If you wish to reach someone of consequence in the Delhi @BJP4India Govt, you need connections. And in this land, the poor people, even the middle class, do not have this kind of reach. It is only the rich, the powerful, the elite, who know someone, who will put them in touch with the right person. @narendramodi when he was a Gujarat Chief Minister, made sure that in his government this type of string-pulling did not happen, which means that he ordered his ministers and his higher officials, not to recommend anybody even if it came from friends or family. This worked in Gujarat. Unfortunately, Delhi remains Delhi, as you still need to go through a ring of five to seven people, from the phone operator to the private secretary, to reach a minister. You might remember a few years ago, that a famous Delhi sports stadium was being emptied of sportspersons practicing (and God only knows how sportsmen and women in India, other than cricketers, have to slog, with little funding and Media interest), because a top bureaucrat and his wife wanted to walk their dog in the evening. Therefore, it is necessary to take a look at Indian VVIP culture, which is @INCIndia legacy.
As in Soviet Union, Nehru compensated the low salaries of politicians, bureaucrats, or police, by giving them disproportionate privileges. The tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi, and later of her son, Rajiv, worsened this VVIP culture by adding security cover as an extra symbol of power. We know how much discomfort this VVIP culture has caused to the common man everywhere and how it also triggered huge waves of corruption, as politicians, bureaucrats and police were not made accountable. When the BJP came to power, everyone had high hopes that this VVIP culture would be slowly dismantled, as many of the new rulers came from the rank of the @RSSorg , which picks up its cadres from the common people and makes sure they stay in touch with this vital strata of Indian society, that forms the BJP’s main electoral constituency. Indeed, in the first two years, the new PM tried to extricate himself from the straightjacket of VVIP culture, by attempting to minimizesecurity around him, drive to the airport without blocking all the roads and generally reach out to people, shake hands etc. He also instructed his ministers, as he had done in Gujarat, to have daily open durbars (public audience), where ordinary folks could meet the ministers.
But this welcome change was battered by Nehruvian bureaucracy: a minister has at least four or five private or personal secretaries (PA & PS), who themselves have undersecretaries, who themselves have lower bureaucrats at their beck and call, who themselves have peons, etc. These people would have, for the most, become irrelevant, if Mr Modi had succeeded in bypassing them. Therefore, they did not allow it – and today, as it was in the time of Congress, (bureaucracy has tripled in numbers since I was an active journalist), it is extremely difficult to get through to a Minister, even if you have genuine work. So only the old tool of access remains the same: connections. I have called this the ‘Curse of Delhi’.
I remember one time, a very high-level member of Mr Modi’s Govt, whom I will not name here, inaugurated in Delhi one of our Shivaraj Museum of Indian History exhibitions Though it was only a small event, his staff gave us a set of strict security guidelines (nobody to enter the room where he will freshen up for 24 hours, how to get up when he entered, how to greet him etc.). When the VVIP came, I asked him after the event, as I had met him before and I knew he came from RSS, why such obsolete rules? He answered that in terms of security and protocol, there is a ‘Blue Book’ made by the Congress on VVIP movement, security, protocol etc & that it would require new legislation and a sitting of parliament to change it. I met him again later at one of the World Hindu Conferences in Chicago and it seemed to me that he had well and happily settled in this VVIP straightjacket, as most of Mr Modi’s Government’s ministers have today.
Nowhere is the absurdity and the enormous cost on the Indian Exchequer and taxpayers evident, than in the offices of the @rashtrapatibhvn Vice-President, Governors, which are a leftover of the British Raj. The Vice President and the President as well as the Governors of each state, have practically NO power at all, but the staff they employ and the money that they spend on them, is staggering (for instance, A RTI dated back from 2018, stated that more than 500 people are employed by the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s Palace), including 28 cooks, 37 drivers, 184 gardeners and 57 cleaners!). It will need a constitutional reform so that India adapts a Parliamentary system, similar to the one in France, whereby you have a President and a Prime Minister who belongs to the majority and possesses a fair amount of power. This would automatically scrap the British system of the King, Viceroy etc, that was blindly adopted by India in 1947.
The adulation that VVIPs still receive from their staff, has unfortunately not changed today. A minister does not have as much staff as the President or the Vice President, but nevertheless a Union Minister has at least a hundred people around him, both in his office and a special bungalow in New Delhi that is allotted to him or her. In fact, most of New Delhi is filled with these bungalows, not only for ministers but also for Supreme Court judges, Government secretaries, as well as flats for joint and under-secretaries. Recently I had gone to see a minister, that I would not name here – and as we were in the reception, his junior Minister (State Minister) came in, a lady for that matter, and everybody sprang to attention – security, junior staff, policemen, etc – as she walked in with her head high, like she was some kind of empress (I also knew her from before, fairly nice lady then)! It may seem funny but unless India comes out of this political worship which encourages corruption, it cannot move forward as a superpower. There, maybe, the BJP Government seems to have failed the 500 million ordinary people of India who voted for it in the hope that it would change the system… Today at least 60% of police work is VVIP security and this is a betrayal to the good Indian people who elected politicians to better their lot.
My conclusion: in spite of superb efforts on the part of India’s Prime Minister, the VVIP culture has endured and still plagues India. It would need a revolution, such as shifting the capital away from Delhi to a more central place like Bhopal, Ujain or Indore, to break the backbone of VVIP culture (all the top VIP’s are in Delhi), Media (which would have to relocate), politicians, (for whom Delhi is the Mecca), the diplomats (who would not know what to do with themselves in their fortified bunkers of Shanti path) and India’s bloated, arrogant and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy (half of whom would become irrelevant). #VVIPCurse @GarudaPrakashan Read my book to know more
https://garuda.us/india-hindus-narendra-modi-a-look-at-shri-narendra-modis-extraordinary-achievementsbut-also-where-he-may-have-faltered & https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0D1KH2XTZ?ref=myi_title_dp In the USA: https://garuda.us/india-hindus-narendra-modi-a-look-at-shri-narendra-modis-extraordinary-achievementsbut-also-where-he-may-have-faltered
FRANCOIS GAUTIER 
I fully agree with you Francois. This is the biggest curse to the ordinary Indian people like us. I think only PM Modi can do something drastic to change or break this nefarious VVIP culture introduced by Congress for decades. What we can do further to ensure this message reaches PM Modi and he acts to ensure that India has a more central capital and also break this mafia run VVIP culture brigade, please let us know. Thank you.