What decides privilege in India ?

What decides privilege in India ?

Recently SP Balasubrahmanyam has put up a facebook post explaining how he was asked to submit his cellphone before meeting the Prime Minister. He wondered how bollywood stars were talking selfies with the PM in the same event. Well, its no wonder that the selfies with bollywood stars was a choreographed PR exercise. The PR team picked a bunch of popular and privileged people including Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan to take selfies with the PM. Photographs of these moment of intimacy between the PM and bollywood stars were all over the news next day.The purpose was achieved : More Publicity for the PM as if there wasn't enough already. There is one key element to all this drama which became controversial, the stars were allowed to take their cellphones with them while meeting the PM. Usually people who meet the PM has to submit their cellphones to the Special Protection Group (SPG) before meeting the PM. SP Balasubhramanyam (SPB), the legendary playback singer was also present at this event.  He had to go through the regular screenings of the SPG including submitting his cellphone. Effectively, in the same event when some bollywood stars were given exceptions from the SPG checks, the same privilege was not extended to SPB.

Its important to raise few questions here : „Who decides this list of privileged people who can take selfies with the PM ?“ „On what basis is this privilege provided ?“ Is it the merit and achievements of a person ? Anybody with a basic knowledge of Indian cinema would know that SP Balasubhramanyam, a Padma Bhushan awardee,  is a legendary singer and his achievements in Indian cinema are unmatchable. He has sung more than 40,000 songs in 16 languages, which is no ordinary feet not just in India but in any part of the world.  Is it possible that the PMO staff were not aware of this ? If yes, the PM should consider replacing his staff, who handles such events, with people who have better knowledge on who is who in India. Or, is it because the PMO staff did not consider his achievements good enough since the work of SPB was predominantly in the south Indian languages like Telugu and Tamil ?

It is unfortunate that a man who contributed so much to the Indian film Industry had to feel such humiliation. This incident highlights how art is judged on basis of the scale of audience, language and not quite by the quality of the art. This also highlights the fact that Bollywood has become synonymous to Indian cinema despite the fact that regional film industries like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam are producing excellent quality on par with Bollywood despite their limited budget and scale of business in comparison to Bollywood. Its high time we forgo this attitude and start recognizing the talent in India irrespective of language and region. One can only wish that the rulers in Delhi follow this in true spirit and remember the fact that India is a diverse country which cannot be defined by one particular language or region.