Commonwealth Games: Are we playing a cruel joke?
By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
We know that Delhi has been virtually made beggar-free on the eve of the Commonwealth Games as their presence would show the country in a poor light. But we do not know how much India has begged to host the 2010 sporting extravaganza in its capital? We know that an advanced country like Canada had to wait for 30 long years to pay back the loans it took for organizing 1976 Montreal Olympics. But we do not know how long will India take to return the money it borrows for such events. And finally the entire world knows that today poor Greece is a bankrupt nation and the economists are almost unanimous in blaming the 2004 Athens Olympics for this disaster.
However, thanks to the former Union minister of Sports, Mani Shankar Aiyar, a large section of countrymen and women now know that India will be spending something around Rs 35,000 crore on this 12-day long sporting event between October 3 and 14.
While Aiyar, a columnist and a Rajya Sabha MP of the ruling Congress party, told newspersons outside Parliament on July 27 that he would be unhappy if the Commonwealth Games succeeds others in India may not share his view in toto. But then very few right-thinking people would agree with the rebuttal of the Chairman of Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, Suresh Kalmadi, who dubbed his remarks as 'irresponsible' and 'anti-national'.
While the expression anti-national definitely needs a better definition Aiyar, as a responsible citizen, has every right to ask "if the Commonwealth Games are successful, they will further organise Asian Games and other events."
In a democracy he has the right to say "Just imagine if we would have spent the Rs 35,000 crore in providing training to the children, we would have won medals in every international sporting event."
There may be no dearth of people who would not appreciate the tone and tenor of his statement but he has emerged as the man who had at least triggered a debate on the wasteful expenditure in the country where 77 per cent survives on less than half a dollar a day––or mere Rs 20.
True there are ways to promote games and sports, but may one ask whether the tally of medals have increased in Olympics or other international competition in the last four decades when we have hosted so many international events––the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games etc. Instead except cricket––and possibly lawn tennis and badminton due to individual brilliance––we have gone from bad to worse. We have lost the game of hockey and our athlete are no match to that of many tiny Third World countries––not to speak of China, Japan or Koreas, and of course West.
We have hundreds of literally starving former sportsmen and women running tea-stalls, pulling rickshaws or driving autos or working as fourth grade employees in any unorganize sector. Yet in this poor country the game of rich––cricket, lawn tennis, badminton––get promotion and sponsor. Nobody bothers to bring back the footballing glory at least at the Asian Games level––though it is the game of poor.
This electricity-starved country is busy building stadium after stadium with flood-light arrangements, most of them to play day-night matches and IPL tournament. Can n't these games be played in the day time as in the past? We do not have electricity for our irrigation and for the study of children. Most of our towns are just areas of darkness. During 2007 Champions Cup Cricket Tournament when Jaipur was hosting day-night match after match villagers in Sriganganagar in the same state, Rajasthan, were protesting for lack of irrigation facilities. In fact one of them even got killed in the police firing.
While we are unable to rehabilitate and pay compensation to lakhs of people displaced for constructing dams in the name of producing electricity we are trying our level best to compete with countries which has surplus-power and water.
Our misplaced priority to compete with West and China is driving many in our establishment crazy. We do not want to learn how badly events like Olympics or World Cups have bled the economy of the countries like Canada, Greece and many others white.
For Commonwealth Games, which is nothing but a symbol of British slavery, we will built beautiful stadiums for many of the games which is not played in India. And we all know what will happen to them after the 12-day sporting jamboree––they will simply fall into disuse.
Like Commonwealth Games the Olympics are nothing but the way to assert the westernism over rest of the world. The very notion of reviving the Games in 1896 in Athens is to restore the glory of European West. Since the Christianized Europe has nothing to boast of in 2,000 years of history it fell back on the pre-Christian pagan era to revive its so-called supremacy. Thus if Olympic reminds the world of the western concept of superiority the Commonwealth Games recalls the so-called grandeur and magnificence of the British Raj. And perhaps no country paid the price of these false pretense as dearly as Greece itself. It was neither in the position of holding such show in 1896 nor in 2004, yet was encouraged and even helped by the western masters to do so for obvious reasons.
But then such huge events are reality now and one can not simply wish them away. What we need is to understand the larger design behind them, take part in them, make players more competitive and win more and more medals.
However, we in India, instead of improving our sports get trapped into the agenda of those who are running the show. We go beyond our means to build colossal infrastructure costing thousands of crores just for the players of other countries to play and win medals.
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