Some people more equal than others?

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JAN. 26. To invite a person and then treat him as a security risk amounts to humiliation. This is what has been happening at Raj Bhavan for some years now and it was the same story this evening when the Governor, Ms. V.S. Rama Devi, hosted the customary Republic Day "At Home".

The police personnel frisked all the invitees who entered the Raj Bhavan by foot. They included many who had been issued car passes to enter Raj Bhavan but were turned away for want of space within the compound. They were also asked to produce their invitations and pass through metal detectors.

The only persons whose credentials were not questioned and who were treated more equally than others were those who entered the Raj Bhavan compound in government cars on a government holiday. They included ministers and their entourage, senior civil and military officials.

Some senior police officials admitted in private that such blatant discrimination had no place in any foolproof security arrangement.

It may be recalled that the most famous of the protests against frisking by policemen took place at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan in New Delhi some years ago. Some overzealous securitymen asked the former Chief Justice of India, Mr. M.N. Venkatachalaiah, who was then a judge of the Supreme Court, to go through the metal detector even after he had identified himself. Mr. Justice Venkatachalaiah, who had been invited for a function, walked out in protest. The Rashtrapathi Bhavan officials later apologised to him.

It is noticed that the same discriminatory security arrangement exists at the office of the Commissioner of Police. No questions are asked if you enter the compound in your car. But if you walk into it, you also walk into the security check.

After becoming the first woman Governor of the State, Ms. Rama Devi has done well to throw open the Raj Bhavan to the members of the public for some days in the year. This time it will be open from Saturday till February 2 (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) For many years, even when the Mughal Gardens on the vast Rashtrapathi Bhavan estate on Raisina Hill used to be open to the public for some days in a year, the Karnataka Raj Bhavan in Highgrounds in the City was out of bounds all through the year.

In the past, some of the governors were not receiving even university professors though they were also chancellors of the universities. One former governor's secretary had even instructed his personal staff not to put through calls from journalists. It is many years since the Raj Bhavan stopped issuing to the press a daily bulletin regarding the persons who used to call on the governor.

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Section  : Southern States
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