A Stolen Nation

If news is to be believed (which many say is the opposite of the truth and should not be), Mr Suresh Kalmadi, who heads the Commonwealth Games organising committee, and looks somewhat like a bystander in a Prakash Jha movie is supposed to be a thief. Various self-righteous people have shown up on television saying, Mr Suresh Kalmadi is a thief. That theft and infrastructure building should be at odds, (but it is Delhi I tried to argue, where theft is not at odds with anything, but the argument is not heard because I don't actually have it with anyone). Even the eminent Kapil Dev wore a purple tracksuit and carried the flame on a chilly London morning, giving the Queens games the necessary gravitas. Mr Kalmadi naturally has said he is not a thief. And said he is ready to face any probe. Although a news channel did run the headline "Probe Me, says Kalmadi", I don't think it was meant in the lewd space your minds are heading to now.

A thousand acronyms have been scrolling across television screens. Some legendary ones are thus; CWGOC says to PMO, No CC or else Affidavit or a more baffling, CWGC to AM, TELL US; JUNIOR CLERK AT UKHC, WHERE ARE YOU?

No these are not ramblings of a deranged person, it's our media out to prove their diligence in exposing the deepest petty detail of wrong doing - missing paperwork, relatives of people in power getting benefits, contracts gotten through favours, sheer mass bribery, general nepotism etc. Now of course all of this is wrong, and of course at a simple level one could argue that it is the press's job to point this out to us, but we should take a second to remember this is our country with it's history of complications where, as an old man said to me, "Son, everyone is a thief. Or if they are not, they have been accused of being one".u00a0

Here we are, on India's 63rd birthday, with one safe assessment on our past. That whatever has been built in the country, from a small bridge to a giant stadium, from a billion-dollar software business to the largest milk distribution system in the world, someone has accused someone else of wrong doing. As a historian accurately put it, "Socialism isn't exactly a great motivator. It's hard to tell people, work very hard and you can be ordinary. That isn't a great inspirational speech. So post Independence came innovators, usually mad people withu00a0 ideas and drive, brilliant minds who said I'll do something on my own, they had private business initiatives, things that change the way we fundamentally live, and because they had these ideas in an environment prone to bureaucracy and chugging along, no one understood them, and then they were accused of corruption. Always a good way to de-motivate someone is to send them to jail".

Now, the problem of course is that some of them were thieves. Nehruvian socialism was always wary of "the trading baniya spinning a profit in everything". As a journalist said "Show me one person in this country who did something worthwhile who has not been accused of something or the other. The accusations could be true, could be false, but it's impossible to get things done quietly".

The examples are too many to recount, almost like a recounting of our national history. From recent times, Lalit Modi, some years earlier Jagmohan Dalmiya over BCCI theft, cricketers for throwing away matches, any government contract from guns to roads, pretty much every political party once in power puts a probe on the previous one over money, every large business house over some deal or the other, Court Judges of unfair benefits, policemen and civil servants accused of inappropriate dealings is so routine that were it not to happen, it would be shocking.

And it plays out on smaller scales everyday. It's only a matter of time before in any club, from fancy gymkhanas to a local carom club, to any society, from a school nature club to a Housing society, someone accuses the Committee of being thieves. I once attended a Rotary Club meeting in Jaipur. When The Treasurer stood up, someone shouted, "Not Treasurer. Robber! You bought you wife a Whirlpool washing machine, I know. I saw! Robber!"

The CEO of The Sahara Group wrote a one page appeal in all the national papers asking the nation to unite for the games because there isn't much time to go. Assuming, correctly, that Mr Kalmadi and team being abused on TV daily will lack enthusiasm a little bit. Someone saw me reading this letter and remarked, "Why is he writing this letter? He is a thief".

Anuvab Pal is a Mumbai-based playwright and screenwriter. His plays in Mumbai include Chaos Theory and screenplays for Loins of Punjab Presents (co-written) and The President is Coming. He is currently working on a book on the Bollywood film Disco Dancer for Harper Collins, out later this year.u00a0 Reach him at www.anuvabpal.com

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