The charade of BCCI

The drama of resignations at the higher echelons of The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is a charade. It is only meant to pacify agitated cricket lovers that the body that controls the fate of their sport is not a den of thieves, that the BCCI management’s honest hearts are bleeding at Indian cricket’s pain and that corrective action is being taken. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mr Srinivasan’s temporary withdrawal from office till the ongoing inquiry into matchfixing and related matters is over makes no fundamental difference. The administration of the game must change completely. BCCI must be scrapped and replaced with a body that is democratically constituted, democratically run and democratically accountable.

Why should a bunch of politicians and businessmen be in control of cricket? Why should the BCCI be a closed body that steadfastly refuses public scrutiny? Why should the body that claims to select India’s national team be a private agency to which the Right to Information Act does not apply?

Why should a closed, incestuous club control a game in which millions of Indians invest so much passion and money? It is time for the government to revive the draft sports Bill that Ajay Maken had tried to introduce when he had been the sports minister. The Bill sought to give a democratic character to sports bodies. Vested interests entrenched in all parties — Sharad Pawar, Rajiv Shukla and CP Joshi of the UPA and Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley of the BJP — had scuttled the Bill then. The time has come for these worthies to put public interest above their own and welcome the cleaning up of India’s sports administration. Corruption and lack of accountability are unacceptable, they would admit, in politics. Why should sport be any different?