Right to Education-Will they kill the goose that lay golden eggs

           The Supreme Court on Thursday by a majority of 2:1 upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act(RTI), 2009. The ruling is a shot in the arm for the Centre as the legislation was its flagship programme designed to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years, despite stiff opposition from unaided private institutions.

           The law provides for reservation of 25 percent seats for poor children in all government, private aided and unaided schools but not in minority institutions and it is aimed at uplifting the socially and economically vulnerable sections of society.

The apex courts judgment, reserved on August 3, 2011 after a marathon hearing which went for months , was pronounced by a bench comprising of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice K.S.P. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar ,on a batch of petitions filed by Society for Unaided Private Schools, Independent Schools Federation of India and others who contended that the Act violates the rights of private educational institutions under Article 19(1)(g) which provided unhindered autonomy to private managements to run their institutions.

The RTE Act would not apply to unaided private minority institutions .The majority judgment by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar said: “Reservation of 25 per cent in such unaided minority schools will result in changing the character of the schools if the right to establish and administer such schools flows from the right to conserve the language, script or culture, which right is conferred on such unaided minority schools. Thus, the 2009 Act including Section 12(1) (c) violates the right conferred on such unaided minority schools under Article 30(1).”

The verdict will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened.

The Bench said: “It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration.Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable.”

The law now will empower the government to ensure students from the alienated segments of the society also have access to affordable ,inclusive and sustained quality education at the elementary level.

Talking to reporters, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday that "The government needs to recruit 20 lakh teachers to successfully implement the Right to Education Act.The implementation of the Act was a difficult task and the only solution would be to hire teachers even if they did not have the required qualification."

The RTI bears added significance in the Indian context as a counter offensive where acute poverty and illiteracy is the single largest social scourge that accentuates the rural downturn. The Education For All–Global Monitoring Report finds that India is still home to largest illiterate population.About 72 million primary school age children and another 71 million adolescents are not at school, and on current trends, 56 million primary school age children will still be out of school in 2015, It finds that with the exception of China, progress towards halving illiteracy has been "painfully slow."

This is why the RTI is exalted as a landmark legislation.The purpose and object of the Act is “social inclusiveness in the field of elementary education." The apex court said that the Act has been enacted keeping in mind the crucial role of universal elementary education for strengthening the social fabric of democracy through provision of equal opportunities to all and ruled that “From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.”

Many north Indian states children borne to poor parents are forced to discontinue their education and go for menial jobs due to poverty or lack of conscience in those classes.

We brag to have the largest network of State run public institutions in the world.The country has over 0.9 million schools, 3.6 million school teachers and 143 million children in the 6-14 years age group .We have the largest noon meal program in schools covering 131.69 million children. We have the largest immunization program and nutrition program with 1.4 million early child care (anganwadi) centers covering over 80 million children which addresses children from the most vulnerable communities such as the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes through affirmative action as mandated by the Constitution of India. Further the Government is commitment to build 6,500 ‘model' schools in backward areas; of these, 3,000 would be developed through public-private-partnership investment.

The Centre provides 65 per cent of the funds for school education under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan while the states bear the 35%. The 13th Finance Commission allocated additional resources when the Act was notified. This raised the sharing pattern to 68:32 between the Centre and the States.

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          Government and Municipal schools have a shoddy record of neglect and faffing around, while flourishing private schools use the state of the art educational tools and methods.The onus is now on to the states as it has to put its house in order, considering the abysmal standards in the government run schools.The government as well as well meaning citizens should take up the responsibility of transforming government schools as centres of quality education. In fact the condition is not such that the education requirements of the poor can be meted out by the Governments alone. Private schools either aided or unaided have the social obligation to share the burden in the national interest.

         Education is becoming increasingly money oriented. Education is a "business for the private sector, a pretence for the government sector, and a dire need for the population", especially the desperately poor. The educational expenses in private schools cannot be borne by the poor and the marginalised. Large scale studies (like Mehrotra Panchmukhi, 2006) show that private schools have so far had a disproportionately low percentage of enrollment from SC, ST, Muslim, children with disability.

