I write this in a state of stunned disbelief. Also a state of anger and deep frustration. Just as millions of Indians are still trying to come to terms with the events of the last ten days, we are confronted with yet another disturbing revelation?matches at IPL season II may have been fixed. These reports come at a time when the entire nation is already simmering with disturbing revelations coming out from the nation?s income tax department and Enforcement Directorate.
Cricket, as I have repeatedly said in the past, is not a mere game. It is politics par excellence. It became an instrument in the hands of a colonised population in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, when they realised the political potential of beating the Englishman at his own game. It is politics out and out when we play our neighbours Pakistan. Yet there is a difference between these politics and the one that is currently unfolding on the national stage.
What we see in IPL?s ongoing crisis?somewhat fancifully termed IPLgate?is not the politics of national/nationalist assertion, as it has been in the past, and still is on many occasions.
Rather, it is the politics played out among the country?s cr?me de la cr?me?an entire upper crust of society which sees cricket as a way of getting one?s own way, and a means of getting even with those that are not their friends. The politics of the IPL has become a way for the opposition to barrage the government, and the government to turn back on the opposition. And, of course, we will have a few sacrificial bulls?Lalit Modi?s name is the first on the list. Shashi Tharoor has already gone. But is that going to change the way we Indians have now come to view the game.
The game of cricket is now pure and simple a route to high life?fashion shows, night-long parties, wine and women. For many of our impressionable cricketers, the game brings money, true, but it is these perks that are the added attractions. One of the organisers of the IPL has commented on the after-match parties that these parties?carrying on till the wee hours of the morning?are a great compliment to the game, for after all IPL is all about lifestyle.
How true that is, for truly cricket now is lifestyle and a way of entering the world of the rich and famous. Lalit Modi?s glamour quotient is anytime matched with a Priety Zinta or Shilpa Shetty. Administrators of the past, however powerful they were did not have that kind of glamour. They, too, played the politics that comes with the administration of sport, but sport had some kind of a sanctity around it, a laxman rekha that was hardly ever breached. Sharad Pawar and Jagmohan Dalmiya may have fought tooth and nail, but that hadn?t ever involved storming Parliament and bringing the nation to a standstill.
The real problem is that Indian cricket is in disrepute. Its single-biggest constituent, the fan, is fast losing his passion for the game and the trust that is so very essential to ensure cricket continues to be our secular national religion.
My singular apprehension is that thanks to a few unscrupulous jerks, the game of cricket is being vilified. Cleansing is essential, but the process is also of paramount importance. The people of this country, the real stakeholders, must feel that the game is truly being cleansed of the muck.
If that realisation doesn?t dawn, IPLgate may have scarred Indian cricket forever. And in doing so, Lalit Modi and company may have left their indelible impression on the game, albeit one of irreparable negativism.
?The writer is a cricket historian