The serpent in the garden - Ram Guha

[ravishingravi]

"The IPL is representative of the worst sides of Indian capitalism and Indian society I detest wearing a tie, and do so only when forced. One such occasion was a formal dinner at All Souls College, Oxford, where opposite me was an Israeli scholar who had just got a job at the University, and was extremely anxious to show how well he knew its ways and mores. He dropped some names, and spoke of his familiarity with the manuscripts collection at "Bodley" (the Bodleian Library). In between his boasts he kept scrutinising my tie. Then, when he could contain his curiosity no more, he walked across the table, took my tie in his hand, looked at it ever more closely, and asked: "Is this Magdalene?" I did not answer. How could I? For the tie signalled not membership of a great old Oxford College, but of a rather more obscure institution, the Friends Union Cricket Club in Bangalore. I joined the club in 1963, aged five, because my uncle, a legendary one-handed cricketer named N Duraiswamy, played for it. I would go along with him for practice, stand by the side of the net, and at the end of the day be allowed to bowl a few balls from 12 yards or thereabouts. By the time I was ten I was helping lay the mat and nail it to the ground. When I reached my teens I was bowling from where everyone else did. As a boy and young man, I was an episodic member of the Friends Union Cricket Club. In those years I was based in North India, and came south for my summer and winter holidays. In 1994 I moved to Bangalore for good. In the past two decades, I have watched FUCC win the First Division Championship three times, and seen a series of young players graduate from club cricket to representing the state in the Ranji Trophy. My club has produced two India internationals and at least 15 Karnataka players, all of whom I have known personally and/or watched play. Largely because of Duraiswami - who has been captain or manager for 40 years now - FUCC enjoys a reputation that is high both in cricketing and ethical terms. No cricketer of the club has ever tried to use influence to gain state selection. Where other clubs sometimes adjust games to make sure they do not get relegated, FUCC does not resort to this. FUCC cricketers do not come late for practice, and never abuse the umpire. And they play some terrific cricket too. FUCC was one of a dozen clubs that provided the spine of Karnataka cricket. The others included Jawahars, Crescents, BUCC, Swastic, Bangalore Cricketers, and City Cricketers. The men who ran those clubs were likewise personally honest as well as fantastically knowledgeable about the game. The cricketers they produced won Karnataka six Ranji Trophy titles, and won India many Tests and one-day internationals too. This year I mark the 50th anniversary of my membership of the Friends Union Cricket Club. In this time, FUCC has commanded my primary cricketing loyalty; followed by my state, Karnataka, and only then by India. Six years ago, however, a new club and a new format entered my city and my life. I was faced with a complicated decision - should I now add a fresh allegiance, to the Royal Challengers Bangalore? I decided I would not, mostly because I disliked the promoter. In cricketing terms, Vijay Mallya was the Other of Duraiswami. He had never played cricket, nor watched much cricket either. He had no knowledge of its techniques or its history. He had come into the sport on a massive ego trip, to partake of the glamour and celebrity he saw associated with it. He would buy his way into Indian cricket. And so he did. It was principally because Mallya was so lacking in the dedicated selflessness of the cricketing coaches and managers I knew, that I decided the RCB would not be my team. So, although I am a member of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and have free entry into its grounds, I continued to reserve that privilege for Ranji Trophy and Test matches alone. The KSCA Stadium is named for its former president, M Chinnaswamy, who was one of Duraiswami's heroes. When I was growing up, Durai would tell me of how Chinnaswamy supervised the building of the stadium, brick by brick. This great lover of cricket abandoned his lucrative law practice for months on end, monitoring the design, the procurement of materials, and the construction, with no cost over-runs and absolutely no commissions