Cricket and Congress!

Cricket in India enjoys tremendous popularity. Cricket and Cricket administrators are often accused of thwarting the growth of other sports in India. While this is far from the truth, I find popularity of Cricket in India is strikingly similar to support Congress party gets in India. Both are thriving in this country primarily because there competitors aren’t faring any better. Let us analyse the situation in little more depth.

Congress of course is the first political party formed in India. With the stalwarts like Tilak, Gandhi and Nehru as its leaders, it naturally enjoyed huge support from the citizen which led to independence. After independence though, many national and regional parties came into existence. But, barring few years, Congress has been the party which has been in power for most of the period. So, even after nearly 60 years, Congress has a nation wide appeal.

Cricket too, has been immensely popular right from the days of Pentangular tournaments. Other sports did have patches have dominance. Like Hockey enjoyed its golden age in Fifties and Sixties. Tennis too had reached its peak in late Sixties when India reached Davis Cup final twice. Indian football was in its prime in 1962 Asiad and 1960 Olympics. But leave apart these aberrations and you find Cricket ruling the hearts of Indian fans continuously.

So what is it in Cricket as also Congress that keeps people interested? Does the Congress have better leaders than opposition? Are the policies of Congress more pro-people than the opposition? Are Cricketers more talented than other sportspersons? Is BCCI more transparent than other sporting bodies?

The fact is that both are thriving by default. The people of India every now and then throw the mandate towards Congress more out of disgust towards opposition than as an endorsement of policies and programs of Congress. Similarly, Cricket catches people’s imagination primarily because of anarchy that prevails in conduct of other sports.

Congress too is a divided house like the opposition. Similarly BCCI also has a long history of bitter power struggle. But it all boils down to choosing a lesser evil. It is not that the chances didn’t come to the counterpart. In politics, people of India gave chance to non-congress formations for at least three times only to be disillusioned. Similarly, in sports too, glory in non-cricketing sports did come a couple of times. India won Hockey World Cup in 1975. But rather than captalising on it the Indian Hockey Federation killed itself by the infighting. Indian football team reached semi finals of Olympics in 1956, but then the interests of club owners overpowered the national interests. So the people of India had to put their faith and backing to Indian Cricketers who won the world cup in 1983. The shrewd marketers like Dalmiya and now Lalit Modi have since seen to it that Cricket become an enterprise and the global nerve centre of Cricket.

In politics, they say that there are no permanent enemies. Politicians are known to protect mutual interests of friends even in opposition. Same here in BCCI where we find an Arun Jaitley of BJP siding with NCP supreme Sharad Pawar and Congress spokesman Rajeev Shukla and National Conference leader Farooq Abdulla all belonging to different parties. So what is the real truth? Is the politics like a game of Cricket OR Is Cricket is the political Akhada?

This article also appeared on Indiastudychannel.com

Are Medals More Important Than Morals?

The demon of doping is omnipresent all over the sporting world. Cheating the competitors and spectators is so prevalent, even today, WADA monitoring notwithstanding. But the revelation of the large scale 'state administered doping' by the former East Germany (GDR) and the sordid tale of Heidi Kreiger is shocking to say the least.

Heidi was one of the superstar athletes from former GDR. She was crowned European Shot Put champion in 1986. But soon she started feeling the after effects of testosterone hormone abuse, which had left all the traits of a man. She started feeling 'increasingly foreign' within her on body and ultimately had to go for sex change operation. Heidi died and Andreas was born in 1997.

From 1968 to 1988, East Germany , a tiny communist country, participated in 11 Olympics, Summer and Winter, and won a whopping 519 medals including 192 Gold medals. All these years, the athletes were subjected to state organized doping program - known as State Plan 14.25 - that made GDR to second spot in medals tally of Olympics (Seoul 1988). But the glory that nation achieved was on the unethical and inhuman torture of citizens of own country.

The chilling after effects of the drug abuse are now increasingly coming to the fore in athletes of that time as they are now nearing age of 50 and can no more withstand the drug induced anomalies in their bodies. It is estimated that nearly 10,000 athletes were the part of the 'state plan' and stories of sufferings will come up more and more. Andreas, who now runs a clothes shop, alleges that the unified Germany is still using the knowledge of former GDR coaches to manufacture champions although the practice can not be as blatant with stricter anti-doping policies now in place.

The virus of doping has penetrated Indian sports too. Indian weightlifters, especially women have been notorious in this regard and recently served out ban for Indian women weightlifters being found guilty at Athens Olympics, Indians obviously fare poorly in sports at international level. But to use such unethical means for fame is not acceptable by people with clear conscience. Obviously morals are more important than medals.

This article first appeared on ezinearticles.com

Is it Worth Spending Rs 3000 Cr. on Commonwealth Games?

The Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held in New Dehi next year in October are embroiled in one dispute after another. After the environment related issues regarding construction of Games village, then comes the stand off between the Organising committee and the Federation itself. Mr Suresh Kalmadi, the IOA president who is also the chief of the Organising committee, is having a running feud with Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) CEO Mike Hooper.

Amidst all this a question comes to mind whether it is worth to spend such a huge money for the conduct of CG? The budget of commonwealth Games 2010 is more than 3000 Cr. Of course, renovated and modern sports facillities will be erected in New Delhi. But like in 1982, these faillities are only likely to be underutilized. Secondly how important are the commonwealth Games in the world context? With the US and China not being a part of commonwealth, the standard of the Games is far too inferior. In a way these games are no different than the SAF Games or Afro-Asian Games which are of no significance. India routinely bags heaps of medals in in these Games. But where does India stand in olympics?

In fact, holding Commonwealth Games is redundent now as the Commonwealth doesn't exist. the days of world wide British empire are long gone. Most of the participating countries are independent and only a few countries have the British King as the constitutional Head. India for instance is a soverign country trying to emerge as a superpower. Is that the reason for the stand off between the Organising committe and CGF that the CGF is unable to tolerate India's emergence as strong nation?