IPL as a social outing

People are going to the stadium for everything but cricket as the privatized version of the game is mere entertainment rather than a sporting event

Cricket undoubtedly is one game which triggers myriad feelings amongst Indians – euphoria when the country wins, jingoism when the victory is against Pakistan, excitement when there is a photo finish and a sense of loss which lingers for days when team India gets beaten in a one-sided match. It is one common thread from Kashmir to Kanyakumari which brings strangers together and they can break into a conversation on the performance of Sachin Tendulkar or why a particular player has been inducted or kept out of the team.

I am not writing an essay on cricket but just wanted to highlight that the game is a great leveler as my neighbourhood paanwala thinks he is as much an expert of the game as Sunil Gavaskar, Harsha Bhogle, Ian Chapell, Sanjay Manjrekar and other commentators in the box.

Though I have followed the game closely since my childhood, when I used to watch five-day test matches ball to ball on a black and white TV set in which the screen was visible only after a shutter was winded, it was only on last Wednesday that I went to a stadium to watch an IPL game. This was at the PCA Stadium, Mohali. As I wanted to have a first hand and a thorough experience of the IPL tamasha which had gripped the country earlier and now seems to be wearing off, I again went to the same stadium on Friday as well to watch the next game.

After two days of watching IPL unfolding in front of me, my romance with the game and nostalgia associated with cricket went for a toss. I have watched test cricket and One-Day Internationals on the field but had never watched a game in a stadium in the earlier four avtars of IPL, ever since T-20 is said to have become a rage. I felt that watching the IPL matches on TV is entirely different from watching them on the ground.

I saw the game being reduced to a caricature in which there was no place for emotions. I felt no one in the ground knew whom they were supporting and why – the “home team” Kings XI Punjab or Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday and then in the match between Preeti Zinta’s team and that of Vijay Mallaya on Friday.

The spectators watched the game like a movie. They appreciated a good shot by either of the teams and booed down a bad performance. This is what movie-goes do. They clap at a well choreographed song and appreciate a well-made movie but they also do not hesitate to use choicest of abuses when they find that after purchasing a ticket, they did not find anything worth while to appreciate in a movie.

Though the local team is called Kings XI Punjab, there was no one in the team from Punjab with whom the spectators could identify, except perhaps Harmeet Singh, and that too because he is a Sikh with roots in Punjab and not because he is a local boy. The most popular local boy, Yuvraj Singh is recovering after battling Cancer and in any case, he plays for Pune Warriors these days. Another Punjabi, Harbhajan Singh plays for Mumbai Indians. No one was from Punjab or Chandigarh, be it the owner, the players, the captain, coach or the support staff. Only some of the bouncers, stationed at the venue, were locals.

After being dropped at the main gate when I started walking towards the entrance of the stadium, instead of getting a feeling of cricket or a sporting event, it seemed as if I was going for a disco or a late night party. Nattily dressed boys and girls, men and women had applied perfumes and cologne liberally. Bouncers of the “Home” team were there all over the place, wearing black jeans and black T-shirts, flexing their biceps and walking with chest pulled up so that the fat around their tummy is not visible.

It was one tier of bouncers after the other when I finally reached corporate box No 5 at level two, at the second floor, from where I had to watch the match on my complimentary ticket. Here, again, there was another bouncer, who tore the ticket and pasted a violet paper band on my wrist. This is what they do to the kids when they go to an amusement park and buy a package for the rides. The colour of the band helps the attendants at the amusement park identify how many rides have the parents of the kid bought and which one.

I now found myself in a small hall air-conditioned lounge where 125-150 people could be seated on the chairs. A little over half the chairs were occupied. Some of the spectators had placed their caps on the chairs to warn others that those seats are not to be occupied. Inside this hall, I hardly found many people interested in the ongoing cricket match in from of them.

A few people were at the bar to get their fill in plastic glasses while others were waiting for the snacks which had just got over and the attendant had been sent to fetch some more. Snacks were in great demand as most of the men were drinking. The bar was not well stocked but it had half a dozen brands on display at the shelf from where you had to make a choice. Kingfisher airlines could be sinking but the Beer brand with the same name had put up a separate counter to serve the chilled stuff to the guests.

