By all means host the Asian Games in India. Yet, before that, get the economy back on track so that you have an India story to showcase. We have still not forgotten the taint of the Commonwealth Games scam
Within days of taking over as Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi met BJP MPs and warned them about Delhi’s incestuous, wheeler-dealer culture. He asked them, and later his Ministers, to avoid lobbyists and fixers who abound in the national capital. The easy presumption was (and is) that these fixers and lobbyists are bribe-givers who turn up at an MP’s — or more likely a Minister’s — residence with a suitcase.
This is not always true. Sometimes these lobbyists offer not material gain for the individual they are targeting but only spin. They weave a dream, sell a big idea and seduce the Minister into believing the project they are proposing will not only make news and become popular but will also be part of the Minister’s legacy.
This is exactly what has happened with the Union Minister for Sports and the brazen, dishonest and hypocritical attempt by the Indian Olympic Association — led by Mr N Ramachandran, brother of International Cricket Council chairman N Srinivasan — to force the Government into backing a quick, unthinking bid by Delhi for the 2019 Asian Games. The Games had originally been awarded to Hanoi, Vietnam, but the city has now declined to play host. The Olympic Council of Asia is looking for a new candidate city. Using the confusion of an election-time transition, the IOA has attempted to railroad the Government into putting its weight behind a Delhi bid. In all likelihood, the new Sports Minister has been sold this pup.
It is worth noting that the IOA’s desire to bid for the 2019 Asian Games had been rejected by even an embarrassed UPA Government in 2010, in the midst of the Commonwealth Games scandal. Coming up with all sorts of dubious figures, budgets and revenue projections, the IOA had then claimed it would organise Delhi’s third Asian Games for US$401 million. It had promised revenues amounting to US$450 million.
Given the rosy sponsorship and revenue projections for the 2010 Commonwealth Games were never met — and, separately, given the cost overruns and embezzlement — the UPA Government wisely refused to provide a sovereign guarantee for the bid. With the IOA’s propensity to hide details and accounting for sheer inflation, it is quite likely that by 2019 an Asian Games will cost India well over one billion dollar. This is an estimation of the operational budget and doesn’t include the cost of building new stadiums or even a new athletes’ village — which will be exorbitant, considering real estate prices in the National Capital Region.
A fiction is being sought to be spread by arguing that the stadiums used for the Commonwealth Games can be deployed for the Asian Games with only minor upkeep. Anybody familiar with the Commonwealth Games preparations, including certain horrified officials who served in the Sports Ministry at the time as well as neutral observers from other countries, would disagree. The refurbishment and repair of many of the existing (pre-2010) facilities and stadiums used for the Commonwealth Games was a shoddy, cut-and-paste job. Either enough time was not available for a comprehensive makeover, with structural upgrade to enhance longevity, or money was pilfered or both.
This writer can recall more than one well-informed individual warning as far back as 2010 that the glitz and paint and accoutrements added to the flagship Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in central Delhi were not enough to survive the test of time. The stadium was originally built in 1982 for the ninth Asian Games. By 2019, the Nehru Stadium will be 37 years old. It is extremely possible it will need to be torn down and rebuilt if it is to become the centrepiece of the 2019 Asian Games. Of course, nobody is saying that just yet. The IOA is hiding these unpleasant details and budgetary time-bombs. Having just come into his job, the new Minister may simply not know the background.
There are three other reasons why the Modi Government should steer clear of the Asian Games pipe dream, at least at this stage. First, it is hardly a pressing national priority. The BJP was elected to office to sort out the mess in the economy, control inflation and restore GDP growth as well as hope in the job market. At a time when the price of onions and the supply of tomatoes is exercising middle-class families, expending energy and resources on a needless extravaganza is not good politics.
Countries that host big sports events do so after winning a certain domestic capital and after a period of economic and public preparation. Atal Bihari Vajpayee backed the bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in 2003, when the foundations had already been laid for a sustained, decade-long Indian boom. If all goes well, and if Mr Modi’s economic programme is successful, his Government can propose a bid for the 2023 Asian Games. Right now, it is too early.
Second, Mr Modi has been elected to diagnose and remedy the sort of corruption and public-procurement scandals that made the Commonwealth Games a national shame and discredited the UPA Government. For his administration to buy into the Asian Games idea and in a sense validate the same, sickening IOA-fronted ecosystem would be a travesty and a tragedy. It would only reinforce the impression — which Mr Modi no doubt wants to disprove — that Governments come and go in Delhi but the regime remains the same.
Third, Mr Modi won his mandate by among other things campaigning against the obsession with Delhi and Delhi-based solutions. He spoke of decentralisation and federalism, of building a 100 new cities, of developing regional urban hubs and of not concentrating money in one location, the national capital. Why then should the next Asian Games bid from India be limited to DelhiIJ If a huge outlay is necessary — and it will be, despite what the IOA’s shysters and creative documents may argue — then why not use it to build sports facilities, housing and urban infrastructure, roads and an airport elsewhere, in any of so many cities across India that are crying for half the attention Delhi getsIJ
By all means host the Asian Games in India. Yet, before that, get the economy back on track so that you have an India story to showcase — and for god’s sake think of an India, and an international sporting venue in India, that is outside Delhi.
malikashok@gmail.com