November 2009: A 32 year old man died in Chandigarh because of lack of access to timely medical treatment. Oh and by the way, this happened in front of a well known hospital there. He could not get inside the hospital in time because our Prime Minister was visiting the hospital for some function and hence the security had to be strict, which meant that a family had to lose a member.
July 2010: An 8 year old boy suffered serious head injuries at his home in Kanpur. His parents wanted to take him to a nearby hospital, but only to find out that due to the PM visit, the security had been tightened and hence they had to take a diversion. This diversion proved fatal to the boy as the 1 km distance to the hospital turned into an hour’s drive.
December 2010: A 46 year old man died of heart-attack in an ambulance while he was on his way to a hospital in Delhi. The ambulance was stuck in a traffic jam near Rajghat because the PM’s convoy had to pass through that route.
(http://www.deccanherald.com/content/122067/aam-aadmi-dies-pms-convoy.html)
These are some incidents that I came across when I searched for “PM convoy traffic jam”. And I searched for something like this because of what had happened some days ago: While going to office, I was stuck in a traffic jam for at least 20 minutes. 5 minutes into the wait, I realized that the other side of the road had no vehicles on it. There were only certain policemen there behaving in an extra cautious way, reproaching the rare innocent pedestrian that came out from nowhere. Only my side of the road leading to Pragati Maidan was full of vehicles, the drivers of which were surprisingly done with and were now bored of honking their horns, whereas the other side of the road was as empty as the outer space.
I asked the auto-driver about this. He seemed to know everything about it and also seemed to have made his peace with the situation.
"Koi minister winister saahab jaane waale honge yahan se, isliye rasta rok diya hai, jis se wo aasani se guzar sakein (it must be some minister about to pass this way, due to which they have blocked the roads to let him pass freely)," replied the autowaala on me questioning him.
I instantly felt an anger building inside me. I was full of rage against what was happening. How conveniently had this been assumed that the time of a minister, even the PM, is more important than the citizens of this country whom the PM is supposed to serve. So what if he, being the PM, has to be treated with the Z+ security protocol which makes all this blocking of roads justifiable. Does that mean that the valuable time of so many people will have to be lost? Make different paths for them if required, why waste a common man’s time?
I waited, for I could do nothing. Not so soon, a bunch of luxurious cars combined with police vehicles started pouring in at full speed and sped away to the other side. And it was then that the traffic could move again.
What if the car in front of me had a patient in dire need of reaching a hospital? Who would take care of his health? Is the time of a PM, who is also a citizen of this country, so important that another citizen has to give away his life for him? When compared to the PM, is there no value of one’s time or, worse, life? Is this not a pathetic situation for all of us?
And it was only when I Googled this, that I got to know of the above 3 mentioned mishaps. Who knows how many more people have lost their lives, that could not be reported? Who knows how many students have missed their exams due to such stupidities? Who knows how many man-hours have been irreversibly wasted because of this wait?
The point is very simple: Whether you are a PM or some other minister aspiring for a higher grade of security cover for yourself, please do a favour to the poor helpless citizens of your country: Either get yourselves built separate high class roads for your travelling or use a helicopter. Or better still, try and be a normal citizen and let your car be in the same lane as that of a common man, while looking at that poor luggage loader in front of you waiting for the traffic lights to turn green.
This behaviour is not specific to any particular PM. Also this is something that has nothing to do with which political party the PM belongs to - this behaviour is in-built into our country’s system. Considering a minister as someone who is a level higher than a common man has always been important - for the minister and for us. There needs to be a change to this thinking. Any minister should not be feared or revered just because of the fact that he is a minister.
In hope that, in future, there are no more deaths or missed exams because of things like these.