Why should politicians be given special protection?

How would you react if a soldier demanded protection against the professional hazard of getting shot? Though this a rather dramatic example, each profession carries hazards that must be squarely faced by those who engage in that profession. A statistically dictated number succumb to the hazards in each profession and are routinely replaced by new incumbents.

So why should it be any different for politicians? They think it is their job to play with public emotions. After all it is emotions that help them win votes and not real issues. None of them care for the real issues. They put up farcical fights to win certain groups over to them without ever acting on the real issues plaguing the electorate at large. An exaggerated example of this is provided by statements currently being dished out by Mr. Digvijay Singh and his counterparts in other parties on serious issues of corruption and governance. This entails obvious professional hazards. They should face such hazards squarely as people in other professions do. But instead they stridently demand and get special protection. There are hordes of them at various levels. We are told that there are more policemen allocated to guarding the politicians than to their hapless victims - the public at large.


Such special protection also betrays their lack of confidence in the system that they run. The system is created to implement the constitutional guarantees given to the public such as the right to life. If the system created by them is good enough to serve the vast ocean of general public, why should they insist on special treatment for themselves? And even if they had no protection and were to succumb to their perceived hazard, why do they consider themselves irreplaceable? And is this paranoia justified by the available data? As far as public memory can tell all successful and unsuccessful attempts have only been on persons occupying highest office of Prime Minister. It is only people at the very top who face dangers from outsiders. As such outsiders are not subject to our control, it may be proper to accord more protection to the said class than what is available to common citizen. Everyone else must must be on equal footing.


Accordingly I strongly suggest that the current system of providing special security to politicians / bureaucrats at various levels except to a few at the very top should be done away with.