By M H Ahssan
Since everything that smells of money in India is fixed and even national honours have lost their sanctity, nothing less than a Bharat Ratna would be in order for recently humbled IPL czar Lalit Modi. When you think of it, Modi has done the nation extraordinary service by bringing out the muck in the game of politics and money.
There will, of course, be more IPLgates in future even as a lot remains to be discovered today. But what Modi has unwittingly done is to force us as a nation to think hard on how to break the nexus between politicians and sports. If you go to the root of the matter, we will be forced to think further about reforming the political system.
The roots of corruption lie in the prevailing system where you cannot win a simple municipal election without a few crores in your pocket. The need for money rises in the assembly and Parliamentary elections and then you need hundreds of crores of rupees to be able to form the government.
Therefore, if you are a “national level” politician —like the one who eagerly wanted to becomeprime minister before the last election —you better have insatiable greed and be skilled at accumulating wealth in proportions that one can only imagine.
Lalit Modi deserves nothing less than a Bharat Ratna because the fallout of his tweet could actually professionalise and depoliticise sports administration in thecountry and also make us think on larger issues.
Wherever there’s money to be made in India — starting from the lowest road contract to securing admission to professional colleges; cornering lucrative pieces of land or bagging mega contracts, think of politicians and you get the complete picture.
If the local corporator begins small with cuts in civic works, the bigger politicians play with bigger opportunities at the district, state and the national level. Thus, it is not surprising in the least that the fastest money spinner of all times — the IPL—with its heady mix of cricket, glamour and business, should have the biggest and the best of the players in the business.
Since India and her assets are simply there for the politician to lay his hands on and appropriate at will, it is literally child’s play for aviation minister Praful Patel’s 24-year-old daughter to turn an Air India passenger flight into a chartered one for the IPL. Or, obtain information about team valuations, pass it on to her father who in turn passes it on to fellow minister Shashi Tharoor, who’s in the thick of the bidding for the Kochi IPL team.
The concept of “conflict of interest” which is fundamental to public life is non-existent in Indian politics, which is dominated by today’s version of kings and princes of India. The country and her riches are their spoils waiting to be picked and enjoyed.
While the nation was innocently enjoying the game of cricket, it is the politicians and their cartels who were actually enjoying the bigger game of laundering money at rates that would leave full-time crooks gawking.
Transparency and probity in public life, which ought to be the bedrock of a sound democracy, have been reduced to laughable matters in India. Contemporary wisdom suggests that examples of the spartan and principled lives in the pre- and early post-independent India sound good in speeches but have no place in public life today.
The bottom line is that money is the basic fuel that drives politics in India. Unless we fix the system through electoral reforms and enable honest people to win elections and look at the scoundrels in the eye, there is little hope for India.
Till then, the saga of the Pawars, Patels and Modis will continue, one IPLgate after another, in one form or the other.
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