Lathi-charged cricket fans

Whether it's the presumptively-estimated Rs 1,76,000-crore 2G-scam or the physically-felt la t h i-charge on cricket fans in Bangalore, the reaction of the authorities remains the same. Instead of saying "Sorry , it will not happen again" , the authorities invariably wash their hands of what happened with a glibness which would have put Pontius Pilate to shame and then claim that the present problem was rooted in past policy which was framed when they were not around and that they are, therefore, not to blame.

The only difference is that while Manmohan Singh talked about compromises having to be made in the name of coalition d h a r m a, the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) president Anil Kumble stated that it had just been a few months since he had taken over and that he had not had time to change the policy on distribution of matchtickets , with the bulk of them going to VIPs! In Japan, when things go wrong, officials appear on national television to express their apologies.

In India, the KSCA officebearers made a public appearance to state that such incidents had happened in the past and would recur in the future. And KSCA secretary Javagal Srinath stated that he had stood in queues for match-tickets in his formative years and never behaved like the fans of today. When asked about the televised images going all over the globe of ticket-seeking fans being la t h icharged on the eve of a World Cup match, Bangalore police commissioner Shankar Bidari said that the cops had to do what they did to pre-empt worse things like stampedes. The only thing Messrs Kumble, Srinath and Bidri did not say was that a periodic la t h i-charge not only improved the fitness of the cops but also that of the fans who had to move quickly to avoid being struck!