Last Word: Fiefdoms abound in Indian sport

National elections are crucial in India. The tentacles of the party in power, whether Congress or the BJP or alliances cobbled together, spread everywhere. And sport is no exception. Elections to sporting bodies in India are never free of political interference.

And it is not just the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which currently has the son of the Home Minister as secretary. As the richest and most influential cricket body in the world, it naturally attracts those who deal in riches and influence.

I remember elections to the Indian Olympic Association many years ago which witnessed fisticuffs and promises made to the losing party about being accommodated in future elections. The IOA pie is not very large, but it has some attractions: foreign trips, Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth Games junkets, and the power that officials enjoy over athletes.

In the days when India won just one Olympic medal in hockey, or none at all, the contingent of officials was often larger than the number of athletes. Speak to any hockey player of the 1970s, and he will tell you of being kicked out of his room at the Olympic Village to accommodate the oversized (in more senses than one) administrator delegation.

And quite shamelessly, these destroyers of Indian sport would insist on taking part in the Opening Ceremony too. There’s a famous photograph of the 1972 marchpast with Indian officials, out of step, uncoordinated and frankly disgusting, that featured in the media then.

It made no difference. Officials continued to replace athletes. It was bad enough athletes’ performances when compared to those of other nations gave them a complex, they had to kowtow to officials too. It is amazing how Indians won anything at international meets those days despite aggressive attempts to give them an inferiority complex.

As soon as Indian politicians heard of a sport where India had no governing body or indeed background they quickly formed an association, held ‘elections’ and started going abroad at the tax-payer’s expense. Sepak Takraw, for example, came as a revelation.

Sportsmen and sportswomen might complain about the all-consuming focus on cricket to the exclusion of other sports, but officials were always happy at this state of affairs. It meant that they could conduct their shenanigans under the radar, with no questions asked. Some remained in power for three or four decades, handing over the reins to their sons or daughters like royalty. Things have improved in recent years, but not by much. The Wrestling Federation of India elections will take place without Brij Bhushan who is facing sexual harassment charges, or his son. And just when you begin to think that the reign might be finally over, his son-in-law’s presence in the list as a voter suggests otherwise. It has ever been so. Fiefdoms abound in Indian sport just as they do in Indian politics. All relatives are entitled to entitlement.

Even those who scream that politics and sports ought not to mix accept that politicians and sport mix all the time.