THE “UN”COMMONWEALTH GAMES 2010
Finally after the intervention of the Prime Minister with his crack team we made it possible at the last minute to salvage the reputation of the country in just concluded Commonwealth games in Delhi which had seen brought much of the disrepute to India on the run up to the games. We have indeed made a grand show with opening, during the entire games of 11 days as well as the closing and the world media is praising us. But is it not so discomforting that India can’t execute successful games (some say that it’s the first time a 3rd world country has hosted such games, so what, but if we were awfully adequate for the preparations then what was the need to pay 1 Lakh US$ to every participating nation as facilitation fee for getting the honours to New Delhi to organize the 2010 games?) it need the intervention of no less than the Prime Minister and all the ministries coordinating, then ably aided by media, event and IT infrastructure, people in Delhi, the Security and intelligence system, Home ministry, the enterprising people of Delhi and finally the players themselves who braved all odds and were present in full strength to make commonwealth a grand success for India. Consider that sponsors deserted last minute(even PSU companies, as the ministry had directed them), some big names too from countries like New Zealand, England, Canada, etc, had dropped their names from participating, tourists were dumping India due to dengue & security threat, unprepared ness of the games village till the last minute, threat of heavy rains and water logging due to water release in the Yamuna river by Haryana, add to that threats from various terrorist organizations who were out to disrupt the games. Day and night last minute patchwork was done to smoothen every roads, paintings, plumbing, other maintenance works, Commercial vehicles were not allowed during those days to restrict traffic jams, poor people and urchins or beggars evicted from many posh areas just to showcase the right type of growing India to the tourists, policemen at every signals and crossings and not to forget that we were aided by no rains during the games, relative peaceful handling of the Ayodhya verdict with extra caution by the govt of India and media and the sane elements in both the communities pre and post verdict, so on and so forth. So against the odds loaded heavily against us, we managed to avert the crisis, After all we are good in crisis management and are used to last minute preparations and staging shows. That is good. But how far will this event be called a successful, only time will tell.
For the moment Indian sportsmen are basking in glory and state after state have announced the prizes for their heroes, doling out various cash awards, housing plots or jobs in their respective states, but will all the things the players will ultimately receive; only time will tell. Also the people of India have now rejoiced and sang with them in tandem with the success of the team and finally we are seeing a glimmer of hope of other sports getting attention and not only cricket. But public memory, being short lived, how far the players can expect more support from the common public, only time will tell. In the lack of the sporting culture in the country, till now these sportsmen or women owe their medals to their own hard work and inherent talent. In the absence of the professional leadership of respective sports bodies, each player is left to fend for himself. Besides given the level of economic development, the leisure culture, of which sports is an integral part, has yet to strike the firm roots in our country unlike in developed countries where youngsters are encouraged to take up sports both as a pastime and as professional career. Our youths, aside from cricket, find the pursuit of excellence in various disciplines of sports economically hazardous. Coaching Institutes funded by sporting associations, where young talent can be spotted early to nurture them are non existent and the already existing sports administrators, mostly run by politicians since many years, treat young talent most shabbily- one of our women gold medalist cried out the foul that the doubles won by her is not even acknowledged by the badminton federation. Forget that, our sports minister MS Gill every now and then is confused with the name of the winners and in the hurry to take photo shots along with the ace wrestler Sushil Kumar recently ignored the coach! This leads us to the conclusion whether attention to sports bodies and the sports infrastructure, equipments, coaches etc, all will lead to the overall gain for the sports getting a lift or gain it will be back to square one with same old system.
By the way, have we achieved any thing significant in sports then? Competition? Commonwealth games are nowhere near Olympics and even can be said to be of less important than the Asian Games as you are not facing China. We have got 101 medals – 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals tally, thanks to our excellent performance in Shooting, wrestling, archery, badminton or table tennis, etc, not in field and track events as we have only a few in them. In hockey we did raise hopes due to swell in public support in quarter and semi final matches but it all got evaporated once the Australians routed us in the finals. We jumped two places from Melbourne Games four years ago to relegate England to third place and emerge 2nd best after Australia- Saina Nehwal’s golden the last day coming up strongly after one set down, just made it possible. Infrastructure, oh , yes a few equipments and stadiums, but considering the depth of corruption in leading to the preparation and humongous cost escalation due to rampant corruption, it is doubtful whether many equipment or the stadiums or the roads, bridges, games village, will last long. One brush of heavy rains will be enough to test the tenacity of infrastructure.
And why do you miss that initially it was thought to develop the sport village and handover to the infrastructure to universities, but instead we have made 1150 flats from EMAAR-MGF, who will sell these high-end flats from 2 to 6 crores-apiece. And this EMAAR-MGF is struggling to succeed in the IPO market in India and it has already failed in three attempts to the market! And with the cost of refurbishing the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium at a whopping Rs160 crores and at one third of this cost you can get a new stadium! Initially cost estimated was 2000 crores and it has turned out to Rs 22,000 crores! Some have put the figure to even Rs 35,000 crore if we consider some infrastructure which was build just for the sake of the games. And even if we cannot add all the cost of getting better city, which in any case has to be done, but many of the costs were especially for games! At Rs 77000 crores expenditure we could have got 77 crore people who are below the poverty line people, made their life more comfortable, or increase our healthcare facilities or sanitation in villages or water supply to the hinterland? And what have we done, spent Rs 77000 crores in posh Delhi on our taxpayers money, and the quality work cannot be guaranteed to expect a 30 year life out of these. And after the games Delhi sees the same traffic police, no commandoes at all the signals, traffic again haphazard, the plants which were planted just before the games day, same rehari walas again coming up around main markets, even Connaught Place, dust flying all over again, etc, etc.
Some prominent opinion makers say that the Commonwealth should not be held in the first place as it smacks of Imperialism by a power who once ruled half the world. This can be ignored in the sense that we have inherited many good things too out of the English rule, principal being the English language, unarguably the most spoken language in the world along with Spanish, the backbone of our IT prowess is because of this language together with the maths and analytical skills of India, we got the sense of History, and hence the Indian-ness, the Indian railways infrastructure, which is still more than half we are still using even after many years since the British left us . Not all traditions are bad if it is not harming.
Till the games were not over, we were asked to keep restraint and the media too was asked to keep quite and stop doing negative publicity and concentrate on successful completion of games. Now the games are over, the PM , Sonia Gandhi have made their intention very clear that they want the truth of all the wrong-doings done by the Organising Committee from top down to come before the public soon. IT, ED, CBI, CVC, CAG, GoM have stepped in and many PIL s are expected to come up against the organizing committe, fixing responsibility in irregularities in tenders, work measurement, expenses, Excessive billings, hugely inflated equipments costs, foreign exchange violations, rental costs, maintenance costs, arbitrary contract, shoddy workmanship, incomplete work, huge cost overruns and awry schedules In each case responsibility needs to be fixed and exemplary punishment meted out to whosoever strong he or she may be and the truth come out in the open in public on exactly who and to what extent they are guilty, so that in future this sort of defame should not stare us on our face again in future. We have to ensure that in future such games are really Commonwealth games and not UN Commonwealth, bringing wealth to only a handful of politicians, babus and businessmen and for rest of the people it is COMMON POVERTY Games.