Socialites of Chandigarh, aspiring models, businessmen from the region, a few bureaucrats and police officers who had obviously been given free passes, moved from the bar to the snacks counter and then to their seats. They were interested in everything else but cricket. It was a social outing for almost all of them. Clearly, the venue was the most happening place of the city that night and the IPL match between Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders was incidental.

In the first match, a few people, who looked like employees and their family members, had been sponsored by a Gujarat based company and they were wearing a T-shirt in which the name of the company was embossed prominently. When they go back home, they will obviously tell their neighbours that they saw the Sukhna Lake, Rose Garden, Sector 17 market and the IPL match at Mohali stadium. They were clicking frantically and this would be the proof for their neighbours. I wondered how many would remember who was batting or bowling and which team got defeated the next day.

Almost a similar setting was there in Friday’s match between Punjab and Bangalore. Only some of the faces had changed. The bouncers on duty were the same but a few people, wearing the jerseys of the Bangalore team, were not there in the last match. A couple of girls, who apparently were off-duty cheer leaders, were a distraction for the tipsy men. But given the presence of bouncers carrying walkie-talkie, no one dared to take any liberty or make a pass, at least till I was present.

Just to have a feel of the atmosphere, I stepped out on the balcony from the AC lounge. Loud music blared the moment an over was bowled. The cheer leaders were caged in nets and surrounded by policemen in Khaki uniforms and bouncers in black so that no one threw bottles or anything at them. Only the portion of the “cage”, facing the playing arena, was not covered with nets to enable the TV cameras film the cheer leaders dancing for the TV viewers in the rest of the country.

I returned to the lounge. The attendants announced that buffet was in place and the guests could have their dinner.  I had my dinner and as I put the plate down and looked at the playing arena, I found that the “Home” team was a couple of minutes away from defeat. I walked out deciding that I will watch IPL at home on my TV rather than in the stadium. (April 22, 2012)
http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/59490-ipl-as-a-social-outing.html

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/59490-ipl-as-a-social-outing.html

‘Exiled’ Raja eyes return to Himachal

Instead of targeting their political opponents, Cong leaders in the State are hitting out at each other in the election year

Congress politics in the northern region of the country presents a classic case study of internal strife, division, one upmanship and infighting. Instead of targeting the rival opposition parties, Congress leaders of the region prefer fighting each other.

Rather than displaying a sense of purpose, Congress leaders of the north remain busy with their in-house little wars, much to the merriment of their opposition. The casualty in such a scenario is obviously the poll prospects of the party.

Himachal Pradesh is the latest example where the Congress leaders and their camp followers are busy shouting at each other rather than coming together to take on the ruling BJP in the election year. They are busy devising strategy to outmaneuver the moves of their rival faction in the party and not the BJP.

All factions within the Congress in the hill state were lying low for the last over four years but with elections a little over six months away, Union Minister Virbhadra Singh has thrown his hat in the ring practically demanding that he be declared the party’s chief ministerial candidate. This is something which the party has avoided all these years, except perhaps in neighbouring Punjab where Rahul Gandhi declared Captain Amarinder Singh as the chief ministerial candidate a few days before the polls.

After being elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 from Mandi and made a Union Minister, the five-time chief minister Singh felt that his camp followers were being marginalised and now wants to lead the campaign of the party in the state. He has sent feelers to the central leadership of the party and given the procrastination in central leadership, a decision is yet to be made.

Singh, who enjoys the confidence and support of over a dozen of the 23 MLAs of the party, is clearly apprehensive of the moves of his Cabinet colleague in the Manmohan Singh government – Anand Sharma. While Singh has indicated that his preference would be to return back to state politics as the chief ministerial candidate, Sharma has not opened his cards but his supporters insist that he is not averse to coming to the state if the party were voted back to power in the Assembly elections, scheduled later this year.