either. The behaviour of Messrs Lalit Modi and N Srinivasan cannot shock or surprise me, but I have been distressed at the way in which some respected cricket commmentators have become apologists for the IPL and its management In other ways too Chinnaswamy was exemplary. Never, in all the years he served the KSCA, did he try to manipulate a single selection. Later, when he became president of the BCCI, he met the challenge of Kerry Packer by increasing the fees per Test match tenfold. It was while he ran Indian cricket that our players were for the first time treated with dignity and paid a decent wage. I wonder what Chinnaswamy would have made of his grasping, greedy, successors as presidents of BCCI. I wonder, too, what he would have made of a man who can't pay his own employees having a free run of the stadium that Chinnaswamy so lovingly built. This past April, the Bengaluru edition of the Hindu carried a front-page story on an summons that the Special Court for Economic Offences had issued to Mallya, who owed the Income Tax Department some Rs75 crores, or about $13.3 million, which he had not paid despite repeated reminders. The police, often waiving the rules for the powerful, told the court that they were too busy to execute the summons. But let me not single out Mallya here. The truth is that almost all the owners of IPL teams (seven out of nine, by one estimate) are being investigated by one government agency or another, in one country or another, for economic offences of one kind or another. Since this is a shady operation run by shady characters, Indian companies known for their professionalism, entrepreneurial innovation, and technical excellence have stayed away from the IPL altogether. Here is a question for those who still think the tournament is worth defending - why is it that companies like the Tatas, the Mahindras, or Infosys have not promoted an IPL team? To this writer, that the IPL was corrupt from top to bottom (and side to side) was clear from the start - which is why I have never exercised my right of free entry for its matches in Bengaluru. But as I watched the tournament unfold, I saw also that it was deeply divisive in a sociological sense. It was a tamasha for the rich and upwardly mobile living in the cities of southern and western India. Rural and small town India were largely left out, as were the most populous states. That Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, both of whom have excellent Ranji Trophy records, had no IPL team between them, while Maharashtra had two, was symptomatic of the tournament's identification with the powerful and the moneyed. The entire structure of the IPL was a denial of the rights of equal citizenship that a truly "national" game should promote. The IPL is representative of the worst sides of Indian capitalism and Indian society. Corrupt and cronyist, it has also promoted chamchagiri (sycophancy) and compliance. The behaviour of Messrs Lalit Modi and N Srinivasan cannot shock or surprise me, but I have been distressed at the way in which some respected cricket commmentators have become apologists for the IPL and its management. Theirs is a betrayal that has wounded the image of cricket in India, and beyond. George Orwell once said: "A writer should never be a loyal member of a political party." Likewise, for his credibility and even his sanity, a cricket writer/commentator should keep a safe distance from those who run the game in his country. What is to be done now? The vested interests are asking for such token measures as the legalisation of betting and the resignation of the odd official. In truth, far more radical steps are called for. The IPL should be disbanded. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, played between state sides, should be upgraded, making it the flagship Twenty20 tournament in the country. Then the clubs and state associations that have run our domestic game reasonably well for the past 80 years would be given back their authority, and the crooks and the moneybags turfed out altogether. Even now, in every city and town in India, there are selfless cricket coaches and administrators active, nurturing young talent, supervising matches and leagues. The way to save Indian cricket is to allow these modern-day equivalents of Duraiswami and M Chinnaswamy to take charge once more." http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/638602.html

