Of airs and graces

Julio Ribeiro

Deepa parent, an Indian journalist based in Paris, wrote in a leading digital paper about a spat between our Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and the mayor of Snagov in Romania, Mihai Anghel, over our minister’s ‘arrogance’ when interacting with Romanian authorities engaged in assisting Indian students escaping Russia’s war in Ukraine.

It comes naturally to Romanian people to care for others. Once, the then President Iliescu unwittingly re-established my old friendship with former Maharashtra CM Shinde.

The minister was one of the four chosen emissaries of PM Modi sent to countries adjoining Ukraine, from where Air India or IAF planes were to fly the students back home. Romania was one of the countries that was aiding India in a big way.  Students who exited Ukraine via Romania were all praise for the local authorities and the people who welcomed them at the border.

The students were provided accommodation in improvised shelters, where beds, blankets, water and food were hastily gathered, some by the government, but mostly by local people. The Romanians have seen hard times themselves. In the Ceausescu era, when poverty used to be distributed, people had proper houses to stay and a job to keep them fed and clothed, but essentials like heating during the winter months, for instance, was denied. So they know what hardship means.

They expected the minister to be grateful, even if the arrangements did not meet his expectations. The students, who were the recipients of the benevolence, were grateful! I have heard many of them on TV, praising their hospitality. But, according to the mayor, Scindia was more intent on publicity (with an eye on audiences back home I presume) and on emphasising the Indian Government’s concern for and help rendered to its nationals. According to the mayor, the only thing done by the Indians was providing planes for the flight back home. 

The mayor felt that the minister did not try to enquire from the students about their trauma. He straightaway embarked on a speech, extolling the efforts of the Indian Government to rush airplanes and succour to the miserable students. In short, he misjudged the mood of the students and of their hosts, who obviously expected a pat on their backs, which should have been given and, I dare say, was.

I spent four years in Romania from 1989 to 1993, and I have experienced the hospitality of its people. It comes naturally to them to care for others, having gone through difficult times themselves. One experience will suffice to emphasise what I want to say. After the former Cabinet Secretary BG Deshmukh, Mumbai pediatrician, Dr Raj Kumar Anand, and I set up an NGO called the Public Concern for Governance Trust (PCGT) to fight corruption in Mumbai, we were confronted by a sordid story of the poor being deprived of land reserved in New Mumbai by CIDCO and slyly misappropriated by a builder who built expensive flats on that land. 

The CM then was Sushil Kumar Shinde, a friend of mine from his pre-politician days in Sholapur when I was the SP of that district. Shinde had affixed his initials to the irregular arrangement, as we learnt from the file which we obtained through the RTI Act. We cited him in the PIL we filed in the Bombay High Court, demanding the cancellation of the deal and demolition of the construction. We won, and strictures were passed against the CM and the IAS officer in charge. Incidentally, the officer was also a friend of mine.

The CM became the Union Home Minister by the time the judgment was pronounced. When I attempted to speak to him on phone on some other issue, he declined to take my call! A year or so later, he was the minister assigned to assist the Romanian President Ion Iliescu who was on a State visit to India. Iliescu, like a good Romanian, asked Shinde about my whereabouts and that approach nudged him to forget my ‘perfidy’. He phoned me to tell me that Iliescu had enquired after me. The Romanian unwittingly had re-established an old friendship between two Indians with disparate views on government decisions.

I mention this incident to demonstrate why Anghel was disappointed by Jyotiraditya’s approach, which he felt bordered on arrogance. Later, the two gentlemen shook hands before parting, but not before Scindia’s lack of thoughts that matter at such times came to the adverse notice of the Romanian public!

Since many more Indian students were expected to use the Romanian route in Operation Ganga, the minister needed to rein in his own frustrations at the slow pace of evacuation and adopt a less adversarial attitude to foreign dignitaries sitting in the driver’s seat. During my four years in Romania, I had visited all its districts and met district heads, their officials and mayors. They were courteous, helpful and hospitable. There was no need for our minister to strike a sour note.

I presume he was very anxious to please our Prime Minister, who is known to be a ‘man in a hurry’. I presume also that he has calculated that there is greater scope to step up the ladder in the party he has joined than in his previous party where room at the top is available only to a Nehru-Gandhi!

Modi misses not an opportunity to regale audiences at home, whether at election rallies or children riding with him in the newly-inaugurated Pune Metro, that the evacuation of Indian students studying medicine in Ukraine was successfully completed (almost) because of India’s ‘rising influence in the world’. He has given us to understand that this influence rose only after 2014! In the UP elections, he expects to garner votes on that account. Students from UP interviewed on TV channels did not think that would matter much to the voter in their state. They felt bread and butter issues, besides of course caste and caste politics, would matter more.

Personally I would not detract from what Modi has invested in the evacuation of the students. It was a Herculean task. And Modi was personally involved. The parents of the students will certainly not forget his contribution to the effort and that may help him in 2024. Or will it? Only time will tell.

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