South Asia Wired - The good, the bad and the ugly of the Commonwealth games-13/10/10

South Asia Wired - The good, the bad and the ugly of the Commonwealth games

They said it would be like the monsoon wedding – that despite the initial chaos of the preparation for the Commonwealth Games, it would all come out well in the end.


And according to Michel van den Heuvel, the Dutch coach of the Pakistani hockey team, it really has.

“The stadium is very good, the pitch is fine, the lights are working – at the world cup the lights went out ten minutes before the match.”

Van Den Heuvel also mentioned his surprise at the tumultuous reception the Pakistani team got from the Indian audience when they ran onto the pitch last week. For Waseem Ahmed, one of the Pakistani players however, the reception wasn’t surprising at all:

“Whenever we don’t play India, we always get treated well by the Indian public, they love us.”

It’s a good news story from the Commonwealth Games that, until the Games actually commenced, was overloaded with negative ones: tales of massive corruption, the defective infrastructure, the appalling guest quarters, and months of construction work on the jammed roads for Delhi commuters.

But the grand opening ceremony went off without a hitch – despite the boos received by CWG head, Suresh Kalmadi reviled for his “shambolic preparations.” And Mr Kalmadi managed to get into the news yet again, by referring to the wife of Prince Charles as Princess Diana, instead of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Empty Stadiums
But Delhi-ites it seems are forgiving about the inconveniences the Games have caused them over the last few years: Despite the fact that athletes are playing often to near empty stadiums because of the astronomical price of tickets – up to several thousand rupees; despite the fact that the Games cost 6.8 billion dollars and have been called the most expensive in history; despite the fact that locals are reporting that business is down – Indians, by all accounts, are proud of the way the Games are showcasing India.


Construction workers: Have they been forgotten?
There is a growing media focus on the treatment of the thousands of construction workers who were by and large shipped in from the poor hinterland. Reporter Pooja Prakash went looking for them at the construction sites and slums they inhabited till last weekend. But they were nowhere to be found. The authorities had rounded them up and “hidden them.”

The imported labourers were given a rubber stamp on their hands which entitled them to a free train ride back to their villages. Local workers from Delhi were bussed to the outskirts of the city where they’ve been dumped in plastic and cardboard shanties in the post monsoon mud.

It remains to be seen whether the corruption scandals of the Commonwealth Games will hold anyone to account when all the hullabaloo has died down. And whether Delhi-ites will be able to stomach the idea of going through all this again if India decides to bid for the Olympics a few years down the road.