Pakistan’s IPL omission

The mockery should have been avoided.

When the dust settles and the highly charged oratory duels subside, perhaps there will be space for better considered analysis on the recently concluded auction of the third installment of the Indian Premier League (IPL).  Pakistan, whose 11 cricketers led the shortlist for the third IPL auction — the most representation from any one nation — failed to obtain contracts from IPL franchises.

Arguments that the decision not to select Pakistani cricketers was based purely on business and on franchises’ unwillingness to dispense with additional money for Pakistani players’ security are simply disingenuous.  Cricketers from other nations — Australia, New Zealand, England and South Africa — receive the kind of security cover in India that can only be upgraded if the players are escorted in armored personnel carriers.  It is laughable that this theory finds credence.

But cricket is an interesting sport.  Unlike several other sports, international cricket — where cricketers represent their country and are contracted to a board that is at least quasi-governmental — is still more popular than league cricket.  In this respect, IPL’s cricketers are mostly selected based on their current status as international cricketers representing their country, their past status as international cricketers or their potential as future international cricketers.

As representatives of a quasi-governmental  board it is also appropriate that these international cricketers be subject to the diktats of the governments they represent.  South African cricket bore the force of government diktat when some countries refused to tour South Africa in the years of apartheid — likewise today, Zimbabwe is ostracized by some boards as an extension of their governments’ foreign policies towards the African country.

Therefore, if following the 26/11 attacks, it was the Indian government’s diktat not to commit to ties with the quasi-governmental Pakistan Cricket Board (whose chairman is still a direct appointee of the President of Pakistan and chief patron of the PCB — Asif Ali Zardari) this is also fair and consistent with India’s intention to not engage with Pakistan.

That being the case, why were Pakistani cricketers placed on the auction in the first place?  If the decision of the quasi-governmental BCCI was to maintain a suspension of ties with the PCB, then how did its subsidiary — the IPL — seemingly overrule this decision?

They say “with great power comes great responsibility”.  Yesterday’s abomination was concoction of a cricket board drunk with power, and a government  that thinks puerile jabs are to way to go when it is unable to force issues on the international political scene.

You don’t want Pakistan to play in India? Fine. You don’t want their cricketers to participate in the IPL? Fine. But this mockery could have been avoided. What was the Indian government trying to prove to Pakistan yesterday? What purpose did it serve? Why the pettiness?

Filed under: 26/11, Foreign Policy, India, Indian Premier League, Pakistan, World, asif ali zardari, auction, bcci, cricket, franchises, India, ipl, IPL-III, mohammed amir, Pakistan, pcb, shahid afridi, sohail tanvir, umar gul

The Show Must Go On…

The Indian Premier League (IPL) must be held as planned

Home Minister P. Chidambaram has urged that the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) be postponed, due to conflicts with the Indian general elections in April — May, 2009.  He argues that law enforcement forces in India will be unable to provide sufficient security cover during the games due to election commitments.  This blogger feels that the Home Minister is attempting to play it safe during election season and not be drawn into a scenario that provides a damning indictment of his party’s mismanagement of India’s internal security apparatus, should something, God forbid, happen during the event.  The Lahore terror attack on the Sri Lankan team gave Mr. Chidambaram a convenient out, before a security assessment on the matter was even conducted.   Outside the Subcontinent, there appears to be an attempt to paint India and Pakistan with the same broad brush, in terms of threat potential.  Various quarters in India have also been playing up this hyphenation.

Let’s get real.  Pakistan is a smoldering pot of jihadi fanaticism where the writ of government is undermined every hour of every day as a matter of common practice.   Extremist forces in Pakistan operate with impunity both inside and outside the federal framework.  The Pakistani establishment brought this upon itself and is now overwhelmed and unable to deal with this Frankenstein.  To compare this to the state of affairs in a country that is about to hold the world’s largest exercise in universal suffrage (the 15th such installment, since independence) is laughable.