The visit of both the leaders in the state at the same time last week triggered an intense turf war in the party rank and file. MLAs practically got divided in two camps and were forced to choose between the programmes of the two leaders. Some chose to attend the function of Sharma in Kangra while the others chose to be with Singh in Shimla, further sharpening the differences within the state unit.

The battle of Sharma and Singh hardly has any neutral observer. You have state Congress President Thakur Kaul Singh who has aligned himself with Sharma in the battle for supremacy in the state unit thinking that perhaps such a move would help him get the coveted position of chief minister. Thakur’s idea is simple. If Sharma prefers to remain in central politics, and chances are that he would, then his backing would be crucial to become the chief minister. Despite being the head of the organisation in the state, a position in which he is supposed to be a neutral umpire, Thakur has decided to take on the “Raja” (Virbhadra Singh) head on.

Leader of Opposition in the state, Vidya Stokes, too has her ambitions but is waiting and watching the internal battle unfold and who gains the upper hand in the run-up to the polls. Her camp followers, though few as compared to Singh and Sharma, think that the party may chose a neutral face like her for the coveted post. They have the example of low profile Vijay Bahuguna being chosen by the party in the neighbouring Uttarakhand overlooking the claims of a sulking Harish Rawat.

Like Punjab, all the Himachal Congress leaders are assuming that the party will return to power and BJP will be voted out. I am not sure about the reasons for the overconfidence but it was the same approach which proved to be the nemesis of the party in Punjab. Captain Amarinder Singh assumed that the party was forming the government in the state and announced what he would do as chief minister. The voters clearly did not like this arrogance and taking them for granted. They simply brought back the Akali Dal-BJP back to power for the second consecutive time, giving thumbs down to the approach of the Congress.

The mistake of Punjab is being repeated by the Congress leaders in Himachal Pradesh. Interestingly, Punjab Congress was united before the polls and an arrangement had been thrashed out between the rival factions led by the Captain and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. Infighting broke out only after the unexpected defeat. But in Himachal, there is no semblance of unity, nor a sense of purpose. Severe infighting has made the party a laughing stock much before the polls and it is now upto the central leadership to talk to the leaders concerned and declare a truce.

Realising that such an approach would prove to be suicidal, some young Congress legislators in Himachal are trying to bring a truce and approaching senior leaders with practically folded hands to concentrate on ousting the BJP rather than training guns on each other. So far, the plea has fallen on deaf ears. (April 15, 2012)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/57713-exiled-raja-eyes-return-to-himachal.html

When will the Congress learn its lesson?

After defeat in the Assembly elections, the Congress is in a damage control mission, both in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, the two states where it was expected to do well but failed. But the irony is that the medicine, the grand old party has chosen for the ailment, may not be able to cure it of the ills plaguing it.

Defence Minister A. K. Antony, battling serious issues related to defence, already has too much on his plate. He has now been forced to head a party committee to look into the causes of defeat in Punjab and solve the public spat between various factional units of state Congress.

Antony may be the “saint” of Indian politics and Congress but I fail to understand how well, if at all, he knows the nuances of Punjab politics and whether he will be able to do anything to make the party fighting fit for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, does he have the time to understand the dynamics of Punjab politics? Neutrality is not going to help here but hard political decisions do matter. Antony is one politician who is not known to take a hard stand in politics. So, constitution of this committee is nothing but just a tactics to “buy time” so that the factional leaders get tired on their own and retreat after spending their energy shouting at each other.

In fact by bringing in Antony to head this committee, Congress has repeated the same mistake which it did by appointing Union Minister C.P. Joshi as the head of the committee to select candidates for the Punjab assembly elections. Hailing from Rajasthan, Joshi hardly knew the developments in Punjab Congress and merely signed on the dotted lines provided to him by the state leaders. This could be one of the contributing factors for the defeat of Congress in Punjab - too much centralization in the cloak of neutrality.

How can you repeat the same mistake again and again? Appointing Joshi as the head of the panel to select Congress candidates was a mistake and so is appointing Antony to another committee for the state to look into the reasons for the defeat. Instead of looking for short term steps, the party should be looking at the larger picture of defeat and take corrective action. Mere firefighting operation is not going to help.