Private English school education is glorified as a symbol of gentility for the elites. We very often hear egoistic presentations with considerable aplomb even from high profile dignitaries ,that one is educated at Doon school ,Howard etc.Rich parents take it a as a token of dignity to send their wards to such private schools and they demand things like air-conditioned buses, A/c class rooms, international curriculum, and world-class facilities and are ready to pay for it. Private school managements fear that they cannot provide these facilities if they should implement the 25 per cent quota for poorer students.Also they would not love killing the goose that lay the eggs by being stand-off-ish towards these bigwigs.

The private schools should also be keen to discharge their social obligations. While they are not expected to surrender their constitutionally guaranteed rights,Justice RadhaKrishnan in the dissenting note said,"Non-state actors exercising the state functions like establishing and running private educational institutions are also expected to respect and protect the rights of the child."

It is precisely with this aim in mind that the legislation went for 25% of the intake in these institutions specially reserved for the socially weaker sections.The argument that the new rules would affect the privately run schools financially was not acceptable to the court.

Private Schools are not fully private as being widely believed. Most private schools currently are aided by the State apart from enjoying various consolations like tax benefits under the income tax act, wealth tax and lower property taxes, direct subsidy towards the cost of land allotted, concessional electricity charges etc. In addition, some State Governments also provide direct grant-in-aid to the schools towards meeting recurring expenses e.g. West Bengal provides the Dearness Allowance component of teacher’s salaries of Anglo-Indian Schools which are all in the private domain.

Accordingly a study on the “Public Utility of Private Schools: A study of 80 Elite Private Schools of India” by Bhatnagar & Omer (2005) of Rs 100 of concessions/incentives given by the government, only Rs.27 are spent by private schools towards socially useful activities. Both the 2005 Comptroller and Auditor Report and the subsequent Directorate of Education inquiries on the subsidy extended in lieu of allotment of land to schools in Delhi found several gross malpractices. The courts pronouncement should help them to understand their social responsibility.

Given the scenario that in many north Indian states children borne to poor parents are forced to discontinue thir education and go for menial jobs due to poverty or lack of conscience in those classes,just by providing universal free education, these children cannot be enticed back to their class rooms. A programme to take up their whole security at least in educational years should be a prime consideration.

However the administration of education deffer widely from state to state in India.That is why many a brow stood furrowed over its implementation In some states like Kerala there are no need to rope in unaided schools as there are government and aided schools in almost every neighbourhood in the State. Educationalists Mr.RVG Menon fear that "this would result in a big drain from the State's exchequer and students from government and aided schools.

Mr. Menon said that the stipulation in the Act directing unrecognised schools to apply for recognition instead of closing them down was dangerous. In the event, the applicants satisfied certain minimum eligibility parameters the State government could do nothing but grant them recognition without considering many crucial factors like whether there was the need for such a school in the first place and how they promoted the cause of education.This would result in all unrecognised schools becoming recognised unaided schools giving them the added opportunity to poach 25 per cent of students from government and aided schools, Mr. Menon said.

There are also apprehensions that students and parents from under-privileged sections will find it difficult to mingle with students from affluent sections and this may create psychological and related problems for the quota children.

The states fear of the additional financial burden it will have to shoulder in the form of reimbursement of fees to private schools for quota students.

With the sustained economic growth, it shall not be a concern to allocate the Rs. 4.50 lakh crore needed for the implementation of the RTE Act over the next five years. The act enables monitoring of the implementation through the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.

It remains tobe seen whether the new law is teethed enough to effectively preempt the nifty and innovative techniques that will be invented to subvert and downplay the spirit of the law by impostor where in admissions are arranged by fake certificates and cooking the books like collecting the fees in un-receipted cash. It is left to be seen how poor children will be thwarted by way of intimidation,bullying and extortionate demands from the school authorities.

