Shiv Visvanathan
Psychologist Ashis Nandy once gave a classic definition of cricket as an Indian game, accidentally discovered by the English. In his playful way, Nandy tried to show how cricket as a game, was a dream of the values of fairness and correctness sustained on colonial turfs by the likes of Ranjitsinhji and Pataudi.
Have your say. You can comment here.Today Nandy’s thoughts on cricket appears like a fable, a period piece from a different era. In fact, if he were to rewrite it today, Nandy might have to say that cricket was an English game systematically reinvented by the Indians. For the English, cricket was a bit like table manners, or breakfast, but for Indians cricket was a way of life, a festival of everydayness to be enacted again and again. Today, when one looks at cricket, one does not think of Bradman and Larwood. It is not a sublimated war between nations, a struggle for the Ashes, or an encounter between India and Pakistan. Today cricket is a club game, a commodity, a ritual for aspiring classes. One man made the change transforming cricket as a myth, an entrepreneur called Lalit Modi who made the impact of Kerry Packer sound like small change.
Have your say. You can comment here.Lalit Modi created a monstrosity called the Indian Premier League (IPL) which changed the ecology of cricket. When one reads the classics of cricket from CLR James to Neville Cardus, cricket was a canonical text of values. Today Modi and his ilk have transformed it into an extension of matka. When one reads the news today, one would think Modi is wrecking politics. What one has to see is that Modi wrecked cricket to play politics.
Have your say. You can comment here.Society
Have your say. You can comment here.Modi’s IPL globalised cricket and transformed the Indian cricket board into a global player. Cricket was now a marketing game. The IPL gave an intensity to cricket which changed its value frame. Players realised they were not mere heroes but legends who could be created as franchisees. A Tendulkar or a Dhoni relived themselves through advertisements, while younger cricketers realised more could be earned from one ball than through an entire series. By introducing speed, spectacle, obsolescence, the IPL changed the everydayness of cricket. The slapstick quality of the game was disguised with the trappings of entertainment, slicker commentary, starlets, public happenings so one could not decide whether more was happening on or off the field.
Have your say. You can comment here.Cricket is no longer a game. A game now takes place in a maidan where barefoot kids enact old rituals like high priests. The IPL is an industry; cricket is no longer an art form. Between bribes, brands and investment, cricket had become a commodity. Words like conflict of interest would have sounded alien four decades ago. Dhoni earns more in a day than a Dilip Sardesai or Polly Umrigar earned in a lifetime. Umrigar used to cycle to the match and earned a princely sum of Rs 25 per match. I imagine Dhoni cycling and one senses it can only be for an Adidas advertisement.
Have your say. You can comment here.Lalit Modi represents the fall of cricket magically elevated to a millennial event. Cricket has now become a continuation of politics by other unfair means. It has allowed politicians to exert power through India’s most successful multinational corporation (MNC) – the IPL. Indians controlled the game and the game corrupted politics.
Have your say. You can comment here.As one watched the pictures flashing on TV, shots of Narendra Modi and Shilpa Shetty, Lalit Modi and Sushma Swaraj with a cricketing cap, one realised that these domains were at ease with each other and allowed for reciprocal flows. Power should be mutually convertible.
Have your say. You can comment here.Power
Have your say. You can comment here.An observer stated that IPL left cricket with a choice of corruptions. One could now choose between Dalmiya, Lalit Modi and Srinivasan, the forms of entrepreneurship which makes the game what it is today. What one is watching is a merger of matka, betting, fixing, Bollywood, money laundering with cricket providing a site for all these activities.
Have your say. You can comment here.In fact, as one watches Modi and his lawyers release document after document, one realises the man is the violation of the norms of cricket. He has no sense of values, fairness, transparency, loyalty. For me the crime is, he destroyed a fairy tale without playing even Robin Hood. Yet in a way, he represents the new global Indian, playing socialite with discarded stars and retired bureaucrats. Worse, he shows how the world of non-resident Indians (NRIs) has added to the corruption of the Indian elite.
Have your say. You can comment here.Aspirational
Have your say. You can comment here.Our overseas Indians pretend to be holier than thou when they corrupt our elite further. Modi is the “gigolo of cricket”, a man who senses power and commodifies it. Yet Modi is also the new aspiring Indian desperate to succeed in the global world. Years ago we showed our weakness for Rajat Gupta believing the former Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) don was merely being a Third-Worlder in the First World. Modi extends this concept showing that corruption is the only truly global game that the world loves to play.
Have your say. You can comment here.There is also a cynical sense that nothing will happen to Modi. One realises now that humanitarianism is strictly for criminals. It gives a new taste of evil, of cynicism, to the worlds of care, charity and cricket. That is Modi’s achievement.
Source: DailyO