The ongoing controversy over eminent African-American Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates’ arrest should be an example to us. President Barack Obama, who charged the Massachusetts police of acting “stupidly” in taking his friend into custody from his own house, had later to make amends for his own “stupid remark.” The police sergeant who made the arrest, backed by his union, accused the president of being out of line and speaking without knowing all the facts.

Imagine the plight of an Indian policeman who dared to take on a prime minister, or even an MP, for that matter. He would have been hanged, drawn and quartered. The way our system works the politician is always right and officialdom invariably at fault.

We are yet to evolve as a democracy mature enough to adhere to the principle that all people are equal, no matter what their situation in life. The framers of our constitution were conscious that equality was a tough goal for our fledgling democracy, given caste and our well-entrenched feudal system. But, ironically, democracy itself threw up a new pecking order. People holding public office and politicians assume that they are more equal than the rest of us.

Just a day before the Gates arrest there was a hue-and-cry in Parliament because prominent politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad learnt that their names were included in a list of 210 whose security had to be downgraded. P. Chidambaram, who himself sets an excellent example by opting for minimal security, is the first home minister courageous enough to order that security should be reserved for those holding constitutional positions or those facing a credible threat. Nevertheless, following the parliamentarians’ fury, the government backed down.

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