De-politicise Sports - A Few Measures

I have written earlier about our politicians in sports, here, and here. My readers might have noticed that I rant a lot about our system. I realize that too. Hence from this post onwards I will also try to incorporate some suggestions instead of just complaining. It is always very easy to criticize, constructive work is difficult.

These are times Indian hockey fans will remember, for reasons good and bad. India beat Pakistan in China to clinch the Champions Trophy, while the International Hockey Federation (FIH) has chosen to move the 2011 Champions Trophy out of India to New Zealand owing to internal problems in India. We have two opposing bodies in India today for one hockey. This should come us a grim reminder for us to de-politicise sports and bring some rationality into our sports administration.

Another weird incident happened in London. At an ICC awards ceremony, where ironically Dhoni won an award for playing the game in its true spirit no one from the Indian cricket team attended. There are no prizes for guessing who did attend - Sharad Pawar and Rajiv Shukla - members of the BCCI and don't hold your breath, politicians. Our political class would do well to support Maken in his endeavour to de-politicise sports. But seeing that there is a conflict of interest in many politicians' cases, the question comes up, will this ever happen? Maken makes perfect sense.

1. Sports are played by young people, and for lack of a better word, by sportspersons. I believe one would be hard pressed to find many (active) sportspersons above the age of 40. Hence it makes no sense to have people who would very well fit the government's definition of senior citizens on our sports boards, both administering and selecting.

2. I believe the logic behind government servants getting transferred (frequently or occasionally) is that they do not develop any unwanted or unethical relationships with anybody by being posted in one location for a very long time. Further as time passes complacency creeps. This logic can be applied to sports boards also. So once again Maken's suggestion on the cap on the number of terms to two makes perfect sense.

3. Non-performing sportspersons are penalized by being dropped. One would like to know the measures applied to our boards in that sense also. There has been a huge hue and cry over selection proceedings being brought under the RTI Act. The way some governments declassify some files, is it not possible to make the meeting minutes public after some time elapses? Agreed, this gives people a chance to change the records, but at least this would probably be better than the current situation.

4. We occasionally hear people saying BCCI's funds should be used for other sports too. This is one option. There is another option. When boards like BCCI make hundreds of crores of revenue and profit how does it make sense to label them as charitable organizations? Bring it under the tax net, use that money for other sports. This way there is no charity involved. Obviously this would not be enough, this is where the government or the private sector can step in.

5. We are becoming a country of parrots today. We have students who get things by heart and spit them out in the exam. This is the definition of a good student. Many schools today do not have a proper playground. NDTV has a Marks for Sports Campaign. I am not saying that. But any new school that is set up today should mandatorily have a playground where children can play. Remember the saying, "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy".

Was Fareed Zakaria Right?

Recently I saw an interview on CNN-IBN with Fareed Zakaria, the Editor-at-Large (funny name, generally I thought legal offenders were referred to be at large) of Time magazine. Fareed is in fact of Indian origin and is a naturalized US citizen. His credentials speak for themselves, both education and career-wise. He is today one of the most respected journalists in the world today. He was all praise for the way the US has dealt with terror, how al Qaeda has been dealt with. There were three points he mentioned (in response to the interview questions) as to how India can deal with terror. Unfortunately I do not remember them verbatim. But I remember the basic gist and would like to take a look at his points.

One was intelligence. In his opinion Indian agencies have never been famous for their efficiency. We in fact stand a better chance of infiltrating terror networks compared to the Americans due to similar looks and linguistic backgrounds and thus have an advantage in that aspect. This is definitely true. We had no idea when Kargil happened. 26/11 seems to show that might not have changed much.

A second point was the state of our police forces. In his opinion they are pathetic. Also unlike in the US where the police are in a way part of the community here that is not the case. One would be hard-pressed to disagree. Just look at the weapons our armed forces use. Most of the police forces uses ancient rifles if I am not mistaken. We hear of massacres of CRPF personnel in Maoist areas. The poor chaps (security personnel) stay miles away from civilization and live in deplorable conditions. These people might have to lay down their lives for our security then we (or more specifically the administration/government) treats them like this! There were some recent operations in Jharkhand where a large number of security personnel fell sick with malaria as the operations were held in the jungle in the monsoon. I heard recently that some boats which had been bought after 26/11 are lying unused as there is nobody trained to operate them. Also the munition and weapons used by our armed forces vary widely. There is no proper standardization. Where are bullet-proof vests for security personnel who operate on the frontlines (even if these frontlines are in the heart of our metropolises)? Also today unless I am wrong the police inspire fear more than the belief that they are there to help the citizens. One of our professors at IIFT used to poke fun at the Delhi Police slogan which translates to mean "with you, for you, always".