Not long ago, the same Antony was appointed the head of a committee to look into the defeat of Congress in the Assembly elections of Karnataka. For the first time, the BJP had come to power in a state, south of Vindhyas, on its own and an alarmed Congress wanted reasons. Antony gave the reasons and recommended that the candidates should be declared much in advance to give them sufficient time to prepare themselves. This recommendation was never followed in Punjab where the party announced its candidates in the eleventh hour.

The point is even if “Doctor” Antony comes out with a diagnosis of the ailment from which Punjab Congress suffers, will it ever be implemented? Having watched Congress for a while, I am sure it never will. Recommendations, if any, would surely be discussed for a while and then conveniently forgotten.

In Uttar Pradesh too a brainstorming session for fault analysis was done. As expected, it was presided over by Rahul Gandhi who addressed over 200 public meetings in the state and had put to stake whatever reputation he has made till now in politics. But even after the meeting, I am not sure if a roadmap has been drawn to revive the dwindling fortunes of the party and how effective it will be. UP was a classic case of “two cooks spoil the broth”.

In fact, there were several cooks in UP and the broth was sure to be spoilt. There was Digvijay Singh who played the minority card to the hilt but could not get even a fraction of their votes. Then you had Salman Khurshid doing what Digvijay had already done. Sri Prakash Jayaswal and Beni Prasad Verma are the other suspects who presided over the humiliating defeat. At least the party could ask all these leaders to keep their mouth shut for the next five years if not anything else.

But then, in Congress accountability is never fixed. There is a risk in that. There could be somebody raising his finger and saying Rahul Gandhi addressing over 200 meetings failed to deliver the results. Then, you cannot even blame the 22 sitting MPs of the party for failing to secure the victory of the party candidates in their seats. You again have party Chief Sonia Gandhi whose Rae Bareli seat failed to return even a single Congress MLA.

Every Congressperson knows that formation of committees; meetings and brain storming sessions are nothing but an exercise to give opportunity to the aggrieved to vent their anger. After this, Congress functions the way it knows best and where patronage, money and family are the key determinants. Rahul Gandhi himself had diagnosed these three elements. But I am not sure he knows the way out and whether he has done anything to check this except perhaps the botched elections of Youth Congress where too the sons of important leaders get elected.

UP may not have witnessed a turf war amongst the regional leaders as no one gave a serious chance to Congress in the state. But Punjab continues to have a serious verbal duel with Captain Amarinder Singh and his supporters on one side and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Ashwini Kumar and a few others on the other side of the divide. It seemed as if two opposition parties were slamming each other day in and day out and not members of the same organisation.

Even if his track record in tackling political issues does not inspire much confidence, Antony will have to thrash out a compromise amongst the warring leaders so that Congress is not reduced to a caricature and becomes a laughing stock in the state. Akali Dal is already looking like huge election winning machinery out to bulldoze all opposition. It would be a travesty of democracy if Congress cannot put its act together and become a responsible opposition party. The party owes it to the people of the state who gave it over 40 per cent of the votes polled. (April 8, 2012)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/55995-viewpoint-.html

Abolish capital punishment; don't make mockery of law

Balwant Singh Rajoana is not a simple assassin. He killed 16 innocent people, besides the then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in a blast which was aimed to rekindle militancy in the state at a time when it had been crushed.

What was ironical in the entire episode related to the hue and cry about clemency was that no one remembered the dastardly act he had done to destabilise Punjab at a time when law and order was being restored in the state after much bloodshed.

He committed the crime along with his accomplices in 1995 when Beant Singh had practically given a free hand to the then police chief KPS Gill to take all possible measures to curb terrorism with an iron hand. Gill succeeded but only after a loss of thousands of lives, an overwhelming majority of them innocents.

Through the bomb blast, Rajoana wanted to undo what Beant Singh and Gill had done – push Punjab back to dark ages of killings and counter killings. Fortunately wisdom prevailed and the hard earned peace was not frittered away even though Rajoana and his Babbar Khalsa accomplices tried their best to destabilise the state.

