WHILE it is important to keep secret any proceedings while these are on, the government has a duty to inform the nation why the process has broken down. And especially, it has a duty to inform the people how long it plans to continue their agony and why. Surely, the person who can take the IOC by the horns can take a stand that the national sport demands, writes SportzPower’s Sujit Chakraborty
In our opinion, Ajay Maken has been the best sports minister we’ve had in the last few years. And that is why the ceaselessly painful hockey impasse leaves us foxed.
There was a time when Mukul Wasnik, himself a skilled, Maharashtra-level cricketer, had been made the minister and he tried to bring some order into the scheme of things then. We have no idea whether he had accepted the sports ministry as the shortest and fastest route to become a minister, but having become one, he had taken a sportsperson’s interest to do something.
It is not clear what exactly pricked Mani Shankar Iyer during his time in the ministry, but the former career diplomat could have been done a lot. Now there is no point in criticising him.
Maken’s predecessor MS Gill was not sacked from the post for the disrepute brought in by the Commonwealth Games. For his part, he had delivered. He was not in charge of creating stadia or building hostels or roads and flyovers. He had to ensure the sporting event took place and our sportspersons did their best. No comments on the last bit, with dope flying all over the arena, but Gill could not have asked athletes to dope.
Why Gill was removed is known to very few and the issue is related to cricket and not restricted to his tussle with political heavyweight and ICC chief Sharad Pawar. It had as much to do with a deep rooted international development.
But Maken had come prepared: his immediate steps as minister showed he had been informed well in advance, and had done his homework well. His strict handling of the CWG non-payments crisis that exploded across the Indian Ocean, Down Under, showed he was the man in charge.
In typical Congress style, he said on arrival that he would follow the footsteps of his predecessor, but in the first programme to felicitate athletes, he said that he was proud to stand next to them because they have achieved what they have without the government doing anything at all.
Then he took over the tug-of-war between the Indian government and International Olympic Association. He proposed a sports law and won universal plaudits cutting across party lines in the Parliament. He drew up a Bill, a faulty Bill, and a faulty approach, but we are not talking about the legal inadequacies of a Bill. We are talking about the kind of person Maken is: a determined person with a clear line of thinking, right or wrong.
Maken must have started from scratch to work on the vexed hockey issue from the beginning of his tenure itself. And having held rounds of talks with the two warring parties, Indian Hockey Federation and Hockey India, he proposed a compromise formula.
This was the first sign of a weak step, for signals from the ministry were clear: that the HI was in the right and on a stronger wicket in terms of making an effort for hockey and not misutilising money.
When Maken said, therefore, that he would propose a solution, it was clear, as a top official had told SportzPower, that the government wanted an end, and not a solution. The difference is that a solution can later crumble, but an end says that the problem has been resolved.
The IHF has a right to do and say what it feels is right, of course, and what it said against the proposal has been reported well enough, and this post is not for IHF bashing.
But for the past few weeks the government has kept silent. Maken issued deadline after deadline, warning that if the parties do not fall in and resolve the issue mutually, then the government would step in.
Why has the ministry started showing signs of weakness now? Very perplexing.
It is clear though, and we have said it earlier, that IHF would not accept the terms laid out by the government. And again, it has a right to do so.
At this level, it seems that the deal that IHF has worked out with Nimbus Sport for holding the World Series Hockey, has brought in some money already to IHF which it has perhaps spent.
For Nimbus, it is a technical matter whether they go with HI or IHF as the endorser of the event. It has decided to invest in a world sporting property and such an event will be extremely beneficial for the country. It does not matter who controls their naming rights.
But suppose it has mistakenly invested in the wrong party and some exchanges have happened, it would want that money back.
The talks, though, had reached such a position that by Thursday last, both parties let out to the media that a clear deal would be signed on the morrow, with IHF allowed to go ahead with the Nimbus deal for one year and then the deal would be re-worked.
But on Friday, after a marathon discussion at the ministry, IHF walked out on the deal. And as is known now, IHF has come up with a newer demand. You call that fair? We don’t.
But whatever it is, this is time enough for the ministry to issue the diktat that it had said much earlier it would. No one, not even the government, has the right to try the patience of the nation in a desire to see a mutual wrap-up. This is like the judge asking a long estranged couple to try for another six months to see if they can patch up, simply because the law says so.
Besides, when Maken had proposed he would come up with the proposal, he had requested the media not to ask for more lest the plan fails prematurely. But now it is time that the nation is told at least the basic outline of what has been the deliberations and where the process has come unhinged.
While it is important to keep secret proceedings while these are on, the government has a duty to clarify why the process has broken down.
And especially, it has a duty to inform the people how long it plans to continue their agony and why.
This much we expect from what we reassert is the best sports minister the country has had in recent memory. Surely, the person who can take the IOC by the horns can take a stand that the national sport demands.
