Flying low

As readers of this paper will know, the Sahib Singh Verma-Jet Airways saga has just got more outrageous. A day after the Union labour minister reportedly manhandled and abused three airline employees in Mumbai, there’s been an apology — by the airline to the minister! Top officials of the airline are said to be burning the telephone lines, when they are not actually flying down to New Delhi to meet and mollify the minister. A probe is underway, they promise, and ‘‘corrective measures’’ will be taken; the civil aviation ministry has ordered a separate investigation into the incident. The terms of both probes are writ brazenly large for all those who care to read: it is Jet Airways that is in the dock for the ‘‘discourteous’’ behaviour of its staff and the ‘‘inconvenience’’ caused to the honourable minister.

This is not the first time a minister has tried to get away with arrogant and boorish behaviour in public and it will certainly not be the last. Verma joins a growing galaxy of notables — the last airborne eminence to noisily insist she was above it all was Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi. The Bihar CM was indignant, remember, when she was allocated a seat she deemed to be incommensurate with her status. Though air travel seems to bring out the worst in our politicos, they misbehave at ground level as well. There’s the extravagantly fussy security paraphernalia that unapologetically disrupts everyday lives of ordinary citizens. There are the self-indulgent birthday celebrations where leaders fete themselves, all expenses charged to the public exchequer. The instances are varied but they all attest to the same phenomenon: of the politician who paints himself or herself as larger than the people. Of a vain and inward looking political class that considers itself accountable to none.

A democracy sustains itself on more than laws and institutions. It is nourished also by the unlegislated intangibles — the unwritten norms and codes of conduct that add up to a healthy political culture. It isn’t just that Verma created a similar nuisance seven months ago on another flight. Or that he has made a singularly offensive remark to a Muslim official in the present instance. The incident on Jet Airways flight 9W-406 and the minister’s continuing lack of apology is part of a pattern. Fifty and more years into our democracy, we have not laid down the lines.