" And what when the rich students talk about their short vacation at Singapore or the alpine countries?"

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"Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave" [Lord Henry Brougham speech to the House of Commons]

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Soni Sori the facet of Indian tribal woman

        News papers in last September were bristled with snippets of  the high-profile Essar pay-off case in which an Essar contractor called BK Lala was caught red-handed on 9th September in Palnar market in Dantewada District paying Rs 15 lakh as protection money to Linga Kodopi a Maoist conduit while another “Naxal associate” Soni Sori watched on .Soni sori escaped being caught and is a fugitive.

Police claim Kodopi was receiving the money on Maoist's behalf, while  human right activists are vocal in that the tribal has been inanely incriminated.The Special investigation team (SIT headed by IG P N Tiwari ) probing the payoff  has charge sheeted a senior company official with serious offences, including sedition, for “providing financial support” to the insurgents outfits.

.Essar has a huge plant in Bailadila, Dantewada, to ferry iron dust through an underground pipeline passing through Naxal areas to Vishakhapatnam.The police had alleged the company was providing “protection money" to Dantewada-based Maoist factions to allow the Essar Group to reopen a 267-km long iron ore  pipeline, which has been blasted at several places between Dantewada's Kirandul and Andhra Pradesh's port city Visakhapatnam. Essar strongly refutes all these allegations.

More than 3,000 people, including Adivasis, Maoist insurgents, security forces and members of a state-sponsored civil militia, known as Salwa Judum, have been killed during the last six years of insurgency in  the red corridor of Chhattisgarh. Atleast 35,000 Adivasis were dispossessed in the turmoil of the Maoist insurgency and the counter offensive operations of the state involving massive human rights violations.

Dantewada district is a hyper sensitive area , especially the area in which Linga and Soni live. Palnar, Sameli, Jabeli, Geedam are  thickly forested  Maoist strongholds.Thehalka.com has a heartboggling account of the drama leading to the arrest and torture of Soni Sori.

Soni Sori hails from a politically active tribal family. Her father Madru Ram Sori has been a sarpanch for 15 years. Her uncle is a former MLA of the Communist Party of India. Her elder brother is in the Congress.Linga Kodopi her nephew is a trained journalist in Delhi from an institute in Noida.Sori is a government employed school teacher at an ashramsala for tribal children in Jabeli village in the Maoist-afflicted Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.

Soon after the arrest of Linga capodi,the fugitive has trekked to Delhi ,leaving behind her children ,in a dangerous cross-country run from the Odisha border, disguised as an ill woman, to seek legal assistance at Delhi. Her husband has been jailed for being an alleged Maoist. On 14 June last year, her father was brutally attacked and shot in the leg by Maoists accusing him of being a police informer and was hospitalised in Jagdalpur.The Maoists had  tied the rest of the family and left them in the jungle and ransacked the house, looting every thing : gold, utensils, grain, cows. Police allege she is either a Maoist or a Maoist sympather and is implicated in five cases of Maoist violence. Running through the forest on 11th September,on her journey to Delhi,  Tehalka claims ,she had spoken  to their correspondent  “The police are trying to kill me. They fired at me today. I fled. I need to stay alive to keep the truth alive. They don’t want me to reach Delhi. I can’t let them kill me.”

Though Soni did reach Delhi,she was arrested from a bus stand.

Tehalka continues:On 8th September, one day before contractor Lala and Linga were supposedly arrested in Palnar market exchanging money, Mankar, a constable from Kirandul Police Station had accosted Soni and asked her to convince Linga to “cooperate” with the police in nabbing Lala. They wanted Linga to pose as a Maoist, take some money from Lala, then hand it over to the police. If she convinced Linga to do this, Mankar promised Soni’s name would be dropped from all the police cases that had been concocted against her.Soni refused angrily but, according to her, Mankar grabbed her phone and made a call to Lala himself impersonating as a local Maoist. The next day, on 9 September, at about 4 pm, she says a car full of plainclothes men came to her father’s house in Palnar and forcibly arrested her  25-year-old nephew, in his native Sameli village in Dantewada district and she had been declared an absconder. Knowing that she would be arrested next, Soni decided to flee."

