The Great Indian Game Trick

A drama is in the offing around the Commonwealth Games and no one has to buy tickets to watch it.

Last week, the Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennel suddenly got a taste of what it means to deal with India. Rather belatedly, with just a year to go, he realised that the Indian Olympic Association was perhaps not on top of things to hold the Games in Delhi in October 2010. ‘Our concerns are such that unless there is significant change in the management culture and operation of the organising committee, these Games will fail from an operational perspective,’ said Fennel’s letter. It is a rather long-winded sentence but the gist of it is: if something does not change, we will be in a big mess.

Fennel wanted audience with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for assurance and maybe to discuss rescue operations. This is a fair demand from his point of view. But it does lead to a few questions: 1) If Manmohan Singh could will it, every project would run on time but not one does, so should Singh waste his time meeting him? 2) why should the Prime Minister—who has to decide on things like how soon to press the nuclear button, how firm his handshake should be with the Pakistani President, how to tackle an approaching drought and how to get his ministers to fly economy class—waste his time on a competition that not one Indian has a clue about?

There are of course arguments to be made for why Manmohan Singh should meet Fennel. The Games are important to India because they will enhance our global image. One popular television anchor, Barkha Dutt, termed it a matter of national pride. This is all slightly ironical. Because if national pride is so important, then why are we even participating in something which celebrates our colonisation by a foreign power? The only thing that links participating countries in the Games is that they were all connected to the British Empire.

As things stand, 14 of the 19 venues and nine transport projects are behind schedule, says a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The report apparently deals with last year’s progress, but if that is true, there is still no transparency on what the current status is. In answer to Fennel’s letter, Suresh Kalmadi, head of the IOA, says that everything will be completed on time. He’s a career politician, and hence exempt from hows and whys. It’s the old Indian circus playing all over again, except that Fennel has somehow inveigled his way into the cast of characters. But it is good that he is there now. We will all have interesting times ahead. The days, weeks and months before the Games promise to be much more entertaining than the Games itself.

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