What is it about the IPL that provokes extreme reactions? The cricket purist’s objection is based on the manner in which it caters to the lowest common denominator.
The six is overdone, and it is all cricket porn, he argues. There’s more to the game than attempting to hit the ball into the crowd. However simplistic, there is an argument there. Too much money, too much hype, too many dancing girls — the argument goes on.
Yet it is the IPL which has brought focus to bear upon a pressing national problem, the water crisis. For that alone the ninth edition of the tournament, only a few days old, is already a success.
MLAs who take off on foreign jaunts at tax payers’ expense (“study tour”) will, hopefully, come into sharper focus and be held accountable for their actions during droughts. Earlier this year 17 MLAs from UP went to Japan, Australia, New Zealand.
“This tour,” said one of them, “is for the benefit of Bundelkhand,” a region experiencing severe drought.
How Bundelkhand benefitted is not known. Such “study tours” have virtually become a national institution without anyone being asked for study reports. When times get tough, the tough get going — out of the country.
Convenient punching bagThe Board of Control for Cricket in India is a convenient punching bag. It has too much money, too much influence, too much arrogance, does not beg for government handouts and for some or all of these reasons, must be cut down to size.
That is the argument, which is unfortunate because it is by far the most efficiently run sports body in the country, not merely the richest.
Some years ago it was suggested that the richest sporting body should support the poorer ones. It was a theme taken up with enthusiasm.
The All India Football Federation, following a request from its President Praful Patel, was promised Rs. 25 crore. It was to be paid in two halves, and Rs. 12.5 crores was paid. The BCCI also made a grant of Rs. 50 crore to the National Sports Development Fund.
But these gestures didn’t get the BCCI very far. A year after the first tranche was paid to the AIFF, it was decided to stop payment as the board’s working committee decided that there was “no information on how the Rs. 12.5 crore was spent.”
In the case of the NSDF grant, “our decision resulted in the loss of tax waiver. We have been punished for doing charity,” said the BCCI.
A request from the Commonwealth Games committee for sponsorship worth Rs. 100 crore was rejected for the same reason. The call for helping out other sports associations is based on misplaced socialism.
The board sees no reason why the money it earns through its own professional approach to marketing and its ability to garner sponsorship should be handed over to sports bodies that are lazy, corrupt, and lack drive.
Not a blameless bodyThe BCCI is not a blameless body full of philanthropic individuals. Charity has never been a serious part of its agenda.
Yet, periodically, it is called upon to render the kind of service no other body, sporting or otherwise, is asked. The BCCI must respond to national disasters, goes the cry.
This is fine in theory, but look at the recent cases: a flyover collapses in Kolkata, firecrackers claim lives in Kerala. Both man-made disasters due to negligence and political manoeuvres.
No corporates are expected to contribute funds. No politician who is behind these disasters will even be asked to.
And what about the poor planning and corruption that has led to long-running environmental disasters? The rape of the Western Ghats, the drying up of lakes and so much more?
However, there is a call for the BCCI to get more involved in our national life. There are many ways of doing this. Either through direct and regular contributions to a special fund set up for the purpose or by engaging an NGO to handle and funnel the funds where they are needed.
It will have to be a non-government body simply because experience has taught us that once politicians and bureaucrats get a whiff of the money, the thin end of the funnel tends to be turned away from what is necessary.
f that sounds excessively cynical, it probably is. But it is also realistic.
When there is a national disaster, those who suffer are not particularly worried about whether charity is forced or voluntary. State and national governments can force charity, but before it gets to that, it might be in the BCCI’s interests to set up a voluntary system, and a method of keeping track of how its contributions are spent.
In a country as large as ours, there is bound to be a current problem somewhere.
The IPL, now the people’s tournament, can keep track of the BCCI’s generosity with the same flair with which it displays the number of sixes hit during a tournament.