Another point was integration. External terror cannot find a firm foothold in India if there is no local support. He in fact pointed out that Gujarat is a sore point even today among Muslims. However I must point out, without trivializing the atrocities that happened, that Gujarat is today one of India's most progressive states, under the same Chief Minister. Further if the perpetrators of India's blasts are proved to be from Gujarat I think Zakaria's words would hold actual weight. That we have not been very successful at solving various terror-related cases and that communiques from terrorists regularly point to Gujarat are frank admissions that have to be made. Now Muslims in India are considered to be at a great disadvantage as far as development is concerned. India has generally been an inclusive society. So should we blame our rulers for the state Indian Muslims find themselves in today? Further integration is not as outright or a one-way street as Zakaria's statements might make it out to be. The government and people can reach out to Muslims and they have to. Muslims are as much a part of this country as a person from any other religion. However we must remember that for Muslims (in many cases) religion is a factor more important than nationality. Unrest in the global Muslim world at the way Palestinians are treated is a direct reminder. Further many of us must have heard of instances when celebrations erupted when Pakistan won a cricket match. So, integration is a two-way street. There will always be fringe elements. But Zakaria is right, we need to do more to integrate our Muslim brothers into our national fabric especially in terms of development.

Moving on, however, somehow Zakaria missed out mentioning Pakistan in his initial assessment of India's terror situation. The spark (may be Gujarat riots) might exist but there also has to be fuel to sustain the inferno. This is helpfully provided by our neighbour. Comparing India with US in anti-terror action is not justified. Why? The US is bordered by Canada (an extremely peaceful place) and Mexico. Now, Mexico has huge narcotics-related problems. However there are no governments or armies (official) actively opposed to the US in its vicinity. Further launching an attack on continental US has a lot of logistical complications. This is not the case with India. In the south till recently we had the LTTE who had assassinated our PM. In the west we obviously have Pakistan. Even if the borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh are fenced, our borders with Nepal and Bhutan are very porous. Further look at how the US addressed terror. It attacked Afghanistan and then Iraq (the latter on the basis of spurious allegations). It set up Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay so that US laws would not apply to detainees there. The captured fighters in the "War or Terror" are not brought under the Geneva Convention which deals with prisoners of war. It set up interrogation centres in foreign countries where coercive interrogation techniques and/or outright torture were applied. I am not saying India did not indulge in human rights violations. But to the US the ends definitely seem to justify the means. Imagine what would happen were India to launch a war against Pakistan. The US had the luxury of fighting opponents who were technologically greatly inferior and it still had a tough time. The number of people killed in the "War on Terror" is in large multiples of the 9/11 casualty number (about 3000). What does the US care as long as the casualties are non-US? For instance when a stray missile or bomb, or one guided by faulty intelligence kills civilians in Afghanistan the US just apologises and moves on. There is huge outcry however in the US when US soldier casualties mount. 

Mr. Zakaria is in love with his adopted nation. He says that today, in spite of all restrictions (frisking at airports, laws) an arrested civilian has the greatest chance of getting justice in the US than anywhere else in the world. Maybe he is right. But he has to remember that his adopted country is a nation that condones killing thousands internationally to justify securing "American lives".

Omar's Dangerous Precedent

The younger Abdullah is becoming quite well known for his tweets. However the latest one has caused quite some controversy, and justifiedly. I do not believe what the Tamil Nadu Assembly did in the first place was right. Requesting clemency for Tamilians in spite of their offence set the wrong precedent in the first place. Murugan's daughter might be justified in asking clemency for her father and mother, after all, she has never been able to enjoy her childhood fully.

Karunanidhi finds himself in a strange situation today. His daughter is in jail. So is the dalit face of his party. Remember that this is a state which has 70% reservation (if I am not mistaken). His family and party members have been hounded on the basis of various accusations like land grabbing. He has faced a whitewash in the last assembly elections. The senior citizen is grasping at straws to reclaim some political legitimacy in this situation. The political situation in Sri Lanka has always been an emotive issue in Sri Lanka due to their language affinity. It is sad that the government and in fact the entire state assembly decided to jump onto this populist bandwagon. Remember, whether or not the visionary or saint that he is made out to be by the Congress today, Rajiv Gandhi was in fact a former Prime Minister of our nation. So by supporting his killers is not a state government not going against the law of the land? Does this not show disrespect to the entire legal process and to the position of the President of the Union of India itself?

