Thank god they fought

IPL founder Lalit Modi and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor have turned on each other from being hand in glove, giving India an opportunity to clean up conflicts of interest in cricket.

IPL founder Lalit Modi (left) and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (right) | Commons

At a time when the dominant sentiment on the IPL was breathless adulation, following its success in South Africa, this paper (The Indian Express) took the rather unpopular position that the picture was not so bright when seen in its entirety. The brazen manner with which the tournament was moved to South Africa did not just reek of arrogance, it did a great deal of disservice to India, still recovering from 26/11. It strengthened the impression that India was still unsafe for major sporting events, almost as bad as Pakistan (since that attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore had already put that country on the blacklist).

This newspaper (The Indian Express) stuck its neck out and even stated, editorially, that it almost amounted to an anti-national act. But the captains of the IPL were not to be deterred. They moved the circus, politicians, media, even bureaucrats from many states to South Africa for one big party. Personifying the hubris was, of course, none else than IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi. A dedicated camera (Modicam as it came to be known backstage) followed his every move. He signed autographs like a superstar. He also held televised ceremonies in South African schools where he handed over donation cheques, cheered on by (mostly black) children.

Riding on the success of the IPL, Modi had become one big sports and entertainment phenomenon, a kind of Jerry Maguire and Hugh Hefner rolled into one. In the process he and his IPL bent, twisted and often rewrote all rules of sports administration and even conventional business. He was getting away with it because everybody was in it. There was nobody left to raise a question. All media, TV, print, were in awe of him. My favourite media moment of that period is the question a TV anchor asked him, The IPL in South Africa has gone so well. So just how proud do you feel about it? Modi blushed and blabbered on like a spoilt five-year-old just told by his grandmom he is the best in the world.

It was in that heady phase that I tried to draw attention to certain emerging problems that, I said, may bedevil Indian cricket in times to come (‘Conflicts of cricket’, National Interest, June 20, 2009). It drew immediate protests and disapproval, not merely from the usual suspects but also from many well-meaning cricket enthusiasts who felt that I was nit-picking, unable to accept the success of so innovative a venture without the usual, chronic Indian Express scepticism.

And what were some of the things I underlined about these emerging conflicts of interest? That, for example, the same person (N. Srinivasan of India Cements) was secretary of the BCCI and also the owner of Chennai Super Kings. Further, that K. Srikkanth, as chief national selector, one of the most powerful men in India, was also the brand ambassador of Chennai Super Kings. That using the clout of the IPL, the BCCI had been able to acquire powers over the media that even Indira Gandhi did not have during the Emergency. She censored you, but she did not appoint permanent editors at our newspapers.

The cricket board, on the other hand, has contracted Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar, two of India’s finest cricketers, and any channel that may win the broadcast rights for any cricket event where India is playing has no choice other than having these two on the commentary team, giving the Board the incredible power to have its own people cover its own activities.

As the hubris and arrogant display of disregard for log kya kehenge (what will people say), this has been equalled only now by the shareholders of Rendezvous, including that marketing whiz from Dubai, Sunanda Pushkar, getting 25 per cent equity in the Kochi franchise, undilutable in perpetuity! That is not a privilege even the founders of Infosys gave themselves. I was not being a spoilsport last year.

I was only raising the red-flag that a brilliant success in rolling cricket, Bollywood, big bucks and Indian city-folks’ desperate need for outdoor fun and entertainment was now in danger of becoming a clubby, patronage-driven, cabal-owned property that could bring disrepute to cricket, and India. The central point was, and is, that the laws of conflict of interest must be sacrosanct in sport and business, as they must be in public life.

It was almost exactly around this time that Shashi Tharoor stepped into our politics, a fabulous election victory behind him. He said often that he came after decades in a professional, global environment, and wanted to be a part of the change in India. Many of us were even convinced of his sincerity, in spite of his accent that sounded so foreign in an India now mostly run by HMTs (Hindi Medium Types) who speak 16 dialects of the English language rather than the Oxbridge elite under whose charge Tharoor left it when he went for his UN job.

Tharoor made news with his tweets and other media controversies, but each time, as he defended himself, in a manner so brilliantly articulate, there was no missing the tone of hurt: India deserves better and, frankly, so do I being the most breathtaking of those lines. Of course, it took an enterprising reporter of The Hindu to tell us a couple of days later that the line, which he had disowned and accused the media of putting into his mouth, was a verbatim lift from one of his own books on Indian foreign policy.

He made a dramatic, dismissive exit from that press conference, hoping that all of us would get scared, if not shamed, for our lack of gratitude towards somebody who had given up a flourishing professional career to dedicate his life to our service, particularly when he was here to make a difference. And how did he make that difference? The moment he saw the IPL and Indian cricket, did he try to challenge or change the system of conflicts of interest and patronage that he is now so outraged about? He, instead, sensed an opportunity and joined the boys with a sense of entitlement.

He can today abuse Modi, call him a thief, scoundrel, his OSD may describe him as a convicted drug peddler. But until the stuff hit the fan last Sunday, he was thick as thieves with him, discussing all kinds of things, from the interests of the Kochi franchisees he was merely mentoring, to Modi’s alleged request to block the visa of a 23-year-old South African beauty queen.

Tharoor can now deny till he goes red in the face the insinuation from the other end that he allegedly advised them that the only way he could help block the visa was if someone filed a police complaint against her. But if he, instead, sent Modi a curt note as a minister as “propah” as his accent should have done, saying that such requests are not entertained by the minister’s office and can you please go to hell, it has not been shared with us.

This column is not the place to describe, dissect or assess the various IPL shenanigans now surfacing. For that, keep track of the front page of this newspaper (The Indian Express) where the finest team of investigative reporters in India has been breaking one startling story after another every morning. And will continue to do so. It is also too early to say who is innocent and who is guilty or, rather, whose air of injured innocence is less fake than the other’s. But one thing you know for sure. That until last Sunday, Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor were the best of friends talking business, even if each claims that his interest was entirely pro-bono, and they were talking models and their visas. One week is a very long time in not just politics but also in the business of cricket. We have to be grateful to these two truly brilliant, successful but hubris driven individuals that they turned on each other, from being hand in glove.

This has given India a fine opportunity to clean up the conflicts of interest in cricket. And, if Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister so wish, a little bit of conflict of interest in our politics as well. If it finally happens, we will have to be grateful to Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor who use a similar idiom in the conduct of their respective businesses, even if they speak with vastly different accents.