India: Commonwealth Games corruption and exploitation continue colonial legacy

[Image: Construction Workers. ©Mehar Jyrwa.]
From ML Update August 3-9 -- The Commonwealth Games, touted as the Country’s pride, is shaping to become the symbol of national shame in more ways than one. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has in a preliminary investigation of Commonwealth Games works in the Capital, found indications of pervasive corruption by virtually all the government organisations involved in executing the works. As we go to press there are reports of the CWG Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi’s direct involvement in doctoring an email to cover up irregular financial transactions with a London based firm.

The PWD, MCD, DDA, NDMC, CPWD and RITES are among the organizations which stand implicated in corruption. The Chief Technical Examiner Organisation (CTEO) report of the CVC indicates that work has been awarded at higher rates and to ineligible agencies, bids tampered with, irregularities in issue of tenders, and ‘upgradation’ of various facilities without establishing the need for such upgradation. While the whole raison d’etre of the Games is said to be the setting up of ‘world class’ sports and infrastructural facilities in the national Capital, the CTEO report of the CVC has listed a series of cases in which quality has been deliberately compromised and quality tests fabricated. Already, the effect of such poor quality constructions 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.

The Congress CM of Delhi as well as senior leaders in the Union Government have tried to dismiss the CVC allegations as unsubstantiated, and the CVC too has issued a clarification that the CTEO report is a ‘first step’ in the vigilance process and is not a ‘final CVC report.’ But the fact remains that the denials of the Games organizers and the Governments at Delhi and Centre do not cut any ice.

What are the implications of the CVC allegations?

As it is, the Games extravaganza mocks our country’s poor who are reeling under price rise. On top of it the evidence that government officials are lining their own pockets with crores of taxpayers’ rupees in the name of the Games is nothing short of a crime against the people who are battling for survival in our country. Further, we might recall that independent groups have established that 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. While casual workers and migrant labourers lose their lives and are robbed even of their due minimum wages, the Games are proving to be a bonanza of loot for the politicians and the bureaucrats. In the name of national pride, the poor are being branded as ‘beggars’ and evicted from the Capital city, street vendors robbed of livelihood, and slum-dwellers are being insulted by the creation of bamboo hedges to hide their hutments from the view of ‘foreign visitors.’

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. 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.

Far from the glitter and glamour that the Congress Government seeks to project through the Games, the Commonwealth Games have provided a pretext to the Congress Government to rush through the liberalization agenda of evicting street vendors and the homeless, as well as a golden opportunity for massive loot of public money. Such an exploitative and spectacularly corrupt extravaganza – that is a colonial hangover to boot – should be exposed and resisted by all democratic voices in our country.