In Omar's case the situation is a little more complicated. He should remember that Sri Lanka as a nation was never anti-India (to my knowledge). However this seems to be the raison d'etre of Pakistan, or at least the military and/or political leadership. Note that I took the name of the military first. Why is this? Even when Nawaz Sharif was talking peace with A B Vajpayee his army chief, Musharraf was planning and conducting the Kargil war. Thus in Afzal Guru's case the issue is not about simply supporting a person of your religion, or your native land. It is about supporting a nation, an ideology that by its very essence is against our nation. It is sad that the Chief Minister of a state, and that too of a state that has been the bone of contention between India and Pakistan (irrespective of whatever our political class might admit publicly), says this. Apparently now the J & K Assembly will pass a resolution on Afzal Guru. Omar Abdullah and the entire state assembly should be ashamed of their conduct. Two wrongs do not make a right. We have a saying in Telugu - pulini choosi nakka vaatha pettukunnattu - which essentially means says that a fox wanted to look regal like a tiger, it wanted the stripes, so it ended up branding itself with a hot iron.

At the same time the entire issue brings into question the time our legal process of disseminating justice takes. Raiv Gandhi died in 1991. Twenty years later we have still not completed the process. I am not advocating that the condemned be hanged. I am just remarking about the time the process takes. The Bofors case which came out in the 80s was recently closed inconclusively. Afzal Guru was convicted in the Parliament attack case, the attack happened in 2001. The longer the legal process takes the greater is the chance for complications to arise.

I will tell Mommy!

Ajay Maken, our Sports Minister had a good thought. A lot of sports bodies receive crores of rupees, so why not get them under greater public scrutiny? Even though the BCCI does not receive government funding directly, it deals with hundreds of crores and as reported on the NDTV website, it is under investigation for foreign exchange violations during the IPL. The BCCI is a private organization but claims to select India's "national" cricket team. So it makes perfect sense to bring it under public scrutiny. Further logically speaking if there are no skeletons to hide the organization then there should ideally be no panic reaction to Maken's proposal.

Did the cabinet agree to this proposal? Well, there are no prizes for guessing the answer. Farooq Abdullah among others opposed an upper age limit clause. He said by that yardstick he should not have been a cabinet minister too (hmm, is that such a bad idea?). If the esteemed minister uses his good judgement it would be perfectly obvious that for a minister's post age can actually be advantageous because of the experience carried with it. For sports on the other hand, I do not think most would agree that the younger the administrator and the more related to that sport the administrator is the better it is.

Another clause seeks to restricts terms to 2. For as long as I remember, Kalmadi has been the head of the IOA. See where he is today (and where for that matter our Olympic performance is). Apparently a very significant portion of sports bodies are headed by politicians. This is not restricted to any one party, but is common across the political spectrum.

Thus in my humble opinion it makes perfect sense to have some government oversight on our sports bodies and to bring all of them under the RTI. However if members of the cabinet already hold positions on sports bodies does it make sense to expect the cabinet to come to an impartial and objective conclusion? Sharad Pawar, our Agriculture Minister actually asked the Prime Minister to reduce his work load so that he could spend more time on cricket! Is it any wonder that food inflation is so high and Indian agriculture is said to have stagnated in its growth? Now coming to the title. Sharad Pawar is reported to have said in the cabinet discussion that if the bill was approved by the cabinet he would take up the issue with Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the UPA. Keeping aside the practicality of this when she is supposed to be recovering from surgery, doesn't this sound childish? It is like two kids fighting, one kids hits the other, and the hurt kid bawls, "I am going to tell mummy!"

Dear people, this is the Indian government!

On the Cash-for-votes Turnaround and "Girl Marks"

The BJP which was trying to corner the government on the cash-for-votes scandal is in the dock now, a chargesheet having been filed against its own members. This decision by the Delhi Police however raises some questions.

First of all this chargesheet has been filed three years after the actual incident, and that too after the Supreme Court pulled up the DP for inaction. Further the government would like us to believe the DP is independent. This is evident from it trying to shift the blame onto DP for the recent arrest of Anna Hazare. Now the DP chargesheet does not name the Congress MPs. It is probably a classic case of the hunter becoming the hunted. Amar Singh has been named and the case against the BJP members seems to be one of entrapment. Now are we to believe that Amar Singh conspired with the BJP to discredit the Congress? If this is not true then what conceivable reason is there for Amar Singh to be a participant in this entire episode?

