The ongoing court drama over whether Prince Harry should be entitled to taxpayer-funded security for himself, his wife Meghan and two children will leave many Indians baffled. Mainly because in India the government seems, at least to the lay observer, to be rather liberal with ‘sarkari’ security for all kinds of people – in varying alphabetical degrees – from businessmen to journalists, former presidents, prime ministers and their families to former dacoits.

Indians rage often about the disruptions caused by security details of all manner of VIPs, with armed men hovering menacingly around their principals in the workplace or even in restaurants, stores or on roads. However, no one really questions whether police contingents and gas-guzzling cavalcades should be at all provided to so many people; instead, it is often regarded as a normal trapping of “power". And reducing security is even often regarded as unfortunate.

Last week, news emerged that the security ‘bandobast’ for the wife of late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had been “slashed" from Z to Z. In other words, her security was reduced from 10 commandos in a total of 55 other personnel plus an unspecified number of “personal security officers" (PSO) and five bullet-proof vehicles to six commandos in a total of 22 personnel, over nine PSOs in eight-hour shifts of over three each and one bullet-proof vehicle as well as four other vehicles.

Had the lady in question belonged to any family other than the famously unassuming and low-key Manmohan Singh clan, this ‘downgrading’ may have even been posited as a........

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