Thehalka further adds that; "In an explosive and shocking admission, constable Mankar admits that the money was actually seized from Lala’s house and advised her to stay in Delhi for a few months. The police have no real evidence on the case, he assures her. The case would soon fall apart in court and then she could return. Till then, all she had to do was hold her silence and not talk about what had happened."

Why did they frame them?

Thehalka quotes Soni’s father as saying in frustration from his hospital bed, “The Naxals are hitting us from the front and the police from the back. I ask the government to have mercy — please just kill us and be done with it.When the Maoists summon us, we just have to go. If you want to live, you go; if you want to die, you don’t go. But if you go, the police come after you. I ask the police, can even their highest officer live in these areas without a gun and not do their bidding when the Maoists summon?"

What was their crime? Soni Sori, who was trained by a Gandhian peace organization, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, has been critical of the violations committed by the security forces. At the same time, both Soni Sori and Lingaram Kodopi have also been outspoken critics of the Maoist pursuit of armed violence.

They did not want to be the feeder line of the convoluted theories of the Maoist mad caps nor they wanted to be stealthy squealers to the sleuths. As Neelam Mishra writes ,"they did not want to be playing along in the deadly shadow game of sleuth,scout and informer,of rebel,provocateur and double agent" .They wanted their Constitutional rights: equal citizenship and rule of law. They wanted to redeem their tribe from the nexus of contractors, politicians, police — and off course the Maoists. Soni and Linga fought to get the minimum wages of tribals doubled, and kicked up a row about policemen pocketing money from illegal teak trade.For the police she was a cactus in the garden.

Their clout over the tribals brought Soni and Linga into conflict with Avdesh Gautam, a powerful local Thakur contractor and Congress activist, who had started out as a constable and had strong links within the police. Gautam had old political enmities with the Sori family. When Soni got an independent contract from the district collector to build her own school, the enmity came out from cover. Realising their potential , the police began to pressure both Soni and Linga to become full-fledged informers. In a earlier incidence , on 30th August 2009, Linga was forcibly hauled from his house and kept in a police station toilet for 40 days. He was released on 10th October 2009 following  a habeas corpus petition in the Chhattisgarh High Court. Linga left to Delhi. At Delhi he became increasingly vocal in the national media about police atrocities. The police directed their cannons against Soni, intimidating her to urge Linga to come back. Having failed to turn him into an informer, they now wanted to declare him a Maoist.

On 7th July 2010, apart from the deadly attack on Gautam, a 150-strong group of uniformed Maoist ultras had also attacked Kuakonda Police Station and the CRPF camp with rifles and mortar fire. On 15 August 2010, the new tehsil office in Kuakonda was also completely demolished by a bomb blast. A month later, on 16 September 2010, Naxalites stopped and burned some trucks in Nerli. The FIRs were not available.However, more than three months after the first of these attacks, on 30th October 2010 and then on 11th December 2010, the police filed three charge sheets on these cases. In each of these Soni had been named as an accused and shown as “absconding”.

Thehalka adds :"The truth is, until recently, the police did not want to arrest Soni. They merely wanted to use the fictitious cases they had concocted against her to harass her and wear her down. If you don’t become an informer, if you don’t urge Linga to come back from Delhi, if you don’t collaborate with the police, we will lock you up like we have locked your husband. "That was the constant threat.

After the "hot pursuit" Soni Sori was arrested in New Delhi on October 4, 2011, in a joint operation by police from Delhi and Chattisgarh, alleging of ferrying protection money from industrial group Essar to the Maoists. Despite her fears expressed in several of her court appearances that she would be tortured and killed in police custody ,the lower court and the highcourt in the national capital "in the due process of justice "denied her interim bail and granted police transit remand to take her to Chattisgarh accompanied by women police personnel. Back in Dantewade,after the transit remand period , she was produced before a magistrates court on October 8 where the magistrate remanded her to police custody till October 10 with a condition that she would not be physically tortured in police custody.The magistrate also made it clear that she will be medically examined before and after the police custody. In spite of all these precautions,when produced in the magistrates court on October 10,she was not able to climb out of the police jeep being badly injured in the head and spine.She was brutally intimidated both mentally and physically while in custody.She was admitted to a Dandewada hospital. Her lawyers took the case to Supreme Court arguing that the medical report of the Dandawade hospital indicated injuries to the head and the lumbar region along with a black mark on the "plantar aspect of the middle finger" which was caused by electric shock.The SC took this in to cognizance and directed  that she be medically examined in the  NRSMC,Kolkata. She was then sent to a hospital in neighboring Jagdalpur and, after treatment, to be moved to jail.

Evidence of  brutal torture emerged during an independent medical exam conducted on her ,after three weeks of the incident ,on 26th October at the NRS Medical College  Hospital, Kolkata .The medical report stated clearly that two sizable stones were thrusted in to her vagina and another in her rectum and that she had "annular tears" in her spine.

The Hindu reports; "The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to immediately intervene and order an impartial probe into the role of Chhattisgarh police in the case relating to alleged torture of tribal woman-teacher Soni Sori, who is detained in Raipur jail now, on the allegation of helping the Maoists.

HRW Executive Director of Women’s Rights Division Liesl Gerntholtz, in a letter to Dr. Singh, said the Soni Sori case raised serious questions about the commitment of the Indian government to prevent torture, investigate the torture allegations, hold accountable those responsible for the torture, and ensure that detainees and prisoners have adequate access to health care.

The HRW,quotes a public letter allegedly written by Ms. Sori to her lawyer in the Supreme Court in  which Sori said",

“While looking at my body, he(Mr Karg the SP) abused me in filthy language and humiliated me. After some time, he went out and (…) sent three boys. (They) started molesting me and I fell after they pushed me. Then they put things inside my body in a brutal manner. I couldn’t bear the pain and I was almost unconscious. After a long time, I regained consciousness (…) By then, it was already morning”.The Hindu report adds.

Ms.Arundhathi Roy writes in her article in recent Frontline cover story "At a recent Supreme court hearing ,activists presented the judges with the stones in a plastic bag.The only outcome of their efforts has been that Soni remains in jail while Ankit Garg ,the Superintendant of Police who conducted the interrogation, was conferred with the Presidents Police Medal for Gallantry on Republic Day."

    On Republic Day, the SP was awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry for his role in an October 9, 2010 counterinsurgency operation, in which about 250 members of the State's Special Task Force and district police ambushed Maoist guerrillas in Mahasamund district. Six Maoists were killed and two civilians, including a deaf and mute manual labourer, died in controversial circumstances.

Sori’s lawyers have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of India to transfer Sori to Delhi or another state where she would not be under the control of the Chhattisgarh police. In the Raipur Jail her health condition is steadily deteriorating, and she is suffering from pain and bleeding. The Kolkata medical team had given medications to Soni for 15-30 days and advised that she be taken to the hospital in a month’s time for review and further treatment. This has not been done despite repeated complaints by her of pain, bleeding and request for treatment on the alibi that the jail authorities do not have the discharge slips of the NRS hospital.  Out of frustration at not being given any medical treatment, Soni Sori went on hunger strike in the Raipur Jail from 8th February to 27th February. It  is important to note that this Raipur Hospital gave Soni Sori a clean bill of health in October. When she was taken there immediately after her torture , she was in no position to even walk. Not only did they not recover the stones in her body, but the Medical Superintendent actually went on record to call her a “malingerer” and said that she was feigning illness. In light of such callous treatment at the Raipur Hospital, the women’s groups urged that Soni Sori be transferred to an independent medical hospital in Delhi or Kolkata, which is not under the influence of the Chhattisgarh police, so that she can be properly examined and treated.

Amnesty International the international human rights watchdog has sought unconditionall release of Soni by describing  Soni Sori ,a Prisoner of Conscience .

Indian activists in collaboration with Amnesty International, have launched a video campaign featuring activists holding up symbolic garlands with the words “shame” on them.

Soni's story requires a revisit.A revisit to the eviscerating Indian politics where the elite state takes on the mantle of  the predator. A weak, debilitated women being pushed to the wall -her travails - should not go unheeded-falling in to the dead ears of justice taking its due course.The callousness of the uniformed crusaders-the cops flaunting their heels on the tribals- in the internecine world of war should not go reprimanded..The indomitable courage manifested by the stubborn tribal strength in her fighting against the mightiest claws of both the Maoists and  screwy posse of police is  the exemplar for the Indian women to emulate.

India lurches loaded with the Maoist terror squad like an albatross around her neck.The Red Corridor of terror sculpted out by the left-wing-extremism has cut a swathe through seven states , Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.You can hear the foot stompings  from Madhyapradesh too. Eleven out of the 16 districts in Chhattisgarh are hit by Red ultras, while five of them afflicted very severely.The antitoxin(counter insurgence forces) expected have taken  its own pound too.The fall-out is that the Indian states like  Chattisgarh has become the war turf where anybody can get legally killed on   being stamped as a mole of  Naxalites.

The Hindu recalls Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, writing in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu, October 14, 2011): “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre."

Terrorism of any form must be bumped up without remorse.State-sponsored combat action against the Maoists is necessarily its obligation .But the inner logic in the administration of political governance lies in its readiness to uphold the self esteem of the multitudes.This is the basic tenant of any political system.When the power politics shun away from this onus , the dignity of the ruled is in jeopardy.The bond between the citizens and his political representatives does not stop at a simple vote-relation.There is a barter of dignity.The citizen believes that dignity of his life and its premises will be safeguarded through the political transaction.

God of Big Things

          Cricket,the mega sports of the time, lives in its plethora of records.Every turf where the event is staged ,by its unique gentility brings forth an action, which finds a birth in the stat-book.The protagonists and the spectators alike nurse the sublime romance with the record.
March 16 was such a day on which the subtle debates of all cricket lovers converged to one point- the great fete of mankind-the 100th ton of 'Ton'dulkar, the Indian maestro.The immortal tour- de- force shall repose on the petals of history unperturbed and unsurpassed.

The excruciating yet immensely stubborn wait for the elusive and the most arduous ton at hold for more than an year or so had a logic denouement.The glorious and majestic jog at the innocuous delivery behind the squire leg for a single of Al Hassan at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium has made him the God of great things in Cricket.

