CommonWealth Games ... Let it be a failure

CommonWealth Games – One of the most dreaded words in India these days… There is hardly a day when the front page of the newspapers are not screaming some new corruption sprouting up. By the way the scam figures has more number of zeros than an average Indian can count (What was it last… 36000 Crores.. phew can we even imagine this much wealth)

Don’t worry… My intention is not to write one more article comparing the cost of tissue papers, LCD TVs or treadmills. I think by this time, everyone knows how costly these things can be… I am more concerned by some of the recent statements / appeals in our national dailies by the likes of Sheila Dixit, Manmohan Singh or even Subroto Roy of Sahara Group. In this emotional appeal, all these esteemed individuals first acknowledge that there has been some amount of misappropriation of funds (“Some … should we replace some’s definition in dictionaries now”) and then appeals to our national sentiments not to wash dirty linen in public. Their point is that this continuous negative publicity of the games is embarrassing the nation and projects a wrong image of the nation. Wow…so finally we realize this… but where was this realization or embarrassment when crores and crores of money was carefully siphoned off.

They further add: We should carefully keep our mouth shut till the games get over and then all these scams will be probed and guilty parties will be brought to books. Till then all these guilty individuals can continue to do their tasks of ensuring a successful games (well we all know what further they can do in the meantime?).

Doesn’t this happen always? This national sentiment card works everytime… doesn’t it? So let me tell you what will happen? The games will get over (Hopefully by some God’s miracle they might even be a success). After that the same politicians and the Kalmadi parties will boast of the success and toast to the nation. We Indians will bask at the glory and these same individuals will become a national hero. Some might even get some national awards (Khel Ratna, Rajiv ratna, Bharat ratna which would be on top of the enough 'ratnas' they anyways accumulated on the run upto it). No questions asked…. No answers expected… the media will move onto the next corruption / scam… game over… Didn’t Peepli Live projected this in the best satire possible?

I strongly feel for once… let the Games be a flop… a Huge FLOP let it be a big embarrassment for the nation… may be then the real justice might happen… may be then some heads will be chopped off… may be next time when such a thing is attempted, people will question the initial budgets forecasted and the process of expensing them… may be then a proper committee will be formed with people who understand what it means…

Let it be a failure once and only then we might learn from it.