Page 394 - EW September 2023

Postscript

History agnostic leadership up for hours to buy tickets to watch live cricket matches
Indeed, one wonders why enthusiastic viewers line
when they are treated like dirt by the men — yes it’s
VIDENTLY THE TOP LEADERSHIP OF THE BJP/
NDA government at the Centre doesn’t comprise always men — who constitute the top management of
Estudents of history. If it did the BJP would cease BCCI. Large notices on the gates of cricket stadiums
prohibit ticket purchasers who fork out substantial sums
and desist from brazen attempts to ram Hindi — the
lingua franca of the most economically backward and (Rs.4,000-80,000) from taking their own snacks, water,
cushions into stadiums. Inside, spectators are at the
lawless states of India — down the reluctant throats of
hundreds of millions of citizens, especially of the southern mercy of authorised vendors who sell these wares at five
states of the country. If they were well read in the history multiples of street prices. Moreover, public toilets in In-
dia’s cricket stadia — as in all public places — are invari-
of Asia they would be aware that attempts to impose the
majority language on unwilling minorities, usually pro- ably an odiferous mess.
Perhaps BCCI bosses don’t care about stadium
vokes violent reaction, often culminating in civil war.
A major cause of the prolonged civil war (1983-2009) spectators because the largest audience is in homes
that devastated neighbouring Sri Lanka was imposition worldwide, watching matches on increasingly bigger and
better idiot boxes. But BCCI moguls should bear in mind
of Sinhala as the country’s official national language. The
strife bled Sri Lanka dry, and left it in the dire economic that large crowds watching live matches contribute to the
overall experience of television audiences. Empty stands
straits that the serendipitous island nation is in today. It’s
also useful to remember that dismemberment of Pakistan will drive down all-important ad revenue. Therefore, it
into two countries in 1971 when Bangladesh declared it- would be advisable for the plutocrat-bureaucrats of BCCI
to cut the world’s largest live cricket audiences a better
self independent, was the fallout of imposition of Urdu as
the national language in post-independence Pakistan. But deal.
why look that far? In 1965 when Hindi was declared the
sole national and official language of India, riots erupted Gift horse examination
in several southern states and there was real possibility of
Tamil Nadu seceding from the Indian Union.
Unmindful of all this, BJP leaders including the prime HAT THE LEFT HAND OF THE GARGANTUAN
minister, deliver lengthy speeches in Hindi to blank-faced 18 million strong neta-babu brotherhood that
audiences in southern states without line-by-line transla- Tmicro-manages the country through thousands of
tors and television subtitles. Moreover timorous English superfluous laws, rules and regulations, doesn’t know
language television channels permit long diatribes by what the right hand is doing, is hardly a national secret.
Hindi speakers on their talk shows and panel discussions. A case in point is schizophrenia about foreign investment
The other day your correspondent was blown away in the Indian economy required to increase the number
by a prolonged interview between a Hindi-speaking of tax-paying businesses and generate employment. The
interlocutor and Harish Salve — who is making quite a right hand is begging for incremental FPI (foreign port-
mark as a top-rank English fluent King’s Counsel in the folio investment) in the stock market to mobilise capital
UK — conducted entirely in Hindi. This coup, repeated for domestic companies to expand and grow. Conversely
several times on NDTV, has the finger prints of business the left hand is hell-bent on subjecting foreign investors
tycoon Gautam Adani who recently acquired the channel. to minute scrutiny to which domestic businessmen and
It’s hardly a secret that Adani is enamoured with the BJP investors have become accustomed. Indian bureaucrats
leadership. Creeping Hindi imperialism is being imposed seem unaware of the basic principle of company law that
with aplomb. Meanwhile Down South, anger and resent- corporations are juristic personalities in their own right,
ment is ballooning. and that lifting the corporate veil should be the exception
than the rule.
According to a front page report in the Economic
Short-changed spectators Times (August 21), the Securities and Exchange Board
of India (SEBI) is all set to issue a mandate making it
compulsory for FPIs which deploy more than 50 percent
INANCIALLY, INDIAN CRICKET — AND cricketers
— have never had it so good. In the past quinquen- of investment in a single corporate group, to reveal their
Fnium, BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). According to the ET
has earned a revenue of Rs.27,400 crore, transforming report, this requirement has been prompted by the recent
into one of the richest sports governance bodies world- driving down of the prices of equity shares of the Adani
Group by the US-based Hindenburg Research.
wide, rivalling NBA, USA and the English and European
Although because of four decades of socialism native
Football leagues. Last year, it clocked up a record profit investors in the stock markets have learnt to endure rou-
of Rs.4,400 crore, on which after paying for the luxuri-
ous expenses of paunchy officials and Test and bud- tine lifting of the corporate veil, the premise behind this
ding cricketers, it proudly paid income tax aggregating proposed rule — that all FPIs are crooks out to make a
quick buck — is likely to prove offensive. Government and
Rs.1,159 crore. But although everyone has benefitted, the
huge audiences that attend T-20, ODIs (one-day inter- SEBI need to determine whether the economy requires
foreign investment. If it does, as it’s plain, it shouldn’t
nationals) and even five-day test matches in India and
contribute heavily to BCCI’s bulging coffers, continue to look a gift horse — because clearly investing in India is a
be massively short-changed. high-risk enterprise — so closely in the mouth.
394 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2023