death, IPL, naxals, corruption, confusedsystem,

I am a bit confused about the naxal problem in this country. Just when you think that these are people who want to forcibly take for the tribals and other deprived communities what is rightfully theirs, you come across news that the naxals played willing accomplices to scum like Madhu Koda in Jharkhand.

Then you come across news that the Dantewada massacre- where 75 CRPF jawans were killed- was carried out by local tribals led by armed naxal members. This kind of hatred among the tribals for the uniformed soldiers of the law makes you think again about whether naxals are actually the bad men in the drama or whether it is the system that needs to be buried for eternity.

Or are the naxals just a force that is following nature’s principle of how it abhors a vacuum. That when a system is well and truly over, or whose death certificate is about to be signed, another one will rush to replace it. Probably as we see the death of parliamentary, free, multi-party democracy, we are looking at the advent of parliament-free, single party autocracy of a deep red hue.

Sometimes you feel sad about it. After all no system that does not allow the natural rules of competition can ever be a just one. So expecting the naxals to come up with a system where everyone gets a chance is a very faint hope.

But then you come across the IPL. And every notion of what is right, who is not, whether we really need to save this system, whether the naxals are terrorists, and a huge number of similar questions seem more confusing than ever.

Why? Well now we know that the daughter of our civil aviation minister can get a flight taken off public service, get it privately chartered all over one telephone call. This at a time when volcanic ash from distant Iceland has thrown air traffic haywire. Does Praful Patel have to resign? No he needn’t.

In a year when farmers in our country are killing themselves- more so in our agriculture minister’s home state- we come to know that the minister- himself head of the BCCI- also has a daughter- an MP- whose husband has several fingers in the IPL pie. Does the minister have to put in his papers? Not really.

A minister mentors the Kochi team and then sets out the bribe as sweat equity for his girlfriend. Did he have to resign? Yes but then Shashi Tharoor is no Praful Patel or Sharad Pawar so he gets the deserved kick on his mundu-ed posterior.

At a time when recession is rife in the country, food inflation is at its worst in several years, thousands of crores are being pumped into a cricket tournament which looked fishy from day one. Film stars who haven’t had a hit to their names or business investments in years suddenly appear out of the woodwork to own teams. Most of the money is channeled through tax havens and by companies whose dealings are top secret. Late night parties after the games are full of foreigners who might be models, tourist visa-holding pretty things or former Soviet bloc prostitutes. The cricketers, the young ones, look lustful in the pictures papers are publishing of these post-game parties so probably the third option might be the correct one.

Now an Income Tax report says some senior cricketers might have forced the younger ones to fix the games. Does it make any difference? No almost every game of the tournament is a sell-out. At bars, in trains, offices and malls, the average Indian is gripped by IPL mania.

IPL is probably a reflection of our national system. Corrupt, moneyed for a few, fixed, aspirational, glamorous in parts, and almost wholly without checks and balances. But still revered by a populace too lazy or too indifferent to change it.

Someone the other day suggested that the IPL should be better off repackaged with the skeleton being that of the Ranji trophy set up. Industrial houses bidding for state teams, some of the smaller states merging into one unified team, foreigners as before, compulsory ploughing back of some money into the sports system in the state etc etc.

So do we suggest just another radical makeover for our national system of governance? Probably the red rascals of Dantewada?