Opinion Fifth column: Perverted privileges

The upside is that it gives the Prime Minister a chance to re-examine the perks and privileges that our elected representatives enjoy, and put an end to some of them. Free air and rail travel, free telephone calls, free domestic and garden services and almost free everything else come with the perks of representing the poorest, most wretched people who ever got the right to vote. But, for me personally, the most undeserved perk of all is the right to live in Lutyens Delhi, in flats whose commercial rent today is a minimum of Rs 2 lakh a month. Those MPs who live in bungalows in this most exclusive enclave cost taxpayers a minimum of Rs 30 lakh a month just in rent.

The reason why this column has campaigned tirelessly against the ‘socialist’ practice of allowing our elected representatives to live like billionaires, is because I believe it deforms democracy. It is wrong for many reasons. Of these the most important is that the lure of a house in Lutyens Delhi is so great that too many people I know enter politics only to be able to keep Daddy or Mummy’s house. When beloved parent passes on or loses an election, an heir automatically appears just to hang on to the house. If the Lok Sabha becomes hard to get into, the adoring parent ensures that he keeps the family home through the Rajya Sabha. MPs who become chief ministers try to send a relative to Parliament to keep the house.

There is something about the privilege of living as our colonial masters did that changes even those MPs who enter public life with public service as their motive. I have seen fine men (and women) settle into the lavish new lifestyle that comes with living in a bungalow set in acres of garden, that changes their demeanour. It is as if they transition instantly from being public servants to rulers. High ideals and public service soon take second place to enjoying power and pelf while the going is good.

For Lok Sabha MPs, living in the tree-lined, salubrious Lutyens cocoon is especially dangerous because it takes them away from the problems that ordinary Indians face daily. So exclusive is their new neighbourhood that the only way to meet ordinary people is to hotfoot it to Jantar Mantar every time a new set of protesters appears. Last week, important political leaders suddenly became aware of the terrible plight of farmers in Tamil Nadu. Some years ago it was from here that Anna Hazare began his movement to make public servants behave like public servants, and the men he bred live today in the style of the rulers they once despised.

India is the only democratic country in which taxpayers pay for public servants to live like princes. It is a habit we learned from countries like China and the former Soviet Union. In Beijing and Moscow, Marxist potentates continue to live in the palaces of former tsars and emperors. It is not easy in those countries to oppose the whims and follies of rulers with immense powers to crush dissent. In India we can and must for the sake of democracy. Gaikwad’s shameful behaviour offers the Prime Minister a perfect opportunity to put in motion some necessary ‘parivartan’.