Age is just a number. Recently, a 68-year-old man was arrested for impersonating a government officer while driving an SUV fitted with a beacon light. In Mumbai, the Traffic Police booked around 80 vehicles in just two days—April 1 and 2—during a citywide crackdown on illegal beacons, fake police stickers, sirens, and counterfeit “press” tags. In Kolkata, arrests for similar offences have continued through 2025 and 2026. In Gurugram, a man was arrested for posing as an IAS officer while driving a vehicle emblazoned with “Government of India.”
A democracy should not resemble a royal procession. Yet India’s roads continue to function as moving displays of power, where ordinary citizens are expected to step aside because the state believes itself superior to the very public it is meant to serve.
What is revealing is that none of these impersonators pretended to be businessmen or celebrities. They chose to impersonate government officials because, in India, that identity still commands fear, obedience, and privilege. The beacon remains a shortcut to authority.
And that is the real scandal. When Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, one of his most visible symbolic interventions was an attack on India’s deeply entrenched VIP culture. On April 19, 2017, the government formally announced that red beacons—the notorious lal batti—would be removed from nearly all official vehicles. Modi described it as the end of “VIP culture” and the beginning of “EPI culture”: Every Person is Important.
For a brief moment, Indian roads looked different. Ministers removed flashing lights from their SUVs before television cameras. Convoys became smaller. The symbolism appeared powerful.
But today, red and blue beacons have quietly returned—fixed illegally onto SUVs, hidden inside grilles, flashing from dashboards, and mounted on escort vehicles and private cars with no legal right to carry them. Across highways and city roads, the old message has returned: move aside, power is coming through.
The law itself is unambiguous. In its December 10, 2013 directions in SLP (C) No. 23984/2010 and 25237/2010, the Supreme Court of India directed state governments to sharply restrict the use of red lights and align regulations with the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. The Union government tightened these rules further in 2017. By May that year, red beacons had effectively been banned for almost all public officials. Only a limited group of constitutional authorities—such as the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, and Lok Sabha Speaker—retained restricted use while on official duty. Blue beacons were confined strictly to emergency services: ambulances, fire services, police, and disaster response vehicles.
Yet the law is openly violated because enforcement remains selective. Police officers often hesitate to stop vehicles that appear official, even when they are clearly suspicious. Many would rather salute first and ask questions later.
For decades, the Indian state has relied on spectacle to project authority: pilot cars, sirens, armed escorts, reserved lounges, separate entrances, sprawling bungalows, layers of protocol, and expanding security rings. The beacon sits at the centre of this culture because its symbolism is instantly understood. Even someone with no formal education recognises it as a signal that someone powerful is passing through.
This culture survives because India still confuses public service with social status.
Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before the law. No citizen acquires a higher civic status merely by holding public office. The very concept of a “VIP” sits uneasily within a constitutional democracy. A minister is not a king. A bureaucrat is not a nobleman. A judge is not a lord. Public office is meant to signify responsibility, not superiority.
Banning the beacon alone was never going to be enough. India must go further and dismantle the wider architecture of official privilege: unnecessary sirens, oversized convoys, road-clearing drills, ceremonial excess, preferential access systems, and every symbolic practice that separates rulers from citizens. Genuine security requirements are one thing; theatrical displays of superiority are another.
A republic cannot modernise its political culture while continuing to behave like a royal procession on its roads.
In India, flashing lights are still seen as symbols of power because too many officials—and too many citizens—continue to believe that democracy works best when someone important can force everyone else to move aside.
The beacon on the car may have been banned. The beacon in the Indian mind is not.