Cricket: Don’t throw the baby out with bath water

The principle of one-state, one-vote could prove disastrous for Indian cricket.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, there are fears that the unremitting legal overreach into the affairs of Indian cricket might end up harming the long-term interests of the sport, rather than eliminate the scope for wrong-doing. At a time when India has established supremacy in the cricketing world, at a time when a new crop of talented players has ensured a smooth generational change, a wholesale reordering of the BCCI is bound to cause avoidable disruption. The argument of jurisdiction advanced by the BCCI has not been addressed. Registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act way back in the late 1920s, strictly speaking what the Supreme Court is doing to the BCCI is debatable. The right forum to agitate an assumed or real grievance remains the Company Law Board. Period. Given that it is the highest court in the land, the SC has no doubt the freedom to stretch its jurisdiction far beyond the one prescribed in the Constitution. But it must be said that in the name of Public Interest Litigation, the court has not only expanded its writ beyond what are traditionally delineated roles and functions, but, in several cases, into an uncharted territory.

Legal purists will certainly cavil at this judicial excess, but because the public holds the other branches of the constitutional order in rather dim light, higher judiciary has expanded its own sphere of influence. Thus you have had the court determine the height of a controversial hydro power dam or the viability of a road widening project, or the height of a human pyramid in Mumbai when the task, strictly speaking, belongs to the local fire department or the police, etc, etc.

Judges need to prove worthy of the high respect in which, they believe, society holds them, instead of relying on the disenchantment of the people with other limbs of the state to indulge in grandstanding. In this respect, we can do no better than draw the attention of the honourable justices to the almost daily verbal gems emanating from the retired SC judge Markendeya Katju.

To return to cricket, granted that what N. Srinivasan, the former czar of BCCI, did was inexcusable. There was a clear conflict of interest in his case, which the apex court did well to penalise. But must it use the PIL filed by a disgruntled official of a state cricket body to ride roughshod over the entire edifice of Indian cricket? In its bid to implement the Lodha recommendations in toto, the apex court has disregarded even the case argued by the BCCI.

Fair play may be a casualty should the apex court ignore pleas for moderation. And there will be a real threat of the baby being thrown out along with the bathwater, should the court, in its zeal to cleanse the Augean stables of Indian cricket, pull down the entire managerial structure of the sport. By equating the virtually non-existing Mizoram and Manipur cricket bodies with those of, say, Mumbai or Delhi, and giving them an equal say in the management of the sport, the court will only create new cliques, new vested interests.

The principle of one-state, one-vote reads well on paper, but in pragmatic terms it could prove disastrous for Indian cricket. In principle, UP, the largest state in the Union, is equal to the tiniest state, say, Sikkim. But in cricketing terms, even UP must take a back seat to Mumbai or Delhi. Giving each state an equal weight in the BCCI is a recipe for utter confusion. The role of money might in fact grow further when these non-playing cricketing states come to wield the same power in the selection of BCCI officebearers as those of the major cricketing centres.

That some of the states which are sought to be treated at par with Mumbai, Delhi, UP, etc., in cricketing terms do not even have a Ranji team of their own ought to have persuaded the apex court to reconsider its total faith in the Lodha committee. Notwithstanding charges of corruption, groupism, empire-building etc., on balance, the cricketing officialdom has served the cause of Indian cricket well. It is the richest and the most powerful cricketing body in the International Cricket Council, which hitherto was dominated by the EnglishAustralian duopoly.

Also, to repose faith in former cricketers to manage the sport is again an uncharted territory. A Bishan Singh Bedi at the head of a state cricket body can only wreak havoc, given his inherent inability to get along with people and his multiple frustrations at having lost out to the likes of Gavaskar and the younger lot. And in the couple of states where former Test cricketers have helmed cricket bodies, neither the management of the sport nor the nurturing of talent has been of superior order. What the apex court has done already might be enough to put the BCCI and the state associations on notice that any future breach of the moral and legal codes would attract stringent pun- ishment. Meanwhile, in the interest of complete transparency it is only fair that we are told what the exertions of the Lodha Committee have cost the BCCI thus far in financial terms alone. Poor Amar Singh. In spite of himself, he finds it hard to steer clear of the headlines. The on-going fight in the Yadav family in UP seems to have many players but only one villain. And that is Amar Singh. Is it fair? Is it true? We are not sure.

But what we find completely unacceptable is that very often the very people who use Amar Singh’s enormous multi-faceted services stemming from his well-oiled networks in the world of politics, high finance, films and the media are the ones to point an accusing finger at him. Use and discard seems to be the fate of this no-longer-portly Samajwadi MP. Ungratefulness is a human failing. Not only the Bachchans and a large part of the Yadav parivar but many more people whose irons Singh had pulled out of the fire are guilty of dumping Singh after being “rescued” by him. Here is this man who has scattered IOUs all around and yet he finds himself defenceless and lonely.

To his credit, Mulayam Singh Yadav at least acknowledged how Singh had helped him stay out of jail. We know how the disproportionate assets case against Mulayam was more or less buried by the CBI and the courts. And we can tell how Singh, given his cross-party connections, had sought the services of a top lawyer belonging to a rival party to bail out Yadav in yet another case.