Moving on, the decision by the IIMs to award marks for being a girl are, in my humble opinion, blatantly unfair. Some of my closest friends are girls, however I'm sure they too would agree with me at least to some extent. Awarding extra marks to non-engineer candidates might still make some sense if it is restricted to the mathematical portion of evaluation. In today's world of equal rights this is a retrograde step. The combined faculty of these esteemed institutions could surely have come up with another solution to increase diversity. I'm pretty sure the male candidates are all for increased diversity, but not at their expense. This country seems to be increasingly becoming a difficult place for a "forward-category" male students.

The BJP which was trying to corner the government on the cash-for-votes scandal is in the dock now, a chargesheet having been filed against its own members. This decision by the Delhi Police however raises some questions.

First of all this chargesheet has been filed three years after the actual incident, and that too after the Supreme Court pulled up the DP for inaction. Further the government would like us to believe the DP is independent. This is evident from it trying to shift the blame onto DP for the recent arrest of Anna Hazare. Now the DP chargesheet does not name the Congress MPs. It is probably a classic case of the hunter becoming the hunted. Amar Singh has been named and the case against the BJP members seems to be one of entrapment. Now are we to believe that Amar Singh conspired with the BJP to discredit the Congress? If this is not true then what conceivable reason is there for Amar Singh to be a participant in this entire episode?

Moving on, the decision by the IIMs to award marks for being a girl are, in my humble opinion, blatantly unfair. Some of my closest friends are girls, however I'm sure they too would agree with me at least to some extent. Awarding extra marks to non-engineer candidates might still make some sense if it is restricted to the mathematical portion of evaluation. In today's world of equal rights this is a retrograde step. The combined faculty of these esteemed institutions could surely have come up with another solution to increase diversity. I'm pretty sure the male candidates are all for increased diversity, but not at their expense. This country seems to be increasingly becoming a difficult place for a "forward-category" male students.

First they ignore you...

How can I be the only one not to comment on the ongoing Lokpal agitation? :) So here's my two cents' worth.

There has been some discussion on the crowds that have been gathering at Ramlila Maidan (RM) with P K Bansal and Ashwani Kumar from the Congress commenting that anybody can draw large crowds. This has obviously led to some strong responses too. Now let us pause here for a moment. 

When I saw a movie called Tagore in Telugu, starring Chiranjeevi, I was taken aback at the crowds that gathered towards the climax of the movie. Probably it was crowds like these that encouraged Chiranjeevi to set up his party and contest elections. But he ended up losing from one of the two constituencies he had stood for election from. So the crowds do not seem to have necessarily translated into votes. 

So I think we can safely assume that the crowds that gather to see a filmstar politician are there more to see the filmstar than anything else. The non-beneficial crowd is especially true in political settings where people can be paid to attend. Another incident is the support that Jagan is garnering in Andhra Pradesh. This is somewhat surprising. Whether or not people believe he is corrupt I am sure many people would agree there is more than what meets the eye as far as Jagan's wealth is concerned. He has of late taken to sending bulk messages to Church Fathers asking them to pray on their behalf, pandering to the Christian community too. So is Jagan right as he draws such huge crowds (not to mention the margin by which he and his mother won their elections)?

Where the Jan Lokpal campaign is different, I would argue is with respect to the increasing and (inter)national participation it is drawing. Crowds for 1-2 days may have been dismissed. However the crowds are only increasing day-by-day. Further, people cutting across states (though I think the response has been quite muted in the south) and even continents are supporting the agitation. The response of the powers-that-be in a way betrays their panic at the response the movement has gathered. It is simply arrogant to dismiss the crowds that have gathered.

However the establishment is right to an extent in asking Anna's team to follow established democratic procedures. I say to an extent. This legislation has been pending for a very long time, further as everyone is aware new cases keep tumbling out on a regular basis today. So the citizens of the country cannot be blamed for a trust deficit. Anna's team has shown some flexibility during negotiations for the duration and venue of the present fast. If the same can be shown and if the government lets go of its arrogance we can hope for a better India. 

To end, I quote a line attributed to Anna's idol - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Should the government note the pattern? Jai Hind!