A level playing field

The Lodha committee could break the hold of cricketing dynasties over the game’s administration

REMEMBER THE RUNGTAS? They ruled Rajasthan cricket from 1972-2004. The Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) office and the Rungta household were as far apart as a wicket-keeper and the extra-cover fielder on a cricket field. The men who tended their gardens, served them food and drove their cars were RCA members. District votes were irrelevant as the family retinue kept their masters, the Rungtas, in power for decades. With the home front secured, the Marwari businessmen from Jaipur outlived most in the BCCI. The father and son went on to secure top positions in Indian cricket, hobnobbed with the powerful and possessed the power to oblige the VVIPS in the cricket-crazy nation on match days.

It was only after a maverick businessman — a close friend of the state’s powerful chief minister — hoodwinked the Rungtas, sneaked into a district cricket body and went on to bend a few rules that the RCA got a new chief. It needed the combination of Lalit Modi — a man who later in life showed he had the potential, and the dirt, to even embarrass the government of the day — and Rajasthan’s most influential leader, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, to dismantle a cricketing fiefdom. Despite the meeting of the high and mighty, the cricketing coup would have failed, had the state’s assembly not passed the sports act that sent the gardener, driver and cook back to jobs more suited to their skills and made the districts powerful.

Historically, breaking into a cricket body was never for the weak-willed, powerless and the salaried class. Across India, minor rebellions have been ruthlessly quelled as cricketing dynasties flourished. Cricket officials who had seen Sunil Gavaskar’s debut were also there when Sachin Tendulkar retired, never leaving the “members only” hospitality section.

Justice R.M. Lodha has now driven a truck through the gates of cricket’s cosy club. While many of Lodha’s reforms reek of judicial overreach, the grounding of cricket’s ivory tower is a much-awaited intervention. After the reforms, getting into a cricket association will become as easy as it will be difficult to stay there endlessly. The SC order says every international cricketer will automatically become a member of state bodies and the allpowerful apex body — both at the state and national level — will have a couple of seats reserved for members of the players’ association. Then, there are tenure and age caps, the clauses that would have made the good old cricket administrators wistfully talk about the Rungta days.

On the day Anurag Thakur was asked to vacate the BCCI president’s chair, he sounded bitter. “If Supreme Court judges feel that BCCI could do better under retired judges, I wish them all the best,” said the man with 16 years of cricket administration behind him. In his statement, he also boasted of the administrators building the “best infrastructure” and India having “more quality players than anywhere in the world”.

Let us for a moment forget that Thakur is also part of the Indian Olympic Association and let’s not judge his administrative skills by the country’s abysmal two-medal show at Rio. Let’s even allow the administrators to take all the credit for making India the number one cricketing nation. Even then, shouldn’t the institutionstheyrunbemoreinclusive,andthus, more democratic? New members come with fresh ideas, different perspectives. Constant changes of personnel keep decision-makers on their toes; it helps a sporting body to reinvent itself, evolve and survive.

Didn’t Modi dream of IPL, the project so dear to BCCI, the big idea that swelled BCCI’S bank balance and subsequently made it a super power? Closed societies foster complacence, compromises and coteries. Remember how no one objected when the constitution was changed to let N. Srinivasan buy an IPL franchise? No one snitched, no one raised the red flag, for they all went back a long way. Peter looked the other way when Paul stole, since Peter knew that Paul will return the favour. Seniors were “uncle” for some juniors, who got addressed as “son”. Cricket associations were family firms where names changed; the surnames remained the same. Indiscretions were pushed under the carpet; all it needed was a call to an uncle, father or father-in-law. Over the years, cricket’s ruling class got an “unbreakable” aura.

When the reforms kick in and the weak — read the players and the districts — get empowered, a “class clash” is expected. The cricketing czars would want status quo. They would be ready to trade favours to have submissive subordinates who wouldn’t ask questions. They would want to rule by proxy. They would be ready to offer free lunches, foreign trips or even ceremonial powerless positions for an arrangement of their convenience. It remains to be seen if the newly appointed members would be happy to merely enter the club or if they will aspire to occupy the chair.

In case they assert themselves, they shouldn’t get delusional. Lodha’s leap of faith — giving power to the players — will be under scrutiny. The new administrators shouldn’t make old mistakes. Indian cricket’s biggest strength comes from the fans, not from the administrators. Stadiums get built, quality players get world-class facilities because the supporters remain glued to the sports channel for close to eight hours on match days. Cricket has grown because of their patience. For decades, they endured sub-human facilities at stadiums, got over heart-breaking match-fixing scandals and quietly suffered corrupt officials governing the game.

It’s easy to know who matters. Just watch Virat Kohli when he scores a hundred. Haven’t seen him raise his bat to the suits in the stands.

sandeep.dwivedi@expressindia.com WE RECENTLY surveyed a small village, Khaati, tucked away in a corner of Uttarakhand. It takes two days to get to Khaati from Delhi; electricity is yet to see any light here. When we asked residents what they most wanted, one of the top desires mentioned was television. We were surprised. “We want to be a part of the world,” one villager explained. The desire for television marks not just a need for entertainment, but also a demand to be part of the information age. We live in times when news about what’s happening in other parts of the world is accessible and connectivity is possible. Little wonder then that the information age is influencing everything, including politics.

Consider how the average voter today has terrific amounts of information through phones, television and radio. This flood of information is changing how voters think and make decisions. And politicians and political parties are facing the effects of this changing thought process through unexpected election results, shifts in governance priorities and the rise of collective movements. Recent years have seen a particularly strong increase in such voter responses — intelligent parties should study these closely.

In Delhi, we saw the rise of a new party that had a non-political class of people. The Aam Aadmi Party’s leader is an ex-bureaucrat whose strength was his nonpolitical, corruption-free background. He brought in members who shared his vision. The first time AAP came to power, it was evident that people wanted a change from “politics as usual” — but the extent to which the voter has changed was truly reflected when Kejriwal was elected a second time, even though he had abruptly ended his first term. In choosing him again, the voter demonstrated that the way she thinks about politics and politicians had changed.

Delhi is not the only example. In Bihar, we saw the unexpected alliance of two arch rivals being accepted by voters, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad joining forces in the last election. And finally, in his bid for national power, Narendra Modi was able to run a presidential-style campaign never seen before in India, and convince an overwhelming number of voters to support him, again, in a way we haven’t seen in Indian history.

These surprising results point to a larger,