So go ahead, Mr. Home Minister, do your security assessment.  Keep in mind, however, that your inability to provide security cover will be a condemnation of the security apparatus that you and your predecessor oversaw for five long years.   B. Raman believes that only a pragmatic security assessment should dictate whether the IPL should be allowed to go ahead as planned.  He suggests:

The national debate on this question is sought to be influenced more by commercial considerations arising from the profit-making urge of the corporate entities owning the participating teams and the money-making urge of different sections of the media and the advertising community than by security considerations…

The importance of ensuring the security of the life and property of the common citizens is sought to be subordinated to catering to the money-making urge of these sections with a vested interest in seeing that the IPL tournament goes ahead as scheduled.

I have nothing but the highest regard for Raman, but my beef with this article is the notion that just because this is a commercial venture (or a “money-making urge” as Raman puts it) that it should be brushed aside. No one in their right mind would assign anything but top priority to security during national elections, but private enterprise is an integral part of urban, middle class India, and has been for some time.  It isn’t a “money making urge”, like some sly, underhand, nefarious charade, it is the engine that is driving India’s economy.

If the Home Minister is telling me that he can’t protect private enterprise in the country, our law enforcement agencies, along with the Home Minister can just pack up and move along because they are of no use whatsoever.  Our law enforcement agencies have done little else in recent memory than raid rave parties in Mumbai and Bangalore. What message is Chidambaram trying to convey to India and to the rest of the world?  That we are incapable of holding a sports tournament and national elections at the same time in India?  Pragmatic Euphony echoes similar thoughts on The Indian National Interest:

[I]t should worry the nation that the Indian state seems incapable of holding a sporting event along with the general elections. The UPA government has done little to build these capabilities during its tenure and is intent on using Mumbai or Lahore as an excuse for its failure.

[T]he greater impact is in the signalling value of the decision taken.  It impacts the international standing of the country not only for the tourists, but more importantly, for financial, commercial and business interests, as the security advisories get revised in corporate headquarters and government departments the world over.

The show must go on.  Not for “national pride”, or for corporations’ “money-making urge”, but for the Indian government to show its people and countries outside that the fallacious hyphenation of India and Pakistan is absurd, and that it is capable of maintaining law and order it the country after the aberrations of the recent past.

Filed under: 2009 Indian General Elections, Business, Congress I, India, Politics, Uncategorized, 2009 Indian elections, Chidambaram, cricket, India, indian premier league, ipl, Lahore Attack, Mumbai Attack, Terrorism

Bouquets and Brickbats: 2008 in Review

We’re fast approaching the end of 2008, and it is customary to a look back at the year. 2008 was the year of rebates and debates, of bailouts and sellouts. In 2008, pigs accessorized with lipstick, surges worked, several people participated in waterboarding (some albeit involuntarily), and the fundamentals of our economy were deemed to be strong. Natural disasters claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba, China and Myanmar. Businesses around the world collapsed and unemployment rates in industrialized nations crossed 6% for the first time in decades. In India, the lady from Rome did little the ease the miseries of the common man, and the Home Minister, like Nero, played the fiddle while the country burned.

Thankfully, there were the few welcome moments that diverted everyone’s attention from the forgettable events that have consumed us in 2008. The Beijing games were one of the better Olympics in recent memory; that China was able to undertake and successfully execute such a massive project should be an inspiration to other developing nations. Barack Obama’s election in the United States means that there will be responsible leadership at home, and consensus driven decision making when it comes to America’s foreign policies.

But without further ado, here now are the “bouquets”….

Bouquets

Hemant Karkare, Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan, other martyers who laid down their lives to defend India in the face of a series of unprecedented assaults. The “Do Nothing” government did, well, nothing to provide the equipment, training and funding necessary to counter the enemy. If the National Security Guards were able to flush out the terrorists in three days, it wasn’t because of the government’s involvement, it was despite the government’s involvement. This UPA administration has the blood of 160 citizens on its hands.

Somnath Chatterjee for standing up to the despicable tactics of Prakash Karat and his band of merry Commies and executing his duties as Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The scheming Left has shown yet again that it puts Party diktat and anti-Americanism over the rule of law and the country’s democratic process. With the nail firmly entrenched in the coffin of relevance, the CPI(M) can go back to being the trivial jokers they always were, and the nation will be better for it.

