Basking in reflected glory

There was nothing more sickening than the sight of politicians, who don’t know one end of a cricket bat from the other, hijacking the victory celebrations from the lads who had brought in the glory from the World T20 games, and pushing them to the backseat and turning the affair into a political jamboree.

By Norris Pritam

It was in 1992 that the sanctions were lifted from in South Africa, whose new non-apartheid flag blew in the breeze. The government buildings where Black South Africans had cleaned floors and served coffee were about to pass into the hands of a black-led government. President Nelson Mandela emerged as the president of the vibrant new republic.

Mandela acknowledged that sports played a significant role in his triumph. In his first speech after the election results were in, he called on all the sportspersons of the world to come to South Africa after having been asked to stay away for 30 years.

Mandela ignored the diplomatic parties on the night of his inauguration and went directly to Ellis Park Stadium to speak during halftime of a football match between South Africa and Zambia. No South African, black or white, had had to wonder why a man who had gone from prison to president in four years could consider sports as a subject to deal with at a moment of such monumental significance.

The Indian cricket team was also part of the celebrations as apartheid was removed from sport. With much fanfare, Indian cricketers toured South Africa to spread “peace and fraternity” and help remove politics from sport.

Cut to September 26, 2007: The Indian team returned from the same South Africa. But in the intervening 15 years, perhaps much more politics has sneaked into Indian cricket than it helped remove in 1992. A massive crowd had gathered at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium to hail the M S Dhoni-led team with the World 20-20 trophy held aloft like a beacon. But what the cricket-crazy people got in return was a barrage of speeches by politicians like Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil.

One look at the dais and it was difficult to fathom who the heroes were—the 15 cricketers who brought glory to India or the politicians and the hangers-on. The very same cricketers who were hailed as heroes in the final in Johannesburg were pushed to playing second fiddle. At the felicitation ceremony, in the front row sat Union Agriculture Minister Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister Patil, BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, vice-presidents Lalit Modi and Rajiv Shukla and former BCCI president I S Bindra. Within minutes of the start beginning of the programme, the felicitation ceremony for the cricketers turned into a political rally.

From the tour to South Africa in 1992, this one took a 365-degree turn. The politicians went back to basics. Pawar, who had been against the 20-20 format in domestic cricket a mere weeks ago, sang paeans in praise of the players and took full mileage out of India’s victory. How, then, could Patil be far behind? In fact, he went one step further. Patil gave his long-winded, entirely out-of-place sermon in Marathi, occasionally popping up with words such as “cricket” and “Dhoni”. All this while, barring Dhoni, the other cricketers stayed hidden behind the formidable phalanx of politicians. It turned out to be a contest between the Men in Blue and the Men in White. The XXL girth of Pawar, Patil, Lalit Modi, Rajiv Shukla and others eclipsed the likes of Joginder Sharma and Sreesanth, however brilliantly the two might have shone in the arc lights of Jo’burg.

In the ultimate analysis, team Khadi Whites completely thrashed the Blues. The cricketers proved no better than the Mumbai Bar Girls—dancing to the tune of their masters. In the case of the bar girls, the Mumbai police had acted extra-fast to raid their clubs. At Wankhede, the cops looked the other way even as spectators raided the field and made life miserable for the women there, just like at a political rally.

Even as the politicians at Wankhede were basking in the reflected glory of the cricketers, some couple of thousand kilometres away Indian hockey stars threatened to go on hunger strike. They wanted a trickle of money rain that was being showered in abundance on the cricketers. The hockey players, who won the recent Asia Cup in Chennai, were particularly peeved at the announcements made by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.

The minister had announced out-of-turn promotions to Indian and Air India players in the 20-20 title winning team. The announcement also carried free air travel to the players and their relatives. The national hockey coach, Joaquim Carvalho, called it a “step-motherly treatment”. Carvalho was not against the bounty to the cricketers by the corporate world or private enterprise. His objection was to Patel or the government’s dole to cricketers while ignoring other sport and victories like the Asia Cup in hockey. But it would be prudent for Carvalho and the hockey players to realise that Patel belongs to the same political hue as the Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Patel acted simply at the behest of his master’s voice.

Interestingly, barely hours after Patel announced Air India’s largesse to the cricket players, the team flew back home on the wings of the Emirates! Why didn’t the team fly in the national carrier even as Air India bent backwards to salute them? The fact is that the BCCI was to receive a huge sum of money under a contract with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to fly the team on Emirates. The financial obligations prevailed over the national spirit even as thousands of people on the 30-km stretch between Sahar Airport and Wankhede Stadium raised “Chak de India” slogans to the skies. For Patel it did not matter whether the team flew in Air India or the Emirates. Air India’s offer to the players, controlled by the Pawar-led cricket BCCI, surely boosted the Maratha leader’s political image. Who cares if it is the government treasury that pays out crores of rupees for his facelift?

Pawar-Patel combine act was not the last word on the fame stolen from the cricket players. Congress president Sonia Gandhi also played her card by calling up Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh in Johannesburg. And on whose mobile did she speak? No prize for guessing the right answer – that of Rajiv Shukla, a politician of lesser fame but bigger clout, whatever the nature of his methodology. Sonia even sent in the invite to Dhoni and some other players for an “at home”.
Who knows, Dhoni might be the Gen Next yuva neta of the Congress party. Amidst all this, one person who has not opened his mouth is Sports Minister Mani Shanker Aiyar. The reasons are clear enough. His take on the Panchayati Raj and agriculture is opposite to Pawar’s ideology, if Pawar has any. Even politically, they are at loggerheads. Perhaps this might bring the bete noires — Aiyar and Suresh Kalmadi — closer to face their common enemy. A one-time disciple of Pawar, Kalmadi is now in the opposite camp. Who says that sport and politics don’t mix? In India, they do so very well indeed, as a matter of course.