinction between legitimate security and flaunting a VIP status. The latter is what many of our politicians and govt. officials do.
They tend to forget that Bangladesh is not just a parliamentary democracy but a republic as well. Every citizen has equal rights in a republic and security privileges given to a few people - because of the special circumstances in which they work - ought not to create new hierarchies in society.
As we have argued in these columns, the VIP is a throwback to a feudal era when people were mere subjects of the ruler. Our fetish for VIP inaugurations is reminiscent of the pomp and vanities of feudalism. Mature democracies have long done away with such inaugurations unless of course they are path-breaking ventures.
Roads and flyovers, airports, river and bus terminals, hotels and motels, rest houses are part of basic infrastructure, even though decades of shoddy governance make these look like special gifts from the government. The real VIP in a democracy is the citizen. The job of the public servers is to ensure that s/he is not kept waiting.
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