The Faceless, Nameless Gulf Laborer who is sandwiched between several devils and deep seas, but continues to toil for his family in conditions of virtual slavery. His day involves at least 12 hours of finger to bone work building extravagant skyscrapers and artificial islands, under the wrath of an unsparing sun. He is a victim of immoral agents in the subcontinent, construction companies in the Gulf, and their patrons in the palaces of Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. He lives in total squalor, shares accommodation with several other construction workers, and remits 60% of his income back to his family in Nizamabad or Haripur, if he should be so lucky as to be paid his wages once in seven months.

The Fab Four of Indian Cricket — Ganguly and Kumble hung up their spurs in 2008, each a true champion in his own right. Ganguly will be remembered as the man who gave Indian cricket its swagger, and Kumble as the workhorse who ground many an opponent to the dust. Although a forgettable year for Rahul Dravid, felicitations are due for becoming only the third Indian batsman to have aggregated 10,000 runs in Test cricket. Speaking of great aggregators, a tip of the hat to Sachin Tendulkar as well, who, by becoming the highest run scorer in Test cricket history, owns just about every batting record there is in Test and One Day cricket.

Sam Manekshaw and Baba Amte, RIP This year’s Vijay Divas (December 16) had special meaning as India lost a true Son of the Soil in Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw. Thirty seven years ago, this bahadur orchestrated the dismemberment of the Pakistan Army and liberated Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) from the clutches of cowards who engaged in state sponsored genocide against Bengalis. Another great Son of Bharata was laid to rest this year — Baba Amte, whose social service and fight against leprosy lead to the establishment of several rehabilitation ashrams in the country, at a time when those afflicted with the disease were ostracized by society.

Madhavan Nair, Mylaswamy Annadurai, and ISRO Thirty-three years after Aryabhata, and twenty-four years after Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to travel in space, ISRO successfully launched India’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, on a shoe string budget ($80 million).

Other honorable mentions: Indian Premier League (I know purists called it a farce and a bastardization of cricket, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite being a fan of the Bangalore Royal Challengers); Muntadar al-Zaidi (of “Shoegate” fame — say what you will, Peyton Manning couldn’t have thrown better spirals); Katie Couric (for flat out owning the train wreck that is and was Sarah Palin).

Brickbats

And now for the not-so-fabulous. This year has been very ordinary, by every standard, so shortlisting the most truly repugnant characters was not an easy task.

Corporate Executives, Investment Banks, Realtors, Richard Fuld, Bernie Madoff, et al: How the mighty have fallen…and have dragged us down with them in the process. As I write this, B-Mad, who swindled the world off of $50 billion, is cooling it at his crib — yes, he’s under “house arrest”. That seems a little extreme…why don’t they just give him $100 billion from the bail-out money and send him on an all expenses paid vacation to Maui. It’ll do him some good…help him take his mind off the little “pickle” he’s in.

Prakash Karat and the Red Army Prakash Karat is the kind of guy who could give the Bush Administration lessons on being incompetent. The CPI(M) has never done anything, couldn’t do anything even if it wanted to, and has never been right on anything. Yet, the chest thumping campaign since 2005 would have you believe that they lead the UPA coalition. Brinda Karat is so annoying, her bindi looks like bullseye. Two states that they do have power in — Kerala and West Bengal — are suffering from chronic mismanagement. Kerala’s State Domestic Product relies mostly on remittances from NRIs in the Middle East, while trade unionism has run Kolkata’s once strong public sector economy to the ground.

United Progressive Alliance Where do I begin? From the veritable Dick Cheney-like Party leader, to a comatose Prime Minister, to five years of vision and leadership deficit, to pandering to the Communist agenda, to a fundamental mismanagement of the nation’s security apparatus, this UPA government has run my country to the ditch. No one cares about India any more. It’s always about brown-nosing to some community or the other, or some regional political party or the other. Why can’t a nation of one billion produce leaders that have better scruples than Sonia Gandhi, Advani and Mayawati?

Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga Unfortunately, moral bankruptcy among leaders in the developing world isn’t the exception, its the norm. When Kibaki and Odinga tussled, the political vacuum created a free-for-all in Kenya that resulted in about 2,000 deaths and the displacement of about 250,000 people. Human Rights Watch blamed Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party for targeting Kikuyus in the Rift Valley, including killing 30 unarmed civilians at a church. With the power-sharing agreement, which made Odinga the Prime Minister of Kenya, and Kibaki the President, all seems to be well in Nairobi. Things aren’t so well though for the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who still remain without shelter or food.

Indian Media: Just how the Indian media manages to churn out third rate programming day after day is beyond me. In between the 10 minute commercial breaks, the twenty seconds of actual “news” programming is fraught with newscasters who can’t read or speak English. Why every news report must sound like a trailer for The Matrix, I don’t know. The sensationalism, the shrill pitches, the purposeful misrepresentation of facts, the chest-thumping nationalist rhetoric…the media claims it’s watching over India’s politicians…but who’s watching over the media? The Sardesais, the Goswamis, the Dutts, India’s media universe is replete with a satanic herd of yellow journalists. They are “newsmakers” in the most literal sense — the just make stuff up as they go along.

Arundhati Roy This storybook writer fancies her ability to break down and analyze “root causes” of many of India’s problems. In the wake of the Gujarat riots, she extended a heartrending apology, that wasn’t hers to tender, to “victims” who hadn’t actually been victimized. And now she wrote this swill, a 5,300 word blathering piece of an essay, where she blames everyone and anyone for the Mumbai attacks, except of course, the 10 terrorists and their sponsors in Pakistan. She even takes issue with everyone’s favorite (“news anchor”, “journalist”; insert noun here, I’m not quite sure what he does on Times Now) Arnab Goswami, for calling her “disgusting” on air. She calls this an “incitement” and a “threat”. Of course, Arundhati is not one to personally attack anyone herself. She wouldn’t have, for example, called Ramachandra Guha a “stalker” for merely pointing out that her analysis of the Sardar Sarovar dam issue was unoriginal. Would she? In 1997, Roy said “I had two options — writing or madness”. Well, Arundhati, this 5,300-word equestrian excrement of an article may have spared your sanity, but you haven’t made any such accommodation for the poor bastards that are subjected to it.

Rapid Fire: Raj Thackeray and his ilk (where were you when your city needed you most?); Russia (military interference in Georgia, economic muscle flexing against Ukraine…Big Red is back); AR Antulay (what a waste of space); and Robert Mugabe (who won’t be satisfied until he squeezes every last pumping drop of life out of the Zimbabweans) .

Filed under: 11/25/2008, anil kumble, Barack Obama, black cat, bouquets and brickbats, Congress I, India, isro, Mumbai Terrorist Attack, National Security Guard, saurav ganguly, Uncategorized, 1971 war, 2008 bailout, 2008 kenyan violence, 9 is not 11, ar antulay, arnab goswami, arundhati roy, baba amte, bangalore royal challengers, barkha dutt, bernard madoff, brinda karat, cnn-ibn, CPI(M), Dmitry Medvedev, Dubai, dubai labor, gazprom, georgia, gujarat riots, hemant karkare, indian media, indian premier league, ipl, isro, katie couric, kenya, kerala, leprosy, lk advani, madhavan nair, Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Mikheil Saakashvili, muntadar al-zaidi, mwai kibaki, mylaswamy annadurai, narmada bachao andolan, ndtv, orange demoratic movement, Prakash Karat, pranoy roy, rahul dravid, raila odinga, raj thackeray, rajdeep sardesai, ramachandra guha, richard fuld, rift valley, robert mugabe, russia georgia war, sachin tendulkar, sam manekshaw, sandeep unnikrishnan, Sarah Palin, sardar sarovar dam, shoegate, somnath chatterjee, Sonia Gandhi, team india, times now, UPA, vladimir putin, west bengal, zimbabwe