The Asiad Extravaganza: When The Tiger Turns A Maneater

The Asiad fever that has gripped India’s Ruling Class and the make-believe world that it has successfully created, with its media going gaga over a rich man’s sports, is the final proof that in its reckless pursuit of pleasure the blood thirsty tiger has graduated into a deadly maneater at large and henceforth it shall not be satisfied with anything less than human flesh. What else we can say when amid this winter of discontent this leisured class spent, according to G. K. Reddy (Hindu-Nov 19), a staggering Rs. 1.000 crores on a pure pleasure-hunting? The Ruling Class comprising about 10%. of its population knows full well the risk involved in indulging in such a lavish, glittering show of vulgar wealth, turning Delhi into a fairyland amid the surrounding welter of discontent. That is why 10,000 troops were deployed to guard the merry-making Mary Antoinettes inside. Anybody protesting was ordered to be shot dead. Besides the troops, 30,000 police and para-military forces were also pressed. The Army was called because the Ruling Class no longer trusts the police which is refusing to become its tools in many places. We would like to make it clear that we are not opposed to Asiad which is an internationally recognised sports event. But the point is can a poor country (India’s rank is put at 115 out of the 150 countries. in the world) afford such a costly luxury, that too at a time when the people have started dying out of starvation in many parts of India? Poverty, exploitation, general unrest of the Untouchables, tribals has reached an all-time record. For the first time India is forced to import food. In parts of Bengal and Bihar famine conditions have become so serious that hungry tribals demonstrating for food are met with police bullets Floods have seriously ravaged Orissa and many other parts of India. A killer cyclone battered coastal Gujarat and thousands of poor are rendered homeless. Anti-Muslim riots in many parts of India have brought more shocks to India’s poor Muslims. Assam cauldron is boiling endlessly. Thousands of beggars have been bundled out to give a clean appearance to Delhi. Farmers in many States are agitating and they are met. with police-firing. Topping it all the Sikhs, in whose borrowed garments the Ruling Class is shining at the Asiad, have hoisted the banner of revolt. Never before India has faced such a mountain of problems. Charan Singh, the then Prime Minister, therefore, had rightly rejected the Asiad proposal on the ground that the country could ill-afford such a costly luxury. But Indira Gandhi, whose birthday coincided with the Asiad opening (Nov. 19), not only blessed the pomp and pageantry but converted it into a State festival making every limb of the Govt. to work for it. Whenever the situation goes out of control and the drift becomes all too dangerous, India’s Ruling Class comes out with a diversionary side show so that the masses are befooled and their anger is cooled by the glitter and glamour of a make-believe world and their attention is diverted from issues to non-issues. That is why an impression is created by the Ruling Class through its media that all roads lead to Delhi. Not one single newspaper has written an editorial criticising the Asiad extravaganza. Not one single ‘intellectual has protested against it. The few who did were arrested and sent away. Foreigners reading the papers may, therefore, go with the impression of an all-pervading carnival atmosphere in India. No Barring the Ruling Class and its paid servants, over 75% of its population has hardly any time or interest in it. And it if at all there is little interest, it can’t afford to participate in it. With all this what was the performance of the Ruling Class at the Asiad? Miserable, as expected. India was pounded by the Chinese and the Japanese. How can those who are at the bottom of the world beat those who are at the top? And the little gold it struck was because of the Sikhs, whose many genuine grievances the Ruling Class is refusing to heed. The entire topbrass of the Asiad is Sikh. The very Minister for Sports is an Untouchable Sikh. The Indian muscle-power at the Asiad was Sikh. Yet this Ruling Class has no shame to claim whatever Sikhs conquer as its. That is why the Sikhs out of disgust have declared themselves as a separate nation fighting for Khalistan. Dalits and persecuted minorities have many lessons to learn from the struggle of the brave Sikhs. Why India is not able to come up at the Asiad or anywhere for that matter is because its sportsmen & women are never selected strictly on merit. The Ruling Class always wants its own boys and girls are selected on the basis of caste. influence or money. How could such an over-pampered, over-fed boys and girls compete with China, Japan where selection is done on strict merit. The virile boys and girls belonging to the dalit and other persecuted minority sections, who can be a match to any one at the international level, are kept out. And boys and girls of the Ruling Class met with their doom at the Asiad because they have no stamina. But the Ruling Class is not worried, not even ashamed of its debacle at the Asiad. It knew well in advance that it would meet with doom. The Ruling Class has no compunction about all this. It staged the Asiad not to display its talent but to kill its excess leisure and in the process provide jobs for its kith & kin and also make more money. Where wealth accumulates men decay The Asiad is the limit of the Ruling Class perversity. Millions of rupees of public money were looted. But if anybody, dares to question such a reckless pleasure-hunting, the Ruling Class and its running dogs pounce on them and tear them to pieces. They defend the Asiad in the name of encouraging youth. But what did the youth of this Ruling Class do at the Asiad except sulk. sink & surrender before China, Japan, and eat mud? As for the cost G. K. Reddy says: “No one really knows how much money has been spent on this extravaganza since the estimates vary from the modest figure of Rs. 100 crores spent on building 8 new stadia and renovating 9 old ones to Rs. 1.000 crores including the expense incurred on half a dozen new Asiad hotels largely with Govt loans and the beautification of Delhi with many flyovers, wider roads, better street lighting and improvement of other civic facilities with more supply and telephones”. But the final tally will be much more than Rs. 1,000 crores. The Ruling Class is willing to spend any amount of funds. It has no money to meet the urgent basic needs of the people. But to the Asiad, sky is the limit. Such a pleasure-hunting has made the tiger to turn into a maneater It is no longer interested in animals because it has developed the taste for human flesh. Can we allow this monster to roam about on its killing spree? What else we should do but shoot the maneater ?