Maharashra Herald/14th Feb’05

The great and honest citizens of Pune get justifiably well and truly distracted as well as reasonably agitated whenever our President comes visiting. It is the same everytime, as we go about thanking our stars that this does not happen too often and that the Prime Minister as well as other dignitaries usually leave Pune alone. It is clear to them, obviously, that we in Pune have no time for economists as we go about strengthening our industries and universities, not to forget defences. Also, please note, our hotels are always full, we don’t even have room for the real rulers of India, our Indian cricket team.

So every time the drill is the same, no left turn here, no right turn there, no parking anywhere, barricades to all sides of us and great pomp as well as glory on show by a wide assortment of usually petty functionaries pretending to represent the might and weight of our Sarkar from Delhi. If nothing else or if they are getting bored, and his special flights from Delhi are delayed due to fog, then they will stand and blow whistles as well as shout at harmless people. Sometimes one can be forgiven if one thinks that the English have returned, and not just to shoot for another Aamir Khan movie too.

That the current incumbent Sovereign Citizen of India and illustrious resident of the Viceregal Palace, oops, Rashtrapati Bhavan, up on the top of Raisina Hill in Dilli, is probably visiting us in Pune more towards keeping alive his associations with his previous activities than towards executing his duties is another thing. That he is himself a humble person provides him with some amount of latitude with the citizens of Pune as his entourage and handlers go about bumbling things up to the best of their combined abilities.

(By the way, no, I am not referring to the current British Viceroy, another oops, High Commissioner to India. That eminent plenipotentiary extraordinary is known to travel by 2nd Class Sleeper without much fanfare using a railway ticket booked at a counter or maybe over the Internet, like other people in his and our countries.)

But that is not the point. Observation here is that our administration appears to be learning more from every visit about how to treat the rest of us too while the President is in town. Each visit appears to cause less grief than the last for the man on the road in Pune. We thank the President for this concern for our dignity, after all, most of the interaction we have with his Government on a daily basis occurs only when we step out on the roads.

The point is, however, that the said administration ends up causing greater disruption and attacks on our dignity in the days and hours leading up to his visit, as well as subsequently. There are signs of great hustle and bustle before the President arrives, which often have nothing to do with the visit anyway. I mean, sirens blaring, lights revolving and roads being cleared for portly little babujis and madamjis and their cohorts to attend meetings days BEFORE or to return home AFTER the President has left? The real VIP has not even come, or has left, so who are these guys? If they were so important, then why didn’t they get on the plane with him?

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Delhi used to be worse. There it was open hunting season on the citizens every time somebody visited. If a few guns were not pointed at you in the course of your daily commute, then you felt as though you were being discriinated against, that there was something very wrong with you. Like smallpox.

Not just on roads from the Airport to wherever they were staying but also to Rajghat at the other end of town or a vast variety of parks, houses of worship and ancient monuments. Or just to hospitals, maybe to nightclubs, not in that order though. Over the decades, however, it seems to have solved itself, partly due to the increasingly more frequent use of helicopters as well as partly due to that marvel of Indian technology, the Metro.

And the beauty of the whole thing is that the Metro in Delhi does not, as yet, fall along any route that the dignitaries take.

The very unique thing about the Delhi Metro, other than the technology which is now validated worldwide without much fuss and sought to be replicated by countries far more advanced, is this:- to ride it, everybody has to buy a ticket. No exemptions. Np passes. The Prime Minister bought one. So did the Chief Minister, the Members of Parliament, their Secretaries, even Railway staff have to buy a ticket unless they are actually operating the trains. Visiting dignitaries andf their entourages buy tickets, because much of the technology for cash management and occupancy control emanates from this simple function. Students, local cops, minor functionaries, political leaders, not only do they all buy tickets like the rest of us but can be seen buying them. "Just like Singapore", as a friend who is older than me but still a "youth leader", smugly pointed out to me as we stood together in a fast moving line.

And it gets everybody the same rights. A designated ride in a very clean and efficient system, as well as a maximum of 75 minutes on the premises. Half tickets based on height. Common parking spaces which lie beyond the access roads for public transport. The idea is to keep people moving with minimal obstructions and equal rights as well as obligations. The schedule for the trains does not get disrupted if a dignitary comes visiting, other than keeping a coach or two vacated only if required. Stress again, the dignitaries, especially the foreign ones, and everybody with them, are known to just buy a ticket and gladly ride with everybody else. Everybody rides with dignity, to repeat and stress again and again on a point.

The downstream effect of this simple lesson on the sociology of the people of a city innured to being pushed around by everybody since the days of Ghenghis Khan and even before, can already be felt in Delhi. To start with, women are safer. Late night cultural shows are held without any problems. And the ethos of equal dignity for dignitaries and citizens is spreading as the Metro increasingly makes an intermodal linkage with the other symbols of governance, the interstate bus terminals, city buses, railway stations and airports. Not to forget markets and hosiptals.

When governance takes visible steps to provide "the public" with equal dignity, then the public respond with social ownership. And true respect.

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I read, as do you, that governance in Pune is about to spend a minor fortune on trying to improve local mobility. There are better people than us who will decide which technology to use. All we as citizens of Pune would wish for, in my opinion, is that these solutions provide all of us with equal dignity.

Otherwise, sorry to say, but Pune is going to go the way Delhi went. Too many visible petty rulers pretending to be dignitaries and doing too much naatak, getting no respect, and too little dignity for the rest of us.