[G_B_]

so the Indian socialists are at it again....

[ravishingravi]

^Crony capitalism is not really capitalism you know.

[G_B_]

^Crony capitalism is not really capitalism you know.

neither is reminiscing about our "glorious" (not) socialist past. Lets face it before the arrival of crony capitalism the likes of Wankhede, Chidambaram and Chinnaswamy stadiums were horrible for the average fans. This article is also dumb. Guha expects the ipl to be played in rural areas and other poorer areas of India. So what now, he expects the BCCI to build airports as well to take care of the logistics which are needed for quick turn arounds in a packed ipl schedule. The fact is the true colours of the likes of Guha were shown when he campaigned against the Narmada dam. He is depressed that India is progressing and cant handle the brand new stadium and facilities which are popping up all throughout the country. Poverty is his nobility. He fails to mention that the IPL profits of the BCCI do reach boards like Jharkhand where the local cricket association have built a new stadium....

[Lord]

I thought Guha was the serpent in the garden

[vvvslaxman]

IPL won't go away.. that is BCCI's cash cow.

[G_B_]

I thought Guha was the serpent in the garden

Guha will inhabit the poor part of the garden.

[deathmonger]

neither is reminiscing about our "glorious" (not) socialist past. Lets face it before the arrival of crony capitalism the likes of Wankhede, Chidambaram and Chinnaswamy stadiums were horrible for the average fans. This article is also dumb. Guha expects the ipl to be played in rural areas and other poorer areas of India. So what now, he expects the BCCI to build airports as well to take care of the logistics which are needed for quick turn arounds in a packed ipl schedule. The fact is the true colours of the likes of Guha were shown when he campaigned against the Narmada dam. He is depressed that India is progressing and cant handle the brand new stadium and facilities which are popping up all throughout the country. Poverty is his nobility. He fails to mention that the IPL profits of the BCCI do reach boards like Jharkhand where the local cricket association have built a new stadium....

True. People like Arundhati Roy and Pankaj Mishra. Ignore them. There would have been similar people during China's rise if it was a democracy. In 15-20 years these people will be nowhere to be found and we'll be a great power.

[zumi]

I decided I would not, mostly because I disliked the promoter. In cricketing terms, Vijay Mallya was the Other of Duraiswami. He had never played cricket, nor watched much cricket either. He had no knowledge of its techniques or its history. He had come into the sport on a massive ego trip, to partake of the glamour and celebrity he saw associated with it. He would buy his way into Indian cricket. And so he did.

this is why detest Ram Guha and his ilk, the jholawallahs, unable to contemplate change, but at same type like hypocrites are happy to travel business class sipping sparkling white, champagne socialists happily minting money playing the contrarian. What an epic irony, Guha reminiscing about his dinner at Oxford University, the epitome of British snob. And when has "crony" capitalist blown up people or executed elected leaders, massacred villagers. Red left wing terror is India's biggest threat, wanting to establish some Pol Pot utopian BS. Where are these half-arsed educated voices condemning these left wing terrorists?? PS: Mallya never drove an F1 car too, or flew a plane.

[G_B_]

its a dumb article. I am slowly starting to detest cricinfo. Its a known fact that star cricket and espn detest the fact that the IPL which set max runs is big business. So they have cricinfo cover the matches and be critical of the matches as well. If star cricket bid for the IPL cricinfo would be lambasting everybody for challenging change and all the rupert murdoch owned western media outlets would not praise it but they certainly would not be critical of it either. People like Malcolm Conn would shy away from being critical and avoid the topic all together.

[G_B_]

Its also come to the point whereby the BCCI need to cut ties with TOI group. TOIlet is now descending to gutter level articles of speculation. These media outlets will be the first ones to give big coverage to the IPL next year. Maybe if they want to make a stand they need to actually boycott reporting on the IPL.

[I6MTW]

is he Isa Guha's father?

[fineleg]

People need to realize that disappearance of IPL will only be for the good of Indian cricket. IPL does more harm to Indian cricket. Ofcourse, it may not disappear and will thrive. That's a realistic view, and it will continue to hurt the interests of real Intl. quality cricket in India.

[I6MTW]

All indian leagues do harm to cricket. First ICL and now IPL.

[superstar]

People need to realize that disappearance of IPL will only be for the good of Indian cricket. IPL does more harm to Indian cricket.

This is twisted selfish logic. Stupid article.

[putrevus]

India got freedom 65 years ago but idiots like this guy still prove it is not free from Colonialism. IPL will do more good to Indian cricket than bad in long run.It already has forced stadiums to be renovated to make it more fan friendly.

[superstar]

Here is a question for those who still think the tournament is worth defending - why is it that companies like the Tatas, the Mahindras, or Infosys have not promoted an IPL team?

Mahindra is busy sponsoring SLPl owned by bookie benamies

This year I mark the 50th anniversary of my membership of the Friends Union Cricket Club.

50 yrs back cricket was played by rich people wanting to emulate British. Up and MP get lot of free money from tax generated in south and west.

[The Outsider]

Top notch article from an extremely learned personality. Thanks for sharing. :nice:

[Silva]

Good article but I don't understand his point about MP or UP getting IPL franchises. Would he like the IPL more if their were 30 franchises that represented more states? Plus the state association system that he loves so much also has failed at popularizing domestic cricket in a country that is crazy about cricket which has allowed IPL an opening to do business.

[TheWall]

yawn!!!!!!