Why do we have VIP culture? I am disturbed by the fact that we are disturbed by it, and that the channels are often full of it. I write in empathy. Let’s first agree about what VIP culture is. Its assumption is that individuals are hierarchically ordered and the ones lower down must submit and be shown to submit to the ones above.

Assuming this is so, in what part of our society, in what aspect of Indian life, do we have VIP culture? In what part of our culture do we have a hierarchy based on status? This is to understand whether VIP culture (i.e., people treated as being important) comes naturally to us.

Do we have VIP culture in religious life? Yes. We have groups born to status in religion (are we the only people on the planet to have this feature? I think so), who are accepted as higher and given the appropriate respect for their gene quality.

In our working life? Yes. Is having the “office boy" (dreadful term) carry your briefcase an unusual sight? Not really, even in the most sophisticated of places. I am willing to bet, though I haven’t been in one recently, that the desk in the mid-ranking government officer’s citadel still sports the bell with which to summon the menial, as one would an animal.

What about hierarchy in domestic life? Yes. A primary feature here is reverence for “elders" (a word that reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkien stories). In family life? Yes. Do we have a clear hierarchy for gender? Of course. Not only are our beloved boys VIPs, girls are often intolerable.

None of this hierarchy is from merit. It is just that these people are special.

Why then does it surprise, much less enrage, us when we are confronted with VIP culture from actual VIPs? It puzzles me.

We are a nation of hypocrites who advertise servant quarters and separate elevators but get upset when we are treated as being lower in status by politicians on the street or on an aeroplane. What is the difference between the former lowering of status (the deliberate “putting in place") and the latter? None. We are the same with respect to the VIP as our servant is to us. Hurts, doesn’t it?

And so I would say it is those who are upset by VIP culture who are on the wrong side of Indian tradition. The VIP acts Very Important because he is. We accept it through our own behaviour. We hate only that we are not part of it. Would most of us be inside aeroplanes on time if we could delay them at will? Of course not. Please (as today’s young say to show their disdain). Nothing in India that is left to the public’s voluntary punctuality is on time. We even have a clever phrase for it: “Indian Standard" time.

Should we expect those who have come into money and power to act differently? When I first came to Mumbai to find a job on the stock market, my friend Sahil Patel, who then worked for a brokerage, told me a story. He had observed that at his peak, the late stockbroker Harshad Mehta would be allowed to go into Dalal Street’s elevators alone by the awestruck Gujarati brokers. They lowered their status out of respect and admiration for him, but how is that different from VIP culture asserting itself?

Is there another explanation for “VIP culture"?

My friend R. Jagannathan, who edits the website Firstpost.com, had a crack at the thing. He wrote: “We were not always like this. Just two generations ago, we produced god-fearing, reasonably disciplined people who had good manners, if nothing else."

He added:

“Part of that was the result of a culturally ingrained respect for elders—which still endures, possibly for the wrong reasons—but as the post-independence generations grew prosperous and able to afford the conveniences of life, our parenting styles changed. We suddenly loosened up on basic responsibilities, hoping that schools or somebody else will do the job on our behalf even as we chased careers, luxury products, and the good life for ourselves.

“Indian parenting loses out when we are afraid to offer tough love to our children, as a result of which they grow into self-indulgent, uncaring, ill-mannered kids that demand attention and instant gratification at someone else’s cost."

I do not think we were very different as a people a few decades ago. Our parents were the same. And their parents. Then, as now, the most civilized of us, those with access to the more humane traditions of the West, are not very different in essence from other Indians. Those whom we might think of as being uncivilized. Hierarchies are ingrained here.

The collegial way of working is not for us. No need for me to look far here. Look at the media. What Indian editor given full control is not a dictator? Newspapers are run as tyrannies. Certainly that is the way I ran all of mine. I was wrong to do so, yes, but I was operating inside a tradition.

And so TV shows breathing fire and brimstone on the poor politician, who is only doing what all of us do or would like to do, are entertaining but not illuminating.

I await the fireworks when this third-class civilization finally understands itself. What a fun show that will be.

Aakar Patel is executive director of Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are personal.

To read Aakar Patel’s previous Lounge columns, click here.

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