We have had multiple reports of your minister for sports trying to enter accredited areas at venues with unaccredited individuals. When the staff try to explain that this is not allowed, they report that the people with the minister have become aggressive and rude and sometimes push past our staff…Should our protocol team be made aware of further examples of this type of behaviour, the accreditation of your minister will be cancelled and his privileges at Games withdrawn.”
That was Sarah Peterson, Continental Manager for Rio 2016 Organising Committee, writing to Rakesh Gupta, the Indian Chef-de-Mission. The minister concerned is none other than Vijay Goel, the former head of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who, after being put to pasture for more than two years, was given a lifeline in the form of a Rajya Sabha seat and subsequently elevated to the post of a junior minister.
In diplomatic parlance, Peterson’s letter is equivalent to Goel being warned of being persona non-grata.
Rio de Janeiro is a long way away from Delhi and the minister and his cronies must have felt that they could introduce Brazilians to the VIP culture which they indulge in profusely back home. Goel has denied any wrongdoing. Of course what else do you expect from an Indian politician? Even when caught with their pants down, they can come up with excuses of the most implausible nature.
Goel says he had walked on to the field of play to “encourage” the Indian hockey team. Empirical evidence shows the “encouragement” had had little impact on the players. The team lost to Belgium in the quarter-finals. Be that as it may, did the minister really think that his presence on the field would make a difference apart, of course, from the fact that it would have been a distraction for the players?
Reports suggest that Goel was more interested in taking “selfies” with the players which, one can surmise, will soon adorn the ‘ego wall’ of the minister’s office. If you were to ask me how many times Goel had visited the Indian hockey team at Delhi’s national stadium, which is just a five minutes’ flight for the crow from the minister’s bungalow, during its practice sessions to boost its morale for these Games, I am sorry I don’t have an answer. But you can very well take a guess and it will be the right one!
Officials and politicians accompanying Indian sports teams have always been a law unto themselves. The discrimination begins the moment they take off to foreign shores. While the athletes are shunted out to the economy seats—most famously described by Shashi Tharoor as “cattle class”—these officials, who are duty-bound to look after the welfare of the men and women under their charge, travel business class and some even get themselves upgraded to first class. On landing, the athletes have to share rooms in games villages and such other accommodations as are provided by the organisers but the officials ensconce themselves in five-star hotels with all the attendant luxury.
Minister Goel is not the first to be charged with flouting the established norms of the host nation or the event as such. Just two years ago at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Indian Olympic Association secretary-general Rajeev Mehta was arrested for drunken driving.
If Goel has gone to Rio to boost the morale of Indian participants in the Games, Haryana’s Sports Minister Anil Vij is going one better by leading a nine-member team of politicians and officials, including the media advisor to the state chief minister. Again, your guess is as good as mine as to what such an individual has to do with the Olympic Games. Additional Chief Secretary K K Khandelwal, who is part of the delegation, explained the noble intent behind the visit: “Apart from encouraging players, the aim is to see how such an event is organised. We have scheduled a number of meetings with officials. How to use the infrastructure that is made at a subsequent stage after the event gets over will also be seen and analysed,”
Did anyone bother to tell Khandelwal that India is nowhere near hosting the Olympic Games? And if the delegation wanted to study how facilities like stadiums are used after the Games, they should have gone to the venues like London or Beijing where the previous two Games were held. The sorry state of facilities that Delhi built for the 2010 Commonwealth Games is a grim reminder that officials who go on these “study” tours return none the wiser but of course with bags-full of goodies for their near and dear ones.
Vij, too, explained why he was going. “Haryana’s delegation has timed its trip to Rio in sync with the events in which Haryana’s sportspersons are participating. It will be a boost to our state’s players.”
But then the minister showed his magnanimity when he said: “But that does not mean that we will not watch players of other states in the Olympics.”
Really? Players from Andhra Pradesh, Punjab etc. owe a big “thank you” to Vij!
The earlier Congress governments had been hauled over the coals for letting ministers and officials go on foreign junkets at the drop of a hat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office with the promise that that bad old order will change. But has it?
Almost from the day he became Prime Minister, Modi had been globe-trotting trying to sell the India story to heads of states and governments and CEOs of multinational corporations in his attempt to attract foreign investments to this country. Except for his diehard enemies, almost everyone will admit that Modi has done a wonderful job so far. But people like Vijay Goel, if left alone, are more than capable of undoing what Modi has so painstakingly achieved through his travels. With friends like these…
In a democracy,
it has to be even-handed
The Chief Justice of India is very annoyed. And for good reason too. The Modi government is dragging its feet on the appointment of judges to the higher courts even as cases are piling up beyond counting and Justice Tirath Singh Thakur is trying to do all he can and a bit more to set things right.
Perhaps that “bit more” part went a little overboard on India’s Independence Day on August 15.
It is the day when the Prime Minister takes the centre stage—she/he does it every day at every event, but August 15 is extra special—by addressing the nation from the ramparts of Delhi’s historic Red Fort. This was Modi’s third speech and it went on for nearly 120 minutes as he elaborated on his government’s achievements one by one and also laid out a road map for the future.
But Justice Thakur is annoyed that “our popular Prime Minister” did not say a word about how he planned to tackle the judicial appointments issue. If he had written to the Prime Minister about his misgivings it would have been par for the course. But Justice Thakur chose an open forum to air his views which, according to many observers, could only be viewed as criticism of the government.
Judges of the Supreme Court and even High Courts sometimes make asides in the course of their judgements that are critical of the executive. These are debated and discussed and, more often than not, praised for their candour and relevance. But to “criticise” the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech is definitely a first for a Chief Justice of India and opinions are divided on Justice Thakur’s speech to lawyers at a function in the national capital.
While senior Supreme Court lawyer Aryama Sundaram and former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian were of the view that the Chief Justice should have been a little more circumspect, usual suspects like Aam Aadmi Party’s national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress Party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala felt that Justice Thakur had said what had to be said.
Between them the executive and the judiciary have to keep a fine balance without which democracy itself will be meaningless. Agreed that it was perhaps the last resort for Justice Thakur to say these things so openly, but imagine a scenario if the Prime Minister or the Cabinet Secretary or the Chief Election Commissioner, not to forget the three chiefs of the armed forces, take to airing their views in similar fashion. Mind boggles!
Delhi Diary