Slapped with a huge bill running into crores of rupees for the gross misuse of the Air Force plane when he was Defence Minister, Singh took it upon himself to bail out his party chief. And the ace lawyer informally, and, of course, free of charge, provided the clinching argument which got Yadav off the hook.

His bi-weekly sorties into the UP hinterland aboard the IAF plane, it was argued, were undertaken to learn first-hand the grievances of tens of thousands of ex-servicemen and to try and address them. The morale of our soldiers was also contingent, among other things, on the wellbeing of ex-servicemen. A minister in the Kejriwal government and his accuser reached out-of-court settlement and the case of corruption was thus allowed to be withdrawn. But neither the court nor the plaintiff nor, for that matter, the defendant minister bothered to share the details of the compromise with the public. After all, the charges of blackmail and extortion levelled by his own constituent were of serious nature. The AAP government, which makes much noise about transparency, must reveal the terms of the compromise. Was any money involved in the out-of-court settlement? The significant developments in Uttar Pradesh have made it evident that dynastic politics at the highest level is perhaps no longer alluring. The infighting in the Samajwadi Party essentially between supporters of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and uncle Shivpal Yadav underlines the phenomenon that the majority are becoming increasingly tired of dynasty driven war games in the political arena. Television channels have reported the unfolding drama blow by blow, while missing out on one basic element regarding Mulayam Singh Yadav’s astute attempt at shielding his son. The general impression given by the media is that Mulayam is with his brother and is therefore siding with the anti Chief Minister forces. However, the fact is that Mulayam, by backing Shivpal in this raging family feud, has prevented both a split in his party as well as has succeeded in protecting Akhilesh from the wrath of some powerful members of his clan.

It is obvious to anyone who has been following the SP showdown that had Mulayam stood by his son, his brother Shivpal, being a nuts and bolts man who controls the organisation, would have split it just ahead of the Assembly polls. It is clear to everyone in the set-up that due to a strong anti incumbency factor prevalent in the state, the 2017 elections are as good as lost. Had Mulayam publicly not favoured his brother over his son, the entire onus of defeat would have been at the Chief Minister’s doorstep. But by being with Shivpal, Mulayam has ensured that following the defeat, his brother as well as his supporters will receive the flak, while Akhilesh’s overall image would remain intact.

In simple and plain words, Akhilesh would survive the rout and thus emerge more powerful in the later elections. Having served as Chief Minister, he would be the natural successor to his father and thus inherit his political legacy. Although it would require a crystal gazer to predict the result in the 2022 UP polls, yet common political sense says that Akhilesh would play a stellar role in the scheme of things and would easily be the front ranking leader of the Samajwadi Party, since the impending defeat in 2017 would have singed Shivpal and his associates very badly.

The bitter squabble, during which the uncle called the sitting UP Chief Minister a liar in full public view, has ensured that the Samajwadi Party would be competing with the Congress for the third and fourth places and would witness the exact opposite of its magnificent victory in 2012. People in the state seem to have made up their mind that SP with its internal contradictions cannot be trusted to be the torchbearer of Uttar Pradesh in the next five years.

The irony is that the SP, which derived its name from the Socialist Party inspired by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and a host of other stalwarts, has seemingly deviated from its primary principles. Those in the organisation who swear by Dr Lohia would be doing great disservice to the legendary ideologue who would have been most pained and hurt by the goings-on within the socialist fraternity. Firstly, Lohia derived his principles from his strong belief in his ideology that has been put on the back burner by the party, which has reduced itself to being the flag bearer of a single clan. Everyone else is just an appendage.

The socialists have always had a penchant for raking up a row at the most inappropriate time. This is the only one tradition which the party appears to be adhering to. It is said that the socialists need someone to quarrel with. If they are not quarrelling with others, they are busy fighting each other. Secondly, they find it difficult to stay together for three years and subsequently be apart for more than two years.

These cardinal virtues have become a part of Indian political folklore, where the socialists have always succeeded in bringing down their own governments. For instance, Raj Narain was one of Lohia’s three trusted lieutenants, the others being Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes. Raj Narain played a major role in dismantling the Janata Party government when he persisted with the demand of ending dual membership of the party, then held by those who earlier belonged to the Jana Sangh and continued with their affiliation with the RSS despite merging their organisation in the Janata Party. Ironically, it was Raj Narain’s election case against Indira Gandhi which led to her unseating in a historic judgement by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court. The entire anti Indira and anti Congress movement gained momentum after the judgement, leading to the defeat of the Congress in 1977. However, Raj Narain hobnobbed with Sanjay Gandhi, contributing to Indira Gandhi’s return to power in 1980.

Raj Narain was a selfless luminary whose unflinching commitment to the socialist cause would always be remembered. What will continue to pain the followers of Lohia is the manner in which many others like the first family of the Samajwadi Party have let him down. The developments in Uttar Pradesh have shamed the political class of the country and have highlighted the need to return to ideology based politics rather than clan or caste based engagement. The Samajwadis in particular must introspect. Between us.