The Debate on Celebrity Frisking/Detaining and Indian Security

This is the most debated topics in the recent days in India. These days in the mornings when I read the news, I come across at least one item containing this topic. Sometimes I wonder why all these things happen to India and Indians. Is it pure racial discrimination? Or is it their procedure and has been followed perfectly by them? Or is it us who are making a big deal out of their normal formalities? Or celebrities who have got enough publicity in their life still want more of it? Or is it the media that is building all these up? And many more questions cross one’s mind… The answer is definitely all these put together. All of us know the answer to this and still we keep debating and harping on it instead of trying to find out the way to stop all these confusions in future.

Now coming to the incidents of celebrity frisking, On 24th April 2009, our former President and a respectable man Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was frisked in Delhi airport by the American airline authorities. The notable part here is no one bothered about this for almost 2 months and the issue came up in the month of July. Here again one can come up with many questions like, were we all too busy around that time to bother about this? Or were we waiting for the media to start its game? Or were we waiting for Dr. Abdul Kalam himself to come up and start blaming the American authorities? Or we had too many issues to be solved at that time and in the month of July we’d nothing at all and started to harp on this issue?

There were numerous comments for and against it. And it didn’t come as a surprise to any of us when we came to know that Dr. Kalam cooperated with the authorities and didn’t utter a word after that. He is a gentleman. The American authorities have done their duty and they are not to be blamed. But at the same time knowing that Dr. Kalam was the former President of India he should have been treated with respect that he deserved. Again, come to think of the current scenario, Americans have done the right thing. We Indians don’t really bother about the security of foreigners as well as our own citizens. Inspite of getting warnings about the 26/11 terrorists attacks the security was not tightened. The ministers responsible for this resigned from their posts…Why did they do that? Aren’t they responsible to give an answer to its people? The people also didn’t question them immediately. Many had lost their loved ones, all of us were shaken badly by the gruesome attacks. At least the Prime Minister should have taken up the responsibility to give reasons for their negligence. This is out right ridiculous. Even after all this, we will not bother about our own security but blame others because they have done their duty promptly. Why not question our own government for all this instead of begging for an apology from foreigners?

Now, adding fuel to the fire the famous SRK (Sharukh khan) was detained at New Jersey last week. Now people have forgotten Dr. Kalam. Shahrukh Khan has become the talk of the nation. So what if he is detained? The Americans are not going to let him roam round their country unless they are absolutely sure that it is safe to let him in. They are not bothered if he is a celebrity or not… they are doing their duty. Why can’t we just learn this from them and start following the same in our country? We wouldn’t want to do that. Instead we’ll waste everyone’s time by debating on it and beg for an apology.
The responsibilities of our ministers lie here and now. They can have talks and negotiations with the American authorities and come up with a solution so that confusions like these don’t occur in future. But they are letting the media act on it and are sensationalizing the whole issue.

Its high time India learnt a lesson. We have to tighten our security instead of playing the blame game and follow the procedures strictly without any concessions for VIPs, VVIPs etc. whether from India or abroad. After all, they are also common men like us. Their popularity in their respective countries cannot be used an instrument to skip security formalities anywhere in the world. Law is equal for everyone. The common people and the so-called leaders of India need to realize this and act wisely. Otherwise, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if there are more attacks and humiliation on our nation