The news of Suresh Kalmadi's arrest, however expected it might have been, should be received with a degree of optimism all around. One doesn't know whether to thank Anna Hazare for this one, but the Indian government's efforts at some quick confidence-building exercises in recent weeks against corruption in public life seems to be a welcome one.
The Commonwealth Games (CWG) scandal had, for close to an year, consumed the public lives back in India till the enormity of the 2G Spectrum scam hit home. The kind of negative publicity it attracted for the country was incalculable — and if one man was the face of all that was supposedly wrong in the Indian sports administration — it was that of this now deposed supremo of the Games organising committee as well as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).
It's impossible not to see the paradox of it all. For a country which has just masterminded the hosting of one of the most successful cricket World Cups in the sub-continent, it's the Kalmadis and Lalit Bhanots who provide you with the bumbling stereotypes of the Indian sports officialdom. As the CWG was heading to be an organisational disaster, Kalmadi continued to be in state of denial but the miraculously hitch-free staging of the Games must have lulled him into some kind of complacency.
The Indian contingent did exceptionally well at both the CWG and the Guangzhou Asian Games due to the determination of the athletes rather than these officials.
A group of former sportspersons in the country, who have come together for a forum called Clean Sports India have welcomed the action on Kalmadi. Pargat Singh, the outspoken former Indian hockey captain, labelled him as the symbol of corruption in Indian sport and felt that Kalmadi's exit could be the opportune moment to start the reforms of Indian sports federations — which requires immediate legislation to regulate the term and age-barriers for sports officials. Kalmadi was one of the staunch opponents of the former sports minister M.S. Gill's plans of such restrictive legislations. The problem, however, is that of choice. V.K. Malhotra — the man who has taken over as acting president of IOA after Kalmadi — is also known to be around for the past quarter of a century. Malhotra is also a senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, political rivals of Kalmadi's Congress, which heads the ruling coalition government. Is it, then, ever possible to rid the Indian sport of politics?
