Worth the Frisk Risk

If only we had frisked a few American dignitaries, the Kalam incident wouldn’t have been an issue at all

By the unwritten codes of hierarchy, the defence minister of one country is as good as the foreign minister of another. Which is why when Hillary Clinton got off her jet, it would have been a good idea to have asked her to take off her coat and shoes, and spread her arms. This was what George Fernandes, when he was India’s defence minister, went through not once, but twice—in 2002 during an official visit and then again the next year while transiting.

If Hillary had been frisked, Fernandes would not have been among the long list of politicians who have lined up claiming shock at former president APJ Abdul Kalam being humiliated on our own soil by Contintental Airlines, a US entity. Instead, it would have been the US that was outraged. (An apology would have taken care of that as the US found out when the Fernandes incident became public.)

Frisking Hillary would have ensured that Indian dignitaries precluded by protocol from security checks, would never have been humiliated again. That opportunity alas, is now lost. So, we’ll just have to wait for Bill Clinton or George Bush to take an Air India flight to stage an exact replica of the Kalam humiliation, but the chance of that happening is next to nothing.

If Kalam didn’t want to fly our national airline, why would ex-American presidents?

But Contintental is not entirely at fault. They just got the wrong person. Just look at the kind of people who are exempt from such checks. Union ministers, for one. It has not been too long since we had a Shibu Soren who was convicted of a murder when he was a Cabinet minister (he was acquitted later but has other cases against him). Or take our many chief ministers like Mayawati who face corruption charges.

How does a nation like the US, in its redneck ignorance about the rest of the world, know that the man who has a security exemption is not actually just another dangerous character who has made it big in politics. So, they really don’t care if it’s Kalam or Soren. They are more worried about planes crashing into skyscrapers. Also, there is the question of why a certain bunch of people should be exempt. As we all know, the morality level of those who govern (and not just in India) is far lower than the average citizen. Either everyone is a risk or no one is.

That is precisely the argument for India to enforce the same treatment on the US and all its senators and secretaries of state. Hillary would have been a good beginning. But that’s all right. Let’s wait for Obama.

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