Indian Premier League-7 splashed across the Indian television screens, but without the usual buzz and from a venue that has a coloured past. The nation is preoccupied by a national election, perhaps a defining one. Indian Premier League wanted no part of that. Rapped on the knuckles by the Supreme Court, their Lordships however let two teams, that should have been suspended till an independent enquiry into their misdeeds was conducted, participate, under the supervision of Sunil Gavaskar — a great cricketer not known for moral courage.
Two dramatis personae, Rajiv Shukla, who continues in the Council of Ministers and Arun Jaitley, contesting the Amritsar Parliament seat in a do-or-die combat, were complicit in supporting the save N. Srinivasan scheme that the highest court has called “nauseating”. M.S. Dhoni, with the cloud of sealed cover indictment hovering over him like his trademark helicopter shot, did not turn up to vote in India despite being Brand Ambassador of the Election Commi-ssion. Life and sport seem detached from each other.
As a former ambassador to the UAE, it is the background of cricketing in that country that requires recalling. The UAE and cricket in the last century used to be synonymous with Sharjah, one of the seven Emirates. Sheikh Bukhatir, with his penchant for the game and an eye for combining it with the fervour of the expatriate communities of India and Pakistan, Bollywood splendour, duty-free shopping and hedonism, created the first “masala” version of cricket. Lalit Modi merely transplanted this old model on the yet shorter 20-over game and the IPL was born. But hidden in the innards of the modern-day Roman Coliseum inspired “cricketainment” was moral sleaze, dished out via clever marketing. The virus came with the model from the UAE, flourished in India and now ironically returns to its roots with no concern in India of what is unfolding. The bookies do not need to come to the IPL; it has travelled to their Mecca.
Sharjah for the Indian cricket team has always been an off-and-on destination. From 1984 to 1991 the team went each year, with players lionised, loaded with gifts and enjoying the “package” that Bukhatir devised. Indian cricket had not yet seen the riches of later years.
Dawood Ibrahim had his own box, as he still was a suspected smuggler-cum-henchman who kept his nose clean in the UAE. The Babri Masjid demolition in December 1992 and Mumbai bombings following it turned him into a fugitive that India sought.
In 1992 and 1993 Indian team did not go to Sharjah, as much not to play against Pakistan as out of ire against the Emiratis for letting Dawood escape to Karachi, while letting his operations remain intact.
The Sharjah trips resumed after reassurances that Dawood’s operations no longer existed in the UAE. The government of India also had powerful Indian politicians like Madhavrao Scindia, N.K.P. Salve etc lobbying for sporting links as outreach to Pakistan. Sharjah revived as a cricket centre with the Indian team again making annual trips till 2000. In fact, when I joined as ambassador in March 1999 the Indian team arrived on my heels in April.
I kept my visits and links to Sharjah very low key knowing that lavish hospitality had a cost — the loss of objectivity in dealing with Sharjah.
In October 2001, New Delhi alerted me that they had confirmed information that Abu Salem had been picked up by the Sharjah police. I quickly went to see a senior Sharjah ruling family member, who denied the news. I then upped the ante and approached a crucial Abu Dhabi ruling family member, who assured that if Salem was in the UAE he would be handed over. Within hours Abu Salem escaped. He is today in an Indian jail. Has anyone bothered to check what exactly happened in Sharjah in 2001? Was our information wrong or if not who helped him escape? If it were the Sharjah ruling family, then why is the IPL-7 playing there?
My suggestion in 2001 that we should take some counter-measures was ignored by the then government. The ruler of Sharjah has a longer memory than does India. When I left in 2003 he refused to give me a farewell call.
The sad part is that the list of politicians in the cricket administration today has leaders who will be critical to a future Indian government, including one as a possible Prime Minister. Not one of them took a public position on Mr Srinivasan’s conflicts of interest, dubbing his son-in-law as a “cricket enthusiast”, a cover-up enquiry by hand-picked legal luminaries etc. Should not the Supreme Court’s stinging rema-rks, reiterated last week, be an indictment of all those politicians too?
Cricket being almost a national religion, moral decline of the nation was bound to be reflected in it. Coliseum’s rise not only coincided with the peak of Roman power but also the onset of its decline. Lord Byron said: “While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall.”
In fact, the travails of cricket are due to the same reason that there occurred the 2G, Coal, Commonwealth, Adarsh and other scams — the lack of an effective regulatory mechanism. Some like the Aam Aadmi Party have a simplistic solution — an Ombudsman who will exorcise all evil. The path to responsive and transparent governance is a long one, though it begins by the induction of good leadership. Indian political leaders in the current election seem to have adopted a T20 version of politics — swing, hit or miss. Lest they forget, statesmen are more like Test players — hitting or defending on merits, but never missing.
The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh
