IPL inilipat sa labas ng Indya
Kaya, sa wakas matapos magkano mag-dallying at masusing pag-iisip, ang isang maliturgiya drama na ladlad sa harap ng aming TV screen, IPL ay inilipat sa labas ng Indya. In this article we analyse the various aspects of this whole episode, that affects all Indians from Shahrukh Khan in Mumbai to Panchrangi Halwai living next door. We will first analyse if moving IPL out of India was the only option available and subsequently we will analyse why IPL was moved out India. Was there a conspiracy to move it out of India? If it was a conspiracy, who all were involved? Who all are to blame? When was it actually hatched? What should be done now?

Importance of IPL for India

Importance of IPL for India can not be emphasized in mere words (but let's just give it a try). If in our billion people strong nation, cricket is religion and Sachin Tendulkar is God, then IPL is our biggest festival. It is a time when enemies shake hands, kiss (strictly on the cheeks) and make up. It is a time when people from all religions and all walks of life, convive together at this banquet – at this feast, of the greatest magnitude – and display harmony and accordance unseen anywhere else in the world, be it on the playground or off it. It is a time when we celebrate the great revival of India at the world stage.

Further, IPL is huge money spinner. (On the other hand, elections are just a loss of crores of rupees.) No advanced (or even basic for that matter) degree in economics is required to understand the fact that a shift of venue for the IPL matches will result in an enormous loss of revenue. Therefore, the importance of IPL for India can not be emphasized enough.

Are Elections more important than IPL?

Let's ask the most basic question first, are elections more important or IPL in our cricket-krazy India?
If it had to come to this, that a choice was to be made between elections and IPL, who should have got a preferential treatment. In this cricket-krazy nation, denying us of our beloved IPL, is like denying, Sacaea to the Babylonians, Dionysia to the Greeks, Saturnalia to the Romans. When IPL holds so much value to the Indians, should the elections not have taken the back seat in India, instead of it being the other way around?

What would have Babylonians, Greeks and Romans have done if they were denied Sacaea, Dionysia and Saturnalia, respectively? They would have shook everything between heaven and hell. Babylonians would have taken out every brick from Mesopotamia. Greeks would have taken flame-thrower through every street of Alexandria. The Romans would have destroyed all the arches and domes in Rome, the very hallmarks of Roman Architecture. And what are we doing, sitting on our hinds, tuning up that TV set so that we can watch IPL matches telecast from South Africa instead of India.

Alternatives before the Government and Political Fraternity in general

We ask the question, why no other alternatives were given any serious thought other than postponing/cancelling IPL or to move IPL out of country?

The UPA Government had ample opportunity at its hands to resign six months before its tenure. This would have given ECI (Election Commission of India) ample opportunity to organize elections before IPL. Further, why didn't the BJP and Left front bring the Government down in the no-confidence motion and call for fresh mandate to be taken from the people of India, last July? Is this all part of some big conspiracy to deprive us Indians of our IPL? We will answer this and many other questions later in part 2 of this article. For now we keep focus on the alternatives and analyse all that has happened before us.

One “obvious” solution that people provided was to induct security personnel from participating countries in the IPL. The first thing to note is that IPL and elections can't be held simultaneously as most candidates contesting in the elections will lose their security deposits, if elections were to be held during the IPL season. Further, getting security personal from abroad obviously has logistical implications. Also, correspondence and consonance between security people of different nationalities would have been a limiting factor even if we were to overcome the logistical difficulties somehow and ignore concerns regarding voter turnout during IPL. Thus, we can discard this as possible alternative.

But other alternatives that were silently ignored were rescheduling or cancelling elections or moving them out of India (if security was such a concern). Now the question that remains is, why were the elections not rescheduled or cancelled or moved out of India when their dates clashed with IPL (instead of moving IPL out of India)? The Government along with all the opposition could have declared Internal Emergency and rescheduled elections easily. But the Government refused to even consider this as a viable option (which again provides evidence in favour of conspiracy theory, discussed later in part 2 of this article). And when we consider that this is the same Congress which imposed Internal Emergency for a 21 month period under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, our bitterness at this display of complete disregard for popular opinion is only intensified.

Further, another option that Government, and even ECI is the guilty party here, didn't even consider was moving the elections out of India instead of IPL. If South Africa is such a favoured and trouble free destination, to hold big events such as IPL which carries a billion hopes and aspirations, why were the elections not moved to South Africa. After all a country which can provide security for a Mega Event such as IPL, can certainly provide security for Indian Elections. The very fact that this very viable option wasn't even discussed anywhere in the mainstream media, is indicative of the scope of this conspiracy to dislodge IPL from India and to bring disgrace and disrepute to our great country.

Questions that we ask

Why didn't GOI and ECI ask BCCI and Lalit Modi for their expertise in conducting an incident free IPL, so that they could have moved elections out of India?

We are asking some very serious questions here. Whom does the GOI and ECI represent? Is it Indian public or some vested interests, which want to see the whole of India disgraced and discredited?

Wait for the hard hitting part 2 of this article which will provide answers to these and many other questions.

[This is Part 1 of this article. Read Part 2 here .]