Labour pains

Enough is enough. We really don''t care that the Union labour minister sees himself as a ''bada sahib''. As far as his conduct is concerned, he has behaved like anything but. A true sahib knows his manners, does not attack ladies, and certainly does not descend to gutter level name-calling while expressing his anger. Obviously Sahib Singh Verma doesn''t know that, or else he wouldn''t have thrown decorum out of the window while dealing with a
delayed flight.
The shocking part about this ugly incident isn''t the minister''s despicable behaviour, it is the apology he has managed to extract from the big boys who run the airline. An apology and an inquiry. Excuse me, shouldn''t the public be holding an inquiry into Verma''s uncalled for behaviour? Shouldn''t we be asking for his resignation or, at the very least, a statement of regret? Instead we witness servility at its most sickening. Aviation minister Shanawaz Husain has promised to table his findings in a record two days. And what''s the bet, the findings will clear sahib''s ''good name''? What''s also the bet that the airline employees who were merely doing their jobs, will be sacked, suspended, transferred, fined, whatever? Disgusting? Absolutely. The time has come for all of us to show such ''leaders'' the door.
The amazing part is, a probe has been initiated to go into the ''inconvenience'' caused to the ''dignitary''. Isn''t that a laugh? And yet, even presswallahs know that regardless of what is written, the axe will eventually fall on the staffers who tried to restrain the minister from pushing them around — literally. More apologies will follow. More heads will roll. For once, I wish someone representing the airline had stood by the employee. Someone with the moral courage to tell the minister exactly where to get off.
Alas, the way things happen here, nobody wants to take on a neta — who knows what repercussions that could lead to? Political vendetta can take several forms — a high-level investigation is one of them. Nobody can risk that, knowing how even an official investigation can be manipulated to harass the victim. Perhaps it''s easier to apologise and put the incident on a back-burner. But by taking the easy route, the airline is encouraging bad behaviour by other politicos. How many times have frequent fliers been subjected to delays and diversions just to accommodate some politician''s whims? I have been on countless such flights, fuming in my seat while waiting for a VVIP to show up. And here is a minister manhandling officials and making preposterous demands. What follows? The joint director general of civil aviation rushes in to question the ''naughty'' officials who had the audacity to ask the minister to behave himself.
Worse, what do the co-passengers do? They look the other way, keep mum or pretend to be fast asleep. Nobody gets up and says, "Look here minister, we really don''t care who you are, but this is no way to behave." And these aren''t just any old passengers, some of them are high-profile, so-called ''celebrities''. Maybe that''s the problem. They remain silent because they don''t want to rub the minister the wrong way and risk... And risk what, for god''s sake?? Chances are, the minister was on a freebie. At any rate his ticket is indirectly financed by us tax-payers. In any other country, someone like Verma would''ve been bounced off the flight. Not here. We are too spineless to do that.
Let''s see how the sahib''s saga goes. The labour pains have started. In all likelihood it will be a still birth.