The distasteful episode in which police constables attached as VIP escorts to the Assembly Speaker and Khundrakpam MLA, Th Lokeshwor, brutally assaulted a superior officer of their own police establishment because the latter would not promptly give way to the Speaker`™s convoy, should be cause enough for the government and the people alike to reflect on what is going wrong with Manipur. Indeed, it must be acknowledged that there are many things, plebeian to profound, not so right with Manipur and its ways today. To begin with an image most immediate evoked by the current controversy is the almost absolute lack of traffic order on our roads. Worse still, the roads have become the arena for contest of power, status and perceived self importance amongst their users. Leading the destruction of this traffic order are the VIPs who seem to think the roads belong to them alone and whenever they pass by, all else must make themselves scarce.
Let there be no dispute about this that the roads belong to all citizens in a democracy. Since every class of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists have to share them, there would have to be a definite system and management to ensure all get their rightful share of this important public facility. This is precisely where city planners in Manipur have been miserably failing. Even in the capital city Imphal, there is hardly a road with pedestrian pavement or cycle tracks. In stretches where these are indeed marked, they are used as vehicle parking area. This being the case, pedestrians, cyclists, rickshaws, two wheelers, cars, passenger buses, trucks… all share the same space on the roads. For whatever the reason, even heavy passenger vehicles are still allowed to enter and park within the city core, as is the case with the Keishampat bus parking outside the state library. It is amidst this chaos that our VIPs expect all to give way the minute they are sighted, without any delay. It is for the failure to do this that the police constables escorting the Speaker, Th. Lokeshwor, decided to take the law into their own hands and severely beat up and rob their superior officer, as if being VIP escort is a promotion in service rank. If this had happened in the Army, little or nothing could have saved these constables from a court martial. But even in civil jurisprudence, there are laws that act as deterrents against such shows of extreme indiscipline in a supposedly regimented organisation. To ensure the prestige of the state police organisation is not unduly hurt, the police brass, and the home department, must ensure this show of unprecedented insubordination does not go unpunished.
Even as the city planners hopefully begin applying their minds how best to sort out the traffic optimally, let there be certain very definite norms put in vogue in according VIP privileges too. Since the Speaker is in news, we will use his example. When the Assembly is in session, the Speaker and indeed all legislators must be given priorities equal to those given to ambulances and fire service vehicles on emergency duties, while commuting to and from the Legislative Assembly. Nobody will dispute it is wrong for an Assembly session to be delayed because the Speaker was stuck in a traffic jam. Everyone must be obliged to pull aside and make way even it means some inconvenience. When the Assembly is not in session, but the Assembly secretariat is not on holiday, the Speaker and other VIPs should still get priority on the road, though not so desperately urgent as in the earlier scenario. But in off duty hours or on holidays, if the VIPs decide to go visiting friends, or party in each other`™s houses, or returning late evenings from their courtesans`™ homes, their convoys should not be allowed to use their beacon lights or the sirens and make themselves a public nuisance. People are generally decent, and will give them way, but this should be left to the latters`™ discretion and the VIPs should not complain. Let a little humility be a quality of these VIPs. As the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi said a year ago upon assuming office, they are but public servants and not masters.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/grading-vip-privileges/