Arguably, as many Indians love cricket as they love lord Ram. To re-phrase Karl Marx, cricket, like religion, is the opiate of the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is shock and outrage across the country over the revelation of a widespread nexus among Indian Premier league players, bookies and the underworld, with both money-trap and honey-trap playing tantalising roles in what has come to be known as the spot-fixing/betting racket.
It is almost that our gods have failed us. With wisdom that comes from hindsight, we can say that we chose the wrong gods. Even so, gods are not discarded that easily. It's an evolutionary and emotional process that takes time to reach its end. Which is why, despite being forewarned by the exposé that what they are going to witness could well have been fixed for a price, cricket fans continued to pour into stadiums to watch the IPl matches, albeit with a highly reduced level of trust.
Smaller god-icons cannot bridge this trust deficit. The monkey will not do; Ram is needed. The mouse will not do; Ganesh is called for. The bull will not do; Shiv is required. To salvage the terrible damage that a small-time Sreesanth has done, a Rahul Dravid needs to step in. To blunt the loss of credibility that a minor player like Ajit Chandila has brought about, a Sachin Tendulkar must speak up. To undo the discredit that an unknown Ankeet Chavan has brought, an Anil Kumble should protest. But the tragedy is that none of them is standing up publicly against the manner in which the fair name of cricket has been ground to dust.
Dravid has limited his comments (‘It is like bereavement') to the fact that three players from Rajasthan Royals (the IPl team which he captains) have been nabbed, but he has nothing to say on the general degeneration that the game has suffered over the years in the IPl format. Surely he knows it better than most what prey the game has fallen toIJ On his part, ‘master blaster' Tendulkar too has been as scarce with his comments as he should have been voluble. No amount of thunderous denouncements from the print or the electronic media can rattle our thick-skinned cricket administrators as much as strong words from a Dravid or a Tendulkar. The tragedy is that these esteemed cricketers, the gods of cricket, are part of the same cesspool — though they have done a terrific job of remaining clean.
In 1985, Raj Kapoor gave us Ram Teri Ganga Maili, in which a bunch of unscrupulous elements plotted to sexually exploit an innocent young woman (played by actress Mandakini). A song in the film lamented that (the holy river) Ganga had turned into filth in the process of cleaning up the sinners. If our gods of cricket continue to remain silent, people will consider them polluted too like the Ganga. It is not enough that these respected cricketers are clean; they have to speak up against the dirt that surrounds them. Silence is no longer a choice they can exercise. Dante had said, “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
While on the subject of comparison, it is an interesting coincidence that Mandakini, who displayed her assets rather generously in the film — about the only highlight in a film that was short on cinematic value — went on to become infamous as the alleged moll of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, the very same don who is said to have controlled the current IPl spot-fixing/betting network.
The daily dose that various ‘cricket experts' have been giving us on television channels in defence of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the Indian Premier league management, lacks conviction, not the least because the apologists have either secured their bread and butter through the IPl farce or have been involved in other ventures that have needed the BCCI's patronage. ‘let the law take its course' is their favourite line, because they know that the law consumes years to take its course. In any case, the subject of discussion is not whether the law must or must not take its course, but whether the managements of the BCCI and the IPl have failed in their duty to keep cricket clean, and whether they should take the moral responsibility for the mess. Clearly, the concept of accepting moral responsibility is alien to our cricket administrators, while their apologists couldn't care less about the silliness of morality when hundreds of crores of rupees are to be made.
The only way the IPl can be dealt a body-blow is by the patrons of the game — those who pays hundreds and even thousands of rupees to watch these fixed encounters. If they drop out of the stadiums, if they refuse to invest their precious time in being glued to television screens watching their failed gods, sponsors of the league will lose the incentive to fund the matches. Once the money pipe is choked, the IPl will eventually fizzle out. Does this sound like the words of an individual who has hatred for cricketIJ Quite the contrary, it is the hope of every genuine cricket-lover in the country, because the IPl is everything but cricket.
In fact, the IPl is a farce in the name of cricket. The argument that the league has provided a platform for youngsters to showcase their talent is not matched by reality. How many players who made their debut through the IPl have made it to the Indian team on the basis of their performance in this tournamentIJ The only talent that the IPl has showcased is that of criminality among our cricketers. The IPl is about glamour, about greed — regardless of where the money comes from — and about sleaze. Cricket here is a camouflage for illegal betting, match-fixing and prostitution. The solution: legalise everything!
Cricket had flourished before the advent of the IPl, and flourished well enough. Test matches and one-dayers fetched loads of money for the players. loyalty to the country superceded all other considerations. Yes, allegations of match-fixing surfaced even in those formats, but at least the structure of the game did not inherently promote vice, unlike in the IPl. Those games were not followed by crazy late-night parties which saw all sorts of people — from the film industry to moneybags to honeybags — hanging on the coattails of the cricketers.
The best thing that can be said about IPl6 is that it ends today. The bad news is that it is set to return the next season as IPl7. And, the dangerous news is that the crooks who have not been caught this time around will refine their strategy for the new edition of the tournament, so that they do not end up like Sreesanth and company, and make their illegal gains safe from law.