Sachin was greatly relieved- having surpassed a moment that was treacherously tantalising .He did not cover up his sigh and minced no words to declare"I have to admit that I was relieved.This is now out of the way,and I can start a new chapter." Sachin is a free man now.
Suchin raised to the vertiginous heights was not playing.In fact he was outstretching himself against the scrutiny and the auditing exercise of his country men on his runs.He could not be enjoying but star-crossed as he was going extra miles to propitiate the intimidating expectations of the nation.He was laboring strenuously under great duress.Although he would be quick to respond in the negative.So what lies ahead? He quips with a blatent rejection of any thought of retirement."It is about enjoyment, about feeling motivated, about the desire to deliver and how passionate I feel about the game. I am madly in love with cricket. At this stage, I enjoy every moment.”
Indian psyche is like that.The 99 hundreds that danced in their heart seemed no more tobe a thing of joy but insignificant and nugatory.The struggle and stretch in the making were a nickel and dime job for the millions.This is the paradigm of the subcontinental psyche wherein we ignore the obvious.After a vociferous celebration of the century made in the last evening by a class batsman in the middle ,they rise up in the next morning with a scoreboard zero ,rapacious and clamouring for another ton from him,visibly unsatiated like an account keeper who straightens his accounts in the grocery shop.
Cricket is the glorious game of individual statistics.None cares whether India won the game or not.Every eye is fixed in the individual score.Whether India is thrown out of Asia cup after getting slighted and drubbed at the hands of a poor shot like Bangladesh ,is not a thing of great concern.But when Sachin tendulkar made it 100,Indians breathed the sigh of relief.
For the cricket bigots cricket is not a game but is the narcissistic indulgence in the ecstasy of statistics of their demi-Gods. Kanhai's falling speed shots,Viswanadh's enchanting squire drives,Kalicharan's half-cocked defense,VVS Laxmans unorthodox yet heart boggling obduracy to stay on the middle are not a thing of beauty.This sport is perhaps the only discipline in which a lay spectator's view sounds reliable far better than a skewed expert opinion.
Why do that happen?
“As modern sport has become global in scope it has largely lost its playful character and its professional practice has become both a global media spectacle and a serious and financially significant global business,” concludes sociologist Barry Stuart.
Sport’s tenets are no longer confined to the contours of entertainment, but vastly encompass trade, business and politics. Talent, speed and innovation are trans nationally accepted in sports as in business too. The cultural heritages whether books, food or sports – are stealthily appropriated from the real owners and effectively trans-marketed over television or the Internet. Barry Stuart writes “low common denominators, a cheap entrance ticket and immediate gratification are factors facilitating global dissemination.
The globalization of cricket though admittedly remains a chimera ,yet to consummately conquer the developed countries, has followed a non - familiar pattern of dispersion in its global coarse.The non-Western countries especially the former British colonies have begun to dominate and have taken control of the economics and politics of the game by the concentrations of the trinity -wealth, media, and marketing.Cricket has been so blatantly “Indianized”.The 20-Twenty TV friendly format of the game carved out by IPL has accentuated the popularity and added to it a sobriquet "the mass TV sport" ,completely renovating the way how it is organized, played, and watched all over the world.
The growth of The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has been phenomenal.In 1983 when Kapils Devils snatched the World Cup , BCCI could not afford to host a good feast for the victorious warriors because it was really stifled with cash and had only Rs 2,00,000 in its coffers.BCCI is a club,originally registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act,is now patronaged and run by industrialists and politicians. India's agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, is the present president. BCCI, flush and froth with money,dominates the world cricket and calls the shots in international cricket. As per Forbes magazine the BCCI was worth $1.5 billion, Wales Cricket Board $270 million and Cricket Australia $225 million. The ICC was pegged much lower at $200 million. The others were Pakistan ($100 million), South Africa ($65 million), Sri Lanka ($14 million) and Bangladesh ($5 million). "
There are 10 full members of ICC, but in terms of revenue India contributes more than 70% to the game.The magazine wrote: "Most sponsorships and broadcast rights come from India, and Indian tours make foreign boards rich."
The BCCI has made dazzling money in the process. It collected $612 million from Nimbus Communications for the global media rights to all international and domestic cricket owned or controlled by BCCI to be played in India from 1 March 2006 to 31 March 2010. Later it sold its global media rights for one-day internationals (ODIs) at neutral venues (places like Abu Dhabi, Holland, the U.S. and Malaysia, where cricket is not very popular) to Zee Telefilms for $220 million. This contract runs up to March 31, 2010. The BCCI has also sold the kit sponsorship to Nike for $45 million for five years through December 31, 2010. The team sponsorship has gone to Air Sahara for $72 million. The board's income has crossed $1 billion. New Delhi-headquartered financial daily Business Standard estimates that it will get another $450 million from the sale of other rights, including hotel, travel and ground sponsorship.