It was this peace which was at threat again due to the orders of a lower court in Chandigarh, fixing the date for hanging. Entire Punjab was on boil. There was utter confusion all this while. Rajoana wanted to be hanged and called a “martyr”. A section wanted clemency for him. Another section wanted law to take its own course. The Akal Takht came in for his rescue and so did the Shiromani Akali Dal. Congress too supported clemency even though the leader killed was from the same party. Senior police officials, who played a vital role in curbing militancy in the dark era of the 1980s and early 1990s, had a role reversal. They now wanted to save Rajoana so that law and order was not affected.

After the hanging was stayed and when frayed tempers have cooled down, I wonder what the need for death sentence in the statute is when everyone knows that it cannot be executed. Rajoana was not hanged on March 31 as scheduled nor do I see the possibility of him getting hanged in the foreseeable future. That is for sure. Even when all the legal options are exhausted and mercy petitions rejected, I have not seen any hanging be it Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar who killed over a dozen people in front of the Indian Youth Congress office in New Delhi or the Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru. Even the condemned killers of Rajiv Gandhi have not been hanged even though the Congress rules the Centre.

What is more troublesome is that whenever execution becomes imminent, there are petitions and counter petitions in the states from where the condemned militants hailed from. Law and order situation worsens and people come out on streets. It happened in Punjab when Bhullar’s mercy petition was rejected last year. In Kashmir valley, Afzal Guru has his sympathizers in the state assembly and outside while the killers of Rajiv Gandhi had their support base in DMK and a section of Tamil Nadu politicians.

My point is when you cannot give them the punishment of death as prescribed by law; why not scrap the practice of death sentence itself? At least, all these condemned prisoners will allow others to live in peace in the states from where they hailed from.

Had there been no date fixed for the death sentence of Rajoana, no one in Punjab would have bothered even to think about him. He would not have been given the title of “Zinda Shaheed” (live martyr) by the Akal Takht and people would have forgotten him had he died naturally in the jail 30 or 40 years from now. Rajoana has been in jail for the past almost 17 years and I wonder if anyone worthwhile bothered to even enquire about him all this while except for his sister who kept bringing out one letter after the other from Patiala jail to apprise the world what her brother was thinking.

Let us frankly admit that we as a country we cannot hang any person other than someone like Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard who was sent to the gallows in 2004 for the rape and murder of a 14-year old girl or the notorious Auto Shankar before him for a series of killings.

There would always be people who will differentiate one killing from the other. They would not like comparing Rajoana, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Afzal Guru with Chatterjee or Auto Shankar. But if Chatterjee and Auto Shankar were a threat to the society so are the others. In fact they are bigger threats to the society due to the impact they have on people at large and ideological conditioning which can lead to more such “political killings” in the future. In the entire process, the memory of a man who brought normalcy in Punjab – Beant Singh – is being vilified while that of the person who wanted to take it to the brink is being glorified.

Why don’t the saviours of Rajoana ever talk about the 16 innocent people who were killed with Beant Singh. Whatever the reasons for carrying out a dastardly act, nothing can condone the killing of innocents. Does the law distinguish one killing from the other? It doesn’t.

The issue with me is simple. Given the compulsions of some political parties like Akali Dal, DMK and the Kashmir based parties, no death sentence can ever be executed if the “cause” is different other than rapes and murders. Every now and then, there will be uproar and hue and cry when the date of execution nears and can lead to political fallout and law and order problems.

It is at this juncture that the state should realise its weakness and limitations in carrying out death sentence. Admit that you cannot hang Rajoanas, Bhullars and the Gurus and abolish death sentence by amending the law. Don’t keep the façade going. It is doing more harm than good. No one would be bothered about the cause and the killers if they are kept in jail for the remaining part of their life and come out of captivity only when they die due to natural reasons.

It was time the government thought and acted. (April 1, 2012)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/54098-abolish-capital-punishment-dont-make-mockery-of-law.html