Sachin Tendulkar has also become the single-largest sports beneficiary of economic liberalisation. As companies entered India and the search for a clean-cut image began, he emerged as the face of several international and domestic brands
More than any other individual, Sachin Tendulkar symbolised an economically resurgent India, without knowing he was the poster-child of liberalisation. Although Indian cricket steps into the future buoyant and oozing confidence, the Indian economy is stepping into the immediate post-Tendulkar era in a state of flux.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar first wore the star of the Board of Control for Cricket in India in 1989. There will be a significant number of people voting in 2014 who had not been born then. Then, like now, the Indian economy was teetering on the brink.
A few days after Tendulkar made his debut, India voted out the last member of the Gandhi family to wield a constitutional role. But due to a fractured mandate, India was flung headlong into two years of chaos. The Indian economy is already on the brink and six months after Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar wears the BCCI cap — now emblazoned with the Indian flag — for the last time, India will again go to the polls.
While opinion polls are predicting that the Bharatiya Janata Party will become the single-largest party, the risks of a fractured mandate hover above the nation. The risk of being unable to climb out of the economic hole that we have dug ourselves into remain; the very mention of a Third Front Government gives seasoned old bankers and industrialists who survived the 1989-1991-era, palpitations.
The first cable TV lines were just about starting out, just as George Bush (the elder) started to lay waste to Iraq. Just like the Emergency is far too ancient a fact to register in the mind of millions of Indians, for a new generation of voters the chaos of the years between the Rajiv Gandhi and the PV Narasimha Rao Governments is a thing of the past.
There was no social media those days, mainly because the Internet did not exist, Newspapers were the only source of information dissemination as landline telephones were there in far too few houses. But in the aftermath of the Mandal Commission report, Delhi was seething. Protests and counter-protests were held all over the place.
As a young schoolboy, this columnist had to travel to school in the bitter winter in buses that had all but the driver’s window smashed out by rioters; the Government was pretty much the only employer in India back then. Private enterprise was hobbled by having to travel through a complicate maze of red-tape.
The disastrous VP Singh and the Chandra Shekhar Governments, the former born out of a sense of righteousness and the latter out of sheer ambition, had left the Indian economy in ruins. Twenty years ago, a much younger Manmohan Singh helped save the Indian economy, and that would have been a proud legacy for the man had he not presided over the most kleptocratic Government in Indian history.
As India was being rocked on the home front, things were not that much better on the cricket field. India had settled comfortably in the middle of the global cricket pecking order, with the BCCI bullied around by colonial boards from England and Australia. But this exciting young batsman began to change all that. India stopped rolling over in one-day matches, and even test matches started to become exciting again. A winning record was to take a few more years, but things stopped looking hopeless.
Sachin Tendulkar also became the single-largest beneficiary of economic liberalisation. As companies entered India, the need to find clean-cut ambassadors for brands intensified. Sachin became the face of several brands in India. He had actually created a virtuous cycle.
As the impact of economic growth began to be felt across the country and more televisions entered homes, it was Sachin’s face that was beamed into every house. As good a player as Sachin Tendulkar was, and remains, there is no doubt that his image was bolstered by the sheer volume of products he advertised. Several other cricketers from Sachin’s generation — Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly in particular — promoted products, but none of them achieved Sachin Tendulkar’s massive reach.
To this day, the ‘little master’ still promotes more products than most other Indian cricketers, with the possible exception of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who in the sense of brand-building at least, is Sachin’s most astute student. Sachin might have been a great player whether or not India’s economy had opened up. However he is a far richer man because the Indian economy took off in the mid-to-late 1990s. Using the popularity of players like Sachin and India’s renewed economic clout, the BCCI began to exercise its clout over global boards.
As Sachin Tendulkar gets set to hang up his pads one last time; India is staring down the barrel yet again. When he started his career, India and China were for the most part on a similar footing. Today, aided by India’s indecisiveness, China has moved a few decades in front. like the 1989-1991 period, as Tendulkar started out, India stands on the brink. A fractured mandate now could be fatal for the the country’s economy.
However, there also lies hope. A clear mandate to the principal opposition party might bring fresh thinking after a decade of decay. A few weeks after Sachin’s last Test at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, five Indian States go to the polls. If the opinion surveys are to be believed, the ruling Congress could be booted out by the Indian populace with an anger resembling that in 1977. This will all probability reflect in next year’s lok Sabha election.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar’s remarkable career has been bookended by extreme turmoil in the country, whose flag he has represented with such dignity. The ‘master blaster’ gave Indians hope when the country had begun to run out of the commodity. The coming few months will determine whether India will have to get hope from the cricket field yet again.