Sporlitics the new hybrid

With West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee having come out openly in favour of Prasun Mukherjee against Jagmohan Dalmiya to head the Cricket Association of Bengal, and IOA chief Suresh Kalmadi and sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar's faceoff for the top spot in the 2010 Commonwealth Games organising committee, sport is now full and truly turning into a political game for chumps

By Norris Pritam

That politics and sport don't mix is an old adage. It was probably coined when sport was a mere pursuit of health and a form of recreation. But, as sport crossed state and national boundaries, the shadows of politics clouded it. Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games by the US in 1980 and the "revenge boycott" of the Los Angeles Olympic Games by the Soviet Union in 1984, are reminders of the ever-increasing dominance of politics over international sport.

Indian sport, too, is rife with the political intervention. Considering the massive invasion of politics and politicians in national sport, it is said that today there is sport in politics rather than the other way round. Had it been just politics, it might have been all right-but it is dirty politics that is playing havoc with Indian sport.

This time round, the culprit was West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. He has come out openly in support of Kolkata police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee against Jagmo-han Dalmiya in the contest of the presidentship of the Cricket Asso-ciation of Bengal (CAB). It is unbecoming of the office of the chief minister to meddle in the election of a sports body, more so when the chief minister is from the ostensibly "ethical" Left and the sport is cricket.

Bhattacharjee, though, can take comfort from the fact that it was the Congress party that also recently indulged in cricket politics. According to West Bengal sports minister Subhas Chakraborty, it was Congress president Sonia Gandhi who first politicised cricket by removing Dalmiya and bringing in Sharad Pawar as chief of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
Even before Dalmiya was declared elected as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, Jyoti Basu, former West Bengal chief minister and Communist Part of India (Marxist) patriarch, had sought his removal. He was quoted as saying that in the past few years (read: during Dalmiya's stint), the standard of cricket in West Bengal has gone down. What is rather odd is that it took him so many years to realise it, which is why the people have been taken by surprise by the utterances of Grand Old Man of West Bengal. Interestingly, it was after the election results were announced and Dalmiya was declared elected that Basu chose to swing to the other side, criticing his party comrade and chief minister for saying that Dalmiya’s victory was the victory of evil.

But is isn’t just cricket that politics is playing a game with!
Politics plays its role in other sports as well. Almost all major national sports federations India are headed by politicians. Suresh Kalmadi of the Congress heads the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) while various Members of the Legislative Assemblies and Members of Parliament lord over most of the state Olympic bodies. Kalmadi has often justified this by saying that it was important to have top politicians as the heads or officials of these federations.

"They have a better reach with the government and help in getting necessary financial grants and clearances," says. Dr Vijay Kumar Malhotra, president of the Archery Federation of India for the past three decades, airs similar views. But a reality check will reveal that these views don't hold good. Top sportspersons still cry for financial assistance, and teams sometimes get clearance just a few hours before the departure schedules of their flights. The politician-official, however, goes from strength to strength.

A top IOA functionary agrees that there is intervention of dirty politics in sport. "Where else will you find politicians of all shades and ideology under one umbrella?" His reference was to Kalmadi, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Tarlochan Singh, Digvijay Singh, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and many others all members or office-bearers of the IOA.

In the past few months, dirty politics has surfaced in Indian sport in the shape of a spat between Kalmadi and sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar. Both want top spot in the organising committee for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Due to their personal faceoff, the putative Games have already suffered a great deal: they are running behind schedule, and more delay is expected in the coming months.

Kalmadi is also facing a political salvo from his mentor Sharad Pawar. Thanks to Maharashtra politics, the two have now split-and it seems that Pawar has decided to needle Kalmadi: the BCCI chief recently announced that BCCI would also help sport other than cricket alone.

In fact, the agriculture minister is learnt to have made an offer of massive financial assistance by the BCCI to national sports federations. But, for all purposes, Pawar has a hidden agenda behind the move-his ultimate ambition is to control the federations by first luring them, and then creating a wedge between them and Kalmadi.

"Where is the need to give money to the federations?" asks former Olympic runner Sriram Singh. "If the BCCI is so keen to help, why can't it help top sportspersons directly?" Rajiv Shukla, another Congress MP, has also supported Pawar's move. It is this dirty politics that Indian sport can do without.