          Yet one more hype to the Indian neo-liberal policies started in the 90's.According to reports, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia have already sold shares to Indian corporations for around 60 million dollars.
How did this dramatic transformation come about?
Cricket is largely an obsession of the sanctimonious middle-class and for the corporates,the middle-class is the thriving market. It is only a logical extension that cricketers should eventually transform in to the brand ambassadors of their products.The Indians are television addicts and the Indian corporates revel in spending a lot of money on advertising and are shrued enough to understand that Cricket is the best PR option for them.The visual Media has always been self assured about its prowess to opiate the Indian masses. Now separate TV channels are being dedicated to Cricket. It is said that 85% of the sponsorship dollars for the 2003 World Cup came from Indian businesses.
Reddiff.com quotes cricket journalist Robert Craddock "India is the home not just of the sacred cow, but the cash cow as well.The secret for other nations is to learn how to milk the cow, not to run scared into the next paddock when they hear a stray 'moo',"
Private money was ushered in to cricket through IPL and there had been a flood of money into the coffers of BCCI while other countries simply forwarded their players.
"It's a moment as big, if not bigger, than the Kerry Packer moment when his role resulted in one-day international cricket taking off and basically funding the development of Australian and world cricket for 25 or so years," Fox Sports quoted Peter Young, CA spokesman, as saying.
Money flowed into Indian cricketin a big way. For instance, ESPN Star Sports has won the audiovisual rights for ICC events from late 2007 to 2015 for $1.1 billion. This includes two World Cups -- Asia (2011) and Australasia (2015). There is more money coming ICC's way. Sale of sponsorship rights could fetch another $500 million. Companies like LG Electronics, Pepsi and Hero Honda, which have been sponsors for the past few years, may, however, take a second look after India's poor performance at this year's World Cup.
The Indian parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance has asked the Indian tax department and the Reserve Bank of India to investigate the finances of the Board for Cricket Control in India, the game’s governing body, and the IPL.A report by the committee submitted to parliament laments,the game is “embroiled in transgressions off the field”.
The Mumbai-based Board of Control for Cricket in India as alleged has been running the team highly paid like a "Bollywood production house."The pay checkIndia" calculation says that Sachin Tendulkar, India's veteran cricket player, earns some $30 a minute. India's highest-paid CEO, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, gets $10, and  superstar Amitabh Bachchan, $8. Ordinary people like Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh get 3 cents and 1 cent respectively. These figures claimed to base on an Internet-based labor market research tool.Even if it sounds hypothetical, it goes without saying that India's cricket stars are dearly paid which makes one safely assume that Cricket in India is a booming business.
Neither cricket nor the players are the mischiefs.It is all in the dramatic shift that happened in the last two decades to the game.Cricket is a product driven by the dynamics of the rules and tantrums of the market.Globalisation has its spectre on this game too. Market forces dictate the rules and the game meekly submit to its pressure.
When the sport is shifted to the level of modern merchandise and the people in the game becoming the commodities ,more and more professionalism should rule the roost.When a star is branded for Rupees 100 crores for 10 years,he is not playing but exerting himself day and night to remain as a stake holder.The exuberance and the playful charrector,the central theme of the art, in the sport is denuded from the legatee and he remains a bunch of crap of the machinations of the outer world,however manfully he strives to defend.He distances from the finer things in that art.The players destiny is tuned in to the whims of the spectators.
Of course the nationalistic tint to the game is the prelude to this foray of finance in to the game which deserves to be examined sepearately and exclusively.The result the basic tenant of the sports-tobe playful- is driven out to the dark corridors of oblivion.
There is no room in a house for kisses with slammed doors and deplummed dreams.
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....saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at him. I know I never saw myself play, but I feel that this player is playing much the same as I used to play, and she looked at him on Television and said yes, there is a similarity between the two...his compactness, technique, stroke production... it all seemed to gel! .......Sir Bradman on Thendulkar.

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