Whose Wealth? Whose Commons? : The Ugly Face of The Commonwealth Games

As Delhi gears up to host the Commonwealth Games, behind the official fanfare lies the ugly truth: a story of massive corruption, substandard infrastructure, exploitation of workers, displacement of the poor, reckless corporatization and environmental degradation.

From the very beginning, the entire process of organizing these games was shrouded in secrecy and marked by a total lack of public information. But in recent weeks, here are just some of the skeletons that have come tumbling out of the Games’ closet:

• The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in a preliminary investigation of Commonwealth Games works has found evidence of pervasive corruption: work was awarded at higher rates and to ineligible agencies, bids have been tampered with, there have been irregularities in issuing of tenders, and needless ‘upgradation’. Virtually all government organisations involved in executing these works — the PWD, MCD, DDA, NDMC, CPWD and RITES — stand implicated in this mess.
• The Housing and Land Rights Network has shown that as much as Rs 744.35 crore from Delhi’s special component plan (SCP) – which aims to improving the standard of living of the poor sections of the community through various government schemes and programmes – was diverted to the Games projects.
• For the Queens’ Baton Relay, a London-based group, AM Cars and AM Films were hired for a staggering price of 238,093.56 pounds. This included, among other things, the hiring of cars and mobile toilets from London. The Joint Director General of the Commonwealth Games’ Organising Committee, T S Darbari, who was sacked after this fiasco, had already roused suspicion after a courier was arrested from the Kochin airport in February, carrying a diamond ring worth 28 lakh meant for him. Proof has also come to light that Suresh Kalmadi himself doctored emails so as to hide the financial irregularities associated with the Queens’ Baton Relay.
• The reckless manner in which money is being spent is well illustrated by the expenditure of Rs. 40 crore for an aerostat (helium balloon) that would be used for lighting and sound equipment during the four to six hours of CWG ceremonies. The amounts spent on free sightseeing trips, luxury transport and other perks offered to visiting officials and dignitaries still remain unknown.

As many more irregularities come to light, we know that what we are seeing is only the tip of the iceberg.

We were told that the Games would make Delhi an international sports hub and tourist destination. But far from setting up, ‘world class’ sports and infrastructure in the capital, it is evident that construction quality is shoddy and has been deliberately compromised. Already, the effects of this are beginning to show: a section of the false ceiling at the Yamuna Sports Complex collapsed after heavy rains, and at a test event at the SP Mukherjee Swimming Complex, a swimmer was hurt thanks to the shoddy construction.

As work proceeds rapidly at the CWG construction sites, labour laws and safety regulations are being rampantly violated at Games worksites, resulting in the deaths of a large number of workers in worksite accidents. Working conditions are unsafe and worksite facilities, crèches or even proper housing are absent. Over a hundred workers have died at these sites from accidents or diseases such as cerebral meningitis, but their death is as cheap as their lives and their labour. These are the human ‘costs’ of holding the games to which no notice is given.

The Games have also provided a pretext to the Congress Government to rush through the liberalization agenda of evicting street vendors and the homeless, all in the name of ‘National Pride’ Between 2003-2008, up to 4 lakh people are said to have been evicted from the capital. The evictions have taken place without resettlement or compensation and have left most of those evicted homeless. Arbitrarily, last winter, shelters for the homeless were demolished, leaving their residents to freeze to death. Slums that couldn’t be demolished or set on fire, are being hidden behind hedges of fast-growing bamboo, so that our rulers’ ‘embarrassment’ of Indian poverty need not mar the eyes of foreign tourists.

While the sun has long set on the British empire, its apologists and defenders still remain. Foremost among them is our Prime Minister who, in a remarkable speech delivered in Oxford University, declared that the ills of Empire were exaggerated and the British Raj was in fact a model of “good governance!”  These Games that our ruling elite is celebrating as a marker of ‘national pride’ began in 1918 as a celebration of the British Empire. Today, the ‘Commonwealth’ – a collection of former British colonies in unity with Britain, all symbolized by the British Crown and Queen – is an anachronism at best and a shameful survival of the colonial legacy at worst.

In the face of the country’s poor who wage a daily battle for survival, the fact that government officials have been lining their pockets in the name of these games is nothing short of a national shame. Not only are the Games proving to be corrupt, wasteful and exploitative – the very idea of the ‘Commonwealth’ Games as a symbol of national pride is a tasteless joke with our legacy of anti-colonial struggle. Such an exploitative and spectacularly corrupt extravaganza, with a colonial hangover to boot, should be exposed and resisted by all democratic voices in our country.