CWG and what remains thereafter

After the dust settles down, the roar of outrage (this blog has a couple of links which can form a good navigational journey along with this post) over the CWG would also come to a grinding halt. There is a new session of Parliament coming up and there are enough issues that are being stoked that would push the high/low lights of the games out to a dark corner. However, instead of showing up the resilience of the largest democracy on the planet the games might just end up being a test of our national character – one of tolerating shoddiness, of encouraging false promises, of de-facto and de-jure political authority, of financial wrangling of large order and of course, a media that is perpetually lusting after the latest breaking news to do any serious deep research on issues that matter.

Let’s admit it, we had close to 6 years before we got where we are today. In between we had the utter fiasco called the Commonwealth Youth Games. And nary a negative word about the decimation it left behind. The hosting of the Commonwealth Games requires infrastructure to be built – roads, bus stops, stadiums, housing complexes. You cannot really have Potemkin Villages unless there is a convergence of interests at the highest levels. And yet, amazingly enough that is precisely what has happened. Non existent facilities, infrastructure-on-paper has been signed off as of high quality. And, all the while politicians, both practising and pretending, keep on bringing the old bogey out - national pride. If it were actually national pride at stake and, the ones at the helm comprehended the meaning of it, there would be a drastically different set of CWG news items. But as is the state of affairs it will not be long before verbal crescendos rock the houses of the Parliament with farcial walk-outs and what not being staged. And, we will calmly accept that and move along. Move along till the time of the next elections when we’ll try to select between lesser evils or, lesser corrupts and cross our fingers hoping that something positive would come out of this.

There are a lot of voices clamoring for Suresh Kalmadi’s scalp. There were a similar, if not equally strong number asking for that after the CYG. And, each time there is a fiasco in the numerous sporting bodies that he operates in, people call for his head. Very Alice in Wonderland. But he survives. Standard business sense – the chap who brings in the numbers doesn’t get fired. In a business, if the numbers accrue via not-so-ethical means, the neck gets the chop. In politics, who cares ? As long as the proper coffers are lined up, and a small scapegoat is sacrificed, why should you care about your shelf-life ? To paraphrase the car tag line – one life, why so moral ?

A couple of questions though:

• Once the games are over, what would the media do ? Would they, like the ToI, still demonstrate the spurned lover approach and keep hollering grapes are sour ? Or, would they go to town about how massively economically successful the games have been ?
• What kept them from not investigating the games build up for 5 or even 6 years ?
• Now that a significant part of the Indian contingent seems to have come under the scanner of taking banned substances, what would be done to ensure that our coaching and training practices are cleaner ?
• When will we learn to respect our athletes and provide them facilities where they would be proud to train at and feel comfortable staying in ?
• Would the CWG episode allow us to prune the deadwood that are holding on to the top posts in various sporting federations and ensuring that their lackeys can rig every election ?
• What happens with the folks who ended up blowing a large hole in the exchequer because the budget resembled a giant blimp from the project balloon at its earliest incarnation ?
• Given that the CWG never had a single point of authority and decision (think RACI), who gets to stand up and say “we did goof up, let’s figure out how to get things straight” ?
• What happens with the infrastructure ?
• The parts of NCR that are still unfinished because they were dug-up, cut-out,plundered for the CWG dressing up, will they be put back into shape ?
• How would the government handle the deficit ?
• Do we seriously intend to ever make a bid for the Olympics ?

National pride doesn’t mean a compromise and accepting shady, shoddy and shameful acts. Let us not allow our politicians to define national pride for us. We know what it is. And, we know when we are being fooled – let’s call it out.