No checks please, I'm a Bollywood star

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Ah, India and its ridiculous VIP syndrome again! Once again the syndrome of Don't-You-Know-Who-I-Am. Once again politicians are outraged that actor Shah Rukh Khan was questioned at Newark airport in the US. The UPA is in a state of high outrage. Shashi Tharoor says the incident is deeply offensive. Praful Patel says it's a matter to be taken up with the US government. Ambika Soni says there should be "tit-for-tat" frisking. Are you serious Mrs Soni? Is frisking a game for you? I-frisk-you, you-frisk me? Mrs Soni you are reducing vital security procedures to an eerie charade, to a nonsensical ritual. It is precisely because of such attitudes that we are so vulnerable to attacks and precisely why Indian security systems are a joke the world over.When rules are bent for hundreds of VIPs, what do terrorists have to fear?

Perhaps the wonderfully talented Shah Rukh Khan, beloved of millions, should limit his superb skills to doing what he does best: making great movies and enhancing the silver screen. His lectures on geo-politics, America's role in the world, security procedures and international diplomacy are a little bit hilarious. So you endured a bit of questioning at Newark because your baggage hadn't arrived on time, Shah Rukh? So what? As Meghnad Desai said on Face The Nation, what's the big deal? Be like APJ Abdul Kalam and just get on with it.

Hundreds of Muslims and Sikhs were rounded up and questioned post-9/11. All forms of abuse of human rights were recorded. Where were the high grandees of the UPA then? In India, the shocking truth is that Muslims find it difficult to get housing. Our security personnel routinely discriminate against anyone in a beard or lungi. Muslims face the most horrendous injustices in their daily life, and yet we are getting all holier-than-thou about racial and religious profiling in America? Racial profiling is an infringement of personal liberty, of course. But let's not pretend it does not exist right here in India under a different name.

Frankly I would much rather have open transparent checking and honest frisking, than layers of hypocritical prejudice, suspicion, and cloak-and-dagger communalism. Why don't Indian landlords openly check the backgrounds of their potential Muslim tenants, instead of wallowing in their own unquestioning secretive hatred and bigotry?

We Indians simply do not understand why important people should submit to rules and regulations. If you are "important" or a "celebrity" we expect to subvert queues and rules. In addition to Independence Day and Republic Day, we should have a Let's Stand in Queue Day. A day when every Indian - rich, poor, big, small, celebrity, common man - stands patiently in queue, awaits his turn and submits, if necessary to security procedures. Let's be honest and open about the need for checks in our society, not whip up self-righteous rage about protocol on the one hand, and propagate a secretive bigotry on the other.