COMMONWEALTH 2010...need ur views .. - Page 5

Whose boycott?

Writing in the Sunday Times of India, Chetan Bhagat made an impassioned plea to all of us common citizens not just of Delhi but of all of India to boycott the Commonwealth Games. The writer argued that showing any form of support to the CWG would be to endorse the seemingly bottomless pit of corruption and scams that lies beneath the veneer of an event supposedly meant to promote sport in this country. It is an excellent argument.

Regrettably it won't work in practice. Why? Because you can't boycott someone, or something, that has already boycotted you.

Mohandas Gandhi used boycotts to protest against colonial rule by urging Indians not to buy British-made goods. The strategy was at least partly successful in that it must have hurt imperial coffers, whether or not it stung imperial pride. However, as rapacious and thick-skinned as our colonial masters undoubtedly were, it seems that in both rapacity as well as thickness of skin they have been outdone by our current set of rulers. Under foreign rule, Indians could make their dissent felt by boycotting British products and institutions. Today, a boycott by us of a sarkari product like the CWG, for example, will have little or no impact as it is becoming increasingly clear that our present-day powers-that-be have boycotted us long before we could boycott them, or any of their projects.

In the case of the Commonwealth Games, for instance, it was or ought to have been clear right from the start that the whole show was going to be a money-making exercise for various sarkari agencies, and their contractors, suppliers and middlemen. The participation of the athletes, the involvement of the general public, and the promotion of national pride appear not to have entered into official calculations at all. What we, the common citizens, thought of the Games, or what our experience of the event would be, was not of even marginal concern. Those responsible for the preparations and running of CWG represent a closed system from which the general public has been excluded: the Games boycotted us before we could boycott the Games.

So skip the Games, if you so choose. Your absence (or your presence) won't really matter. Because, whether you're there or not, the primary purpose of the Games will have been achieved: that all those within the loop of organising and preparing for the event end up making a lot of money.

The CWG is only one example of the sarkari boycott of the people. Farmers of western UP are up in arms because, in the name of 'progress' and 'public interest', some 22,000 villages in the area are going to be bulldozed without payment of adequate compensation to make way for the Yamuna Expressway. Which 'public' is this and what is its 'interest'? Is it the general public, or is it the self-enclosed coteries of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors whose sole interest is to rake in as much money as possible from such 'public interest' projects?

The tribal communities of India have long been boycotted by successive governments. Many have been displaced from their traditional forest habitats, again in the name of 'progress' and 'public interest'. The intervention of the Supreme Court has highlighted the plight of the Kondhs of Orissa whose ecologically-fragile homelands in the Niyamgiri hills were threatened by bauxite mining operations which had been given governmental clearance without adequate environmental safety checks. But for each such case reported, a dozen or more slip beneath the radar screen. Can tribals boycott sarkar-approved mines, or steel plants, or do such projects boycott tribals?

The boycott by the weak citizen of a powerful raj was Gandhigiri. Today we are witnessing the boycott by a powerful sarkar of weak citizens. Gandhigiri or goondagiri?

^^ There was stuff on that cycling event too. The blog is below. Do readt the comments on TOI as well. Some are really good.

How to mess up a sports event

Rajesh Kalra
30 August 2010, 04:51 PM IST

As the riders reached the Connaught Place area, it was clear that the tarmac laying must have been completed just an hour, if not minutes before the event started. The bitumen was still gleaming and must have still been hot and sticky, so the organisers/municipal body sprinkled white powder to ensure that tires don't stick. However, while they did achieve their first objective, excess of powder meant it became extremely slippery, especially on turns. We were on our mountain terrain bikes with thick tires and slowed down considerably while negotiating these bends. Can you imagine the plight of professional cyclists on road bikes with razor thin tires? I am surprised so few of them skidded and speaking to a few later I realised they all slowed down to almost a crawl. If the intention was to let the world know we have the roads and the skills to organise fast road races, we clearly failed. If anything, it showed the organisers as some who either had no clue as to what is necessary, or the co-ordination between them and the civic bodies was absent.

And even as the riders were completing a loop, the children's ride was flagged off. The absence of briefing was visible here too. The kids had not been told what precautions to follow, and volunteers hadn't been told what to do in case the kids don't follow instructions. They all started in a frenzy and sure enough, barely a minute later, two youngsters crashed and fell and scores of them riding frantically behind fell all around them. To make matters worse, the organisers, totally unprepared for such an eventuality, sent the policemen on mobikes from the wrong direction, head on into the oncoming cyclists, making them go here and there to avoid colliding with them.

The best was, of course, reserved for the end. The 25 km ride was to do three loops of the circuit. At the completion of the second loop, riders suddenly found themselves being asked to take a left and stop. While a lot of confused riders looked around, they were told that is it. But..but, it is not yet 25 kms. When one enquired why, the real Delhi culture came to the fore. Apparently the VIPs and the sponsors wanted to get on with the presentation ceremony for the elite class cyclists and decided to cut short all other events, which, for them were a mere formality, despite having charged packet from each participant. When a few irate riders protested, the organisers let loose burly Delhi Police officers on them to literally manhandle and push them away. It was disgusting, to say the least.

If this city, indeed this country, wants to encourage a sporting culture, there needs to be a considerable mindset change. When it is a sporting event, the focus has to be on the participants and not the VIPs.

The organisers also need to understand the importance of training volunteers and others properly to deliver an event that everyone is happy to be a part of and goes back with fond memories. The trick is to think the entire sequence through, foresee any eventuality and then brief everyone concerned/involved appropriately. Plan A for this, Plan B for that etc. For any event to go through flawlessly, this hard work has to be put in the beginning itself. Our fondness for taking a short cut in everything we organise will not let us progress. The events that are supposed to showcase our prowess end up achieving exactly the opposite.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/randomaccess/entry/how-to-mess-up-a

See the article below. I know Moneghetti's comments are in good faith. He is not packing any digs our way. Still, I feel ashamed that this is the image India and Indians carry and portray across the globe.