By Prabhat Shunglu
New Delhi: The claims of British doctors and scientists can always be re-doubted whether the New Delhi bug
actually originated from the capital of the country it has been named after before long it was
claimed to have travelled to Europe and other continents but corruption is one adamant superbug
that refuses to leave the power corridors of New Delhi. This time the bug bit a somebody who has
been a familiar name in the country’s sports administration, credited, along with several like-minded
politicians and social bigwigs running sports bodies, with pushing the country’s sports on the brink
of sustained disaster leave aside a few sports. And they did this largely by draining the coffers of
the sports bodies they headed for private luxury. Those who were incapable of such an enterprise
showed their prowess by investing their energies into more physical and fleshy aspect of sports,
never mind the public shame that invariably accompanied the exposure of their escapades. Only
the Board of Cricket Control of India can be excluded from this category because they have single-
handedly fashioned cricket’s fall from grace by plying the boys with stinking money only to see Team
India set records after records in setting lowest scores ever in test and one day history and going
down to rivals with margins that cannot be measured in yards but in miles.
But why should the country make a song and dance about Kalmadi and his hand-picked coterie.
How will his resignation help set things right when the Commonwealth Games are round the corner.
In fact, there cannot be a more opportune time to tether Kalmadi to his acts of commissions and
omissions. Now is the time to believe in him for all what he is claiming. Now is the time to repose
one hundred per cent faith in his leadership and enterprise. If the Games are pulled off without
stadium lights going out just when the rivals in the boxing ring are taking rapid jabs at each other,
without a tile out of place, without the players getting stuck in the traffic jams from the games
village to the stadium, without rains playing havoc with Kalmadi, his men and Delhi government’s
cheeky efforts to give a leak-proof stadium all the punches and jabs being thrown at Team Kalmadi
may actually boomerang. Public memory is time-tested and is clearly short. Post October 14 when
the curtains fall down on the Commonwealth Games you can be rest assured the former fighter pilot
would have ejected to safety.
But that would be one lovely wishful thinking for Mr Kalmadi. For in the deep recess of his mind
he must be scheming ways to get out of the sordid mess because he knew he was sprinting close
to that mess every time a stone was laid at expanding the stadium, every time a tile was imported
for the rest rooms and the lobbies, when state-of-the-art turf was being laid out and every time a
certain plan was changed and re-drawn to measure up to the most modern sporting facilities that
lived up to the international standards. It is hard to digest Kalmadi’s ignorance about tenders and
deals floating around him most of which he was personally privy to and he personally partook. The
fabricated letter from the Indian High Commission recommending a certain firm for a contract was a
clear give away of Team Kalmadi’s shenanigans. As Kalmadi himself had a big foot into his mouth on
news channels across the country.
Precisely why even the party he has served over three decades has distanced itself from him over
the CWG controversies. But it is a case of too little too late. It is true that as elected president of
the Indian Olympic Association and man in charge of CWG preparations Kalmadi is answerable
only to Commonwealth Games Federation in this case and not to Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. Yet it shall be travesty of reason and logic to completely take away the blame
from the Congress party or the government for having allowed the mess to prosper at the cost of the
nation’s pride and honour.
Whose credibility is at stake in this CWG anyway. Whose games are these. Kalmadi may just be
Games CEO for all we know but at the end of the day it is India’s honour and credibility at stake. Can
one man be allowed to play with country’s confidence, pride and self-esteem. Can the government
of the day wash its hands off the controversies and those that may dog the Games in the immediate
future or post the conclusion of the Games. What, if the standards at the Games venues and stadia
were found suspect. What if the rains bring down the concrete slab over the excited and restive
spectators. It shall also crush the country’s credibility and self-esteem beyond repair. And burdened
with this heavy weight guilt we shall loose the moral right to bid for hosting the 2020 Olympics.
Anyway, with tons of water-tight evidences the Olympics Committee shall be on a high moral ground
to reject India’s bid.
You can question the chicaneries of a Kalmadi but the pragmatism of the Manmohan Singh
government ably remote-controlled by 10 Janpath, the repository of political power in the country
today, who also plays parent and guardian to several Congress MPs including Mr Suresh Kalmadi,
also becomes suspect. For much part of his tenure after he was put in charge of the sports ministry
Mr M S Gill seemed fumbling for a role for himself when he should have been asserting his authority
as a Minister. The grand-old-nanny of Delhi’s politics chief minister Sheila Dixit appeared too clever
by half as it gradually dawned upon her that after all she will have to meet project deadlines well
before the onset of the Games. While the Gills, the Dixits and the Kalmadis were busy playing
seven stones with the Games not a leaf stirred at either the South Block, 7 Race Course Road or 10
Janpath.
Enter Mike Fennel and the country wakes up to a disaster in waiting. The government agencies
engaged in Games’ work were caught off-guard. As Fennel hopped and stepped over games
preparations he nearly jumped with anger at the tardy progress. That was a year ago. Kalmadi cut a
sorry figure but put up a brave face and made incredulous assertions misleading public but gathering
headlines nevertheless. That was the time the Manmohan government should have appropriated
the opportunity to take the Games command under its wings without giving the impression that
Kalmadi’s wings have been clipped. It could have also saved Mani Aiyar the embarrassment of
having to literally curse, in a fit of frustration and anger, a la sage Parashuram that the games shall
be an utter disaster. Finally it dawned upon him that he was no longer the minister of sports and
having lost the elections and now nominated to the Rajya Sabha shall never become one again and
will have to cool his heels in the Upper House for long.
But who knows Mani’s unprecedented, off-the-cuff but pungent outburst may have just catapulted
him into the big league of doomsday alarmists. Maybe he is the indigenous answer to the ‘occult
powers’ Germany’s Octopus Paul possessed. Who will have the last laugh – Mani Shankar or the
Games mascot Shera. Shera, the tiger, is battered and bruised by the gang of classical poachers in all
likelihood might just be counting on his last breath.
If the Games pull off well it shall be a triumph of corruption once again and India shall celebrate
it on the streets of New Delhi. Corruption is one superbug Indians can claim to have lab-tested
indigenously. The only difference being while the NDM-1 feeds on human lives the corruption
superbug gnaws at the soul. This superbug and not the superbug British scientists are tom-toming
having originated here should be the one named after the capital of the country of its origin.
- 13-08-2010
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