00:00Notice how eerily empty the Taj Mahal looked when Sergio Gaut, the US ambassador, was visiting?
00:04Well, the internet found it odd too.
00:06Then there was a planned visit of a BSNL director in Prayagraj,
00:09complete with VIP protocol where 20 tasks were assigned to nearly 50 officials.
00:14And this is Mumbai's postal road being blocked for VIP movement.
00:18All this despite PM Modi saying,
00:29When he became the PM in 2014, Modi declared that he was not the country's prime minister, but
00:34The government renamed the street where the PM lives from Race Coast Road to Lok Kalyanmar, the path of public
00:42welfare.
00:42In 2025, the name of state governor's official residences were changed from Raj Bhavan, Government House, to Lok Bhavan.
00:49The People's House.
00:50In fact, in 2017, the government banned red beacon lights on official vehicles, a visible symbol of entitlement,
00:57calling it an effort to end VIP culture.
00:59But people believe otherwise.
01:00According to a 2024 local circle survey, 2 in 3 Indians believe VIP culture is not reducing.
01:06They reported seeing preferential treatment in government offices, on roads, in hospitals, places of worship and at public events.
01:12VIP culture signals status.
01:14Historians like Ram Chandra Guha have written about how colonial India physically separated rulers from the root.
01:21Sociologist Evan Srinivas showed how hierarchy seeped into everyday gestures.
01:25Who sits where? Who passes through which door? You get the drift.
01:29So, the debate really is about whether the space between citizen and state is narrowing or still the same.
01:34What do you think?
01:37Loan.
01:38So, we have a bribery of the Yusin for our students and tour courses on the rise.
01:40So, the question is, yes.
01:40What can I be thinking?
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