What happened in fixing & betting ridden game of cricket- where all interest group ganged up against Sharad Pawar, may happen in 2014. Times have changed !
It is nobody’s case that BCCI’s “stepped aside” president N. Srinivasan—a man of questionable morals and monumental ego—deserved being treated with respect at the Board’s working committee meeting on Sunday. Particularly so as reports of unprecedented corruption through IPL matches “fixed” between betting bookies and cricketers acquired an ominous edge, with Srinivasan’s son-in-law, under detention until Sunday, allegedly being the chief link between the dishonest bettors and the players willing to be corrupted. While the father-in-law controls the company that owns an IPL team—itself betraying a glaring conflict of interest—the son-in-law was its boss. It is nothing short of a miracle that the tainted BCCI president has got a reprieve by simply stepping aside, and not fired.
Is Srinivasan just lucky? Sure he is. But luck favored him because it was Sharad Pawar, Union Agriculture Minister and cricket czar, who smelt opportunity in his discomfiture. Not very long ago, a leading magazine described Pawar as India’s “most hated” politician. Apparently as its confirmation, as Pawar began circling over the dazed BCCI like a vulture, every man Jack on the Board united to stop him. Such unity was seldom seen in clan-divided Board.
Srinivasan’s lucky escape is bad news for cricket. But as the horrible incidents starting with Rajasthan Royals pacer Sreesanth being taken to custody reached the climax, nearly the entire spectrum of cricket mangers, cutting across political affiliations, united to keep Pawar out. He wanted Srinivasan to step down so that he could put one of his yes men—or himself, as his loudspeakers had begun wistfully remembering how much better things were when sahib, as his aides call him, was in charge of BCCI (2005-2008). It made BCCI leaders see red. From BJP stalwart and leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and BJP MP Anurag Thakur to UPA’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister of State Rajiv Shukla, —everyone rallied behind Dalmiya, a man whose contribution to Indian and international cricket is written in golden letters, but whom Pawar and company had disgraced by pinning false charges on him and making him a virtual pariah in the cricket establishment for many years, until the unflappable Kolkata Marwari clawed his way back into limelight. And now he’s back in the top seat. For the interim, yes, but who knows how things pan out in September next, when Srinivasan’s term ends, or whether evidence of his complicity surfaces in the Board and police inquiries into the betting scandal !
The cricketing community has bitter memories of Pawar’s stewardship for introducing two things into BCCI that every sports lover is wary of: politicking and even dishonesty. He got his minions to trump up false charges against Dalmiya which were dismissed by the Supreme Court, but not before he was shown the door. Besides, it is Pawar who introduced IPL in the present form, as a show business, not really as sport, and an arena for display of money power and promotion of sleaze.
IPL, sired as it was by Pawar, was begotten in sin. In UPA-1, in which the Congress’ strength was modest, and the Left was ready for its 2008 exit on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, NCP under Pawar got the clout to blackmail the government. With Pawar’s connivance, Srinivasan could stay above the law when it transpired that his firm India Cements had bagged the Chennai IPL franchise. Lalit Modi, the smartest villain of Indian cricket, commercialized the game with Pawar’s blessings. When Modi’s family members’ stake in the Rajasthan franchise became public knowledge, it was Pawar again who sought to protect him. Modi is now a fugitive, with the law enforcement authorities trying for his extradition. But his Twitter handle is still squirting poison on everyone except Pawar.
Following the disclosures on IPL match and spot fixings, the nation has suffered a deep emotional hurt. Even the poor village lad, used to worshipping cricketers on the television screen as god, now faces the bitter reality that what he was watching might not after all be a game of skill. It is possible that the fast bowler is not using the full power of his elbow while delivering the ball because he has been paid to let the other side get enough slow deliveries to be sent to the fence, and turn a defeat into victory. To the boy, cricketers are the gods that failed. And Pawar drum-beaters may cheer his tenure, he was never seen above board because he never cared to understand how much damage he’d caused to people’s emotions by using the cricket fields of the country as his personal turf, and by bringing in rules and people who would turn this fine game of equity and liberality into a vulgar casino, with the roulette rigged before it is set to spin.
Pawar is a practitioner of realpolitik. Since his rise in the 70s as the youngest Chief Minister of Maharashtra, he has never looked back. He may be holding any post anywhere. His heart was always in Cricket. With Pawar in Delhi’s Krishi Bhavan as the country’s Agriculture Minister, 15,000 farmers and peasants have committed suicide each month on average. He one described it as “natural”. Yet, he went to Sonia Gandhi to seek her support for the BCCI’s post in 2005 as he had time for Cricket. He claims he’d retire from politics—maybe he was angling for a post-retirement job in BCCI. But there has not been a single instance of Pawar loosening his abiding grip on the Maharashtra Government and considerable influence in the government. With Rahul Gandhi firmly entrenched, there has been a shift in approach towards such allies by the Congress.
In the 1990’s, by challenging Sonia Gandhi’s election as AICC president, Pawar thought he’d “fix” the century-old party. He burnt his fingers in the process, quit Congress, settle for his small outfit, and then eat crow by joining UPA. And now he has been shown his place for trying the fix BCCI. He may have tweeted -“All is well now”- after Dalmiya took over as interim president. But the writing is on the wall.
(The author is National Editor, Lokmat group of newspapers)
