If someone must cut a ribbon before giving us access to something, shouldn’t it be a person deserving of that honour?
Imagine waiting for something that was to have been built with your taxes almost two decades ago, and not being allowed to use it because a minister couldn’t be found to formally announce its opening. Representation Pic
I have never been able to understand why politicians feel the need to inaugurate public infrastructure. What do they get out of it except for photographs that make them look like clowns? Sure, we are all aware of their ridiculous need for attention and self-importance that is so critical to everything they do, but it still doesn’t explain why the rest of us stand for it when it is always to our detriment. This occurred to me a few days ago while reading about a train line that was finally thrown open to the public after railway officials waited months to find a minister to cut a ribbon.
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It wasn’t the first time either. A simple Google search on inaugurations in our country throws up multiple examples of how roads, bridges, trains and other important buildings have been withheld from us. It happened because bureaucrats couldn’t find it within themselves to get on with business unless some minister was free to throw something open. In March, this paper reported on the Uran railway line in Navi Mumbai, which received approval from the Commissioner of Railway Safety to run passenger trains through five new stations. The project had already been delayed by a staggering 18 years, but commuters were still not allowed because a formal inauguration by politicians couldn’t be arranged.
Think about that for a minute. Imagine waiting for something that was to have been built with your taxes almost two decades ago, and not being allowed to use it because a minister couldn’t be found to formally announce its opening. The only reason our politicians get away with this kind of insanity is because of how inured we all are to their desperate need for validation.
In Bombay, again, earlier this year, commuters complained about the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road and Eastern Express Highway, alleging that openings of a flyover and bridge were deliberately delayed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority even though the work was complete. The reason reportedly cited for those delays was the chief minister and deputy chief minister’s packed schedules which made it impossible for them to be present at an inauguration ceremony.
Maybe we could have looked the other way if things were being built on time, and if we were given the kind of critical infrastructure we have all been promised so regularly. According to some relevant reports published in August 2022, however, 300 out of 825 projects were delayed in India’s road transport and highways sector, along with 119 projects out of 173 in the railways. It puts into perspective the sheer audacity of politicians wanting to cut a ribbon for things that haven’t even been built on time, and how normal human beings would hide under a chair in embarrassment if confronted with this sort of criminal inefficiency. This lack of shame has long been par for the course when it comes to our netas, and the ease with which they expect us to forgive everything comes from how obsequious our bureaucrats and civil servants are.
If something must be inaugurated, for whatever inane reason, maybe we should insist that it be done by those who had a real hand in the building of it. Let the chief engineer inaugurate a bridge, or call the architect who designed it for the ribbon-cutting. Why invite a minister who is there only because his political party happens to be in power or has simply allocated funds that belong to the public, not the party in question? Why can’t we be less servile and more critical of who we show any respect for?
I don’t even want to get into the question of why anything needs to be named after a politician. Why do we name public buildings after men—and they are almost always men—who have no integrity, conscience, morality, intelligence or qualifications to have anything named after them? Why can’t we name our buildings after people who have something genuine to offer the rest of us, those who do something worthwhile with their lives?
If ministers are so desperate to have something named after them while they are still alive, I propose we name public toilets after them instead of cricket stadiums. That way, India may finally have more toilets that it desperately needs. I don’t mind waiting a month for those toilets to be thrown open either. We can then invite the minister after whom it is named to be the first to use the urinal before cutting that ribbon.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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