Less than a week and the event projected as the biggest sports event in Indian history would be on. The whole world will be watching it, along with millions of Indians, who would perhaps be more curious to keep a track of all possible mishaps, anticipated by different people and institutions prior to Games’ beginning. Obviously, the management behind Games is going to be cited as one of the best examples to tell how people could be befooled on a mass-scale.
The Games have been analyzed through all possible angles by Indian and international media. A week before the Games, some intellectuals in fact encouraged people to not to take part in the Games in any way. Do not go to watch them! Wear black bands as a protest against government! Do not get moved by sentimental phrases like Indian Pride.. prove what government has tried to make these Games - a failure! Fair enough. People are angry and they will show this. But who are they angry with? With the people who organized the Games.. or the Games, itself? And who are they going against – the Organizing Committee Commonwealth Games (OC) or the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010.
Is not being supportive towards Games really going to send government the message that Indian people have taken enough of non-sense from politicians and bureaucrats? By walking out of stadiums or tying black bands, are we really mobilizing people to fight against corruption in CWG? Or shall we move a step ahead. Let’s call for a strike all across the country, some riots might add more fuel to the fire and then we have mass messaging.. forward this sms to 10 people and help unite India, against corruption. Sounds very familiar! Why not, we do such things in almost every thing, good or bad, happening in this country.
Sports, in India, have never been given required attention. There would be a never ending list of people, who could not understand why the Games are happening in India, at the first place. After all, we have poverty, illiteracy, terrorism etc. as more pressing issues. Why to invest such huge sums on something like Commonwealth Games, where we would not even be grabbing the most medals. From the very beginning, the attitude of people and media has been remained of detachment towards the Games. As if, some organization is trying to invest their hard-earned money into something, they are not convinced with. It is an event by, for and from Suresh Kalmadi or Lalit Bhanot or the OC CWG.. never with the people of India. Never with those, who have wanted to make a mark in Lawn Bowl or Net Ball or Cycling or any other less understood game in this country.
Every time we blatantly overrule the spirit of Games in India, we suppress the dreams of people wanting to play them. We may feel angry over politicians and bureaucrats for minting money out of taxes paid by us... but at the same time, do we also think about long hours of training and hard-work the players are putting in order to win their games in the tournament. Abusing politicians is the favourite pastime of Indians. We love those, who tell us what a crook they are and love to do trivial things that could materialize our hatred for them. But while repeating this behavior, this time as well, do we realize the quantum of its consequences. Imagine a foreign TV channel, showing a program on how much Indian people do not want these games to happen – a byte, where a young Indian in excellent English accent rues state of Indian government and expresses his reason of dislike for India. Crux of the matter – Go and wash your dirty linen in public and you would be naked.
I don’t know how many people in NCR or even in India really feel good that something as huge as CWG is happening in this country. What they seem to be most concerned about are how much money OC has spent and how funny the entire situation seems to be. As if this is the first time, this country is witnessing corruption and shamelessness on the part of our leaders and administrators. And as if we have not seen that momentary anger never really leads to any substantial output. Had it been the case, we would have never had issues like reservations, terrorism, politicians with criminal records, Kashmir etc etc still in the middle of nowhere.
