Forget the Commonwealth Games, Bring on the Olympics! - 30/09/2010

Watching news of the Commonwealth Games debacle with friends a few days ago, I was shocked when one of them dismissed comments by the “two Mikes” (Fennel and Hooper) as “jealousy of India”, personifying our delusional, and often jingoistic assessment of our place in the world economic order.

Simultaneously, many of us dismiss the considerable developmental progress of China as a totalitarian blip where the inherent rural-urban divide will lead to unmanageable social problems, civil strife and partition of the country!

The unfolding CWG saga, if anything, has served us a timely reminder that, perhaps, we were getting a little ahead of ourselves and that in reality we might still be a relatively poor nation, with huge contradictions, disparities and challenges, growing strongly from a low economic base.

Many lessons will, hopefully, be learnt from this sordid mess. There will be the inevitable investigations, accusations of cover-ups, proposals for new legislation, promises of a new dawn for Indian sports with enhanced funding and, possibly, an era of sports being run by sports persons and not politicians and bureaucrats. The likelihood is that, in true Indian spirit, matters may not change too much.

Timely preparation of the CWG facilities would have gained India many plaudits, greater international respect as an emerging market, and would have lead to the inevitable chant from all and sundry of “Bring on the Olympics!”

Instead, we are confronted with the uncomfortable truth that we are now more uncertain of when we shall be credibly able to bid for the Olympics.

Few Indians understand how our country is viewed abroad. We far too readily fall for political rhetoric that claims that we are returning full compliments with interest to former colonial powers. Few of us are prepared to accept that much of our supposed economic might arises from the simple fact that we are a populous country.

As Indians we know that China is racing ahead, but we remain optimistic that we can catch up and, hopefully, one day overtake China. Yet we accept that at current juncture in economic progress we are behind, although many of us somehow think that we are within touching distance of China’s progress. So how far behind are we?

China lost its 1993 bid for the 2000 Olympics to Sydney and had to wait till 2001 for the successful Beijing bid. After London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the 2020 Olympics rightly belong to either Africa or Asia. South Africa’s stunning successful hosting of the football World Cup would make it a strong candidate.

Recent events make it more likely that India will not bid in 2013, with 2017 the likely date of our first bid. Assuming that we like China are successful with our second bid, possibly in 2025, India may host the Olympics in 2032, a full 24 years after China, a “sporting” assessment of how far behind China we may have fallen today.

Maybe a 24 year lag is too harsh an indictment on India. So let’s look at per capita GDP data. On a Price Purchasing Parity (PPP) basis China was at about 50% of India in 1978, rising to about 200% by 2008. If the average Chinese is twice as rich (or half as poor) as the average Indian, with our economy growing at about 8.5% today, it will take Indians at this growth rate just under 9 years to reach where the Chinese are today in per capita GDP terms.

So in terms of development lag we have two measures, one fiscal the others sporting, giving us assessments of 9 and 24 years respectively. The truth may lie somewhere in between. Growing robustly we are, tigerish we are not.

Today India can match the US $33 billion or so that China is estimated to have spent on its own Olympics. Money is not the problem; ability to deliver certainly is.

Delhi with its confusing administrative set-up was always going to be challenged to get things right. Our private sector and certainly some of our more capable Chief Ministers (in their own states) would have produced better on-time infrastructure with quality support services to match.

India does have its success stories, the Delhi metro and our gleaming new airports amongst them. The government needs to extend our Private Public Partnership (PPP) initiatives to the sports infrastructure sector.

To ensure that the lessons of the CWG fiasco are actually learnt immediately after these games the government needs to appoint a Commission for enquiry, review and recommendation to report in no more than 6 months, followed by the creation of a statutory Authority that would become responsible for India’s Olympic bid and thereafter for creating the facilities and managing the event itself.

It is a test of our political leadership as to how long it will make the nation await our own Olympics. India needs to host the Olympics sooner rather than later.

Jassi Khangura MLA (Congress),

Halqa Qila Raipur, Punjab

26 September 2010