Despite being proven beyond all reasonable doubt that India’s 18-million strong neta-babu (politician-bureaucrat) kleptocracy is engaged in open, continuous and uninterrupted loot of the public exchequer and actual and potential revenue of governments at the Centre and in the states, there’s a curious reluctance among media pundits and the nation’s intelligentsia to encourage the entry of anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare and Team Anna into the political arena. The most common refrain is that Team Anna is a single issue movement which lacks the capability to manage the complexities of Indian politics.

Such advice is indicative of the extent to which the intelligentsia is cut off from the public, groaning under the heavy burden of institutionalised corruption. Since unchecked graft in government cuts across every sector and segment of Indian society, by definition it is a multi-sector issue. The rotting grain mountains of the Food Corporation of India are the fallout of widespread theft and defalcations within the organisation, which has prevented construction of adequate storage facilities; the country’s ubiquitous urban and rural slums are the outcome of  pernicious corruption in the real estate sector; mass illiteracy and unemployability of millions of youth is the result of chronic corruption in education, and poor health and nutrition of the general populace is also the natural consequence of rampant corruption in the public healthcare system.

Thus far from being a single issue, corruption is an all encompassing phenomenon which has created roadblocks in every sector of the Indian economy. Therefore if the powerful Lok Ayukta with its own police and investigation machinery and control over the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) — proposed by Team Anna — succeeds in putting the fear of God into every politician and bureaucrat, the nation’s GDP will automatically hit 9 percent plus per year.

There is undoubtedly an element of the Stockholm syndrome in the negativism with which the intelligentsia and establishment greet any new initiative to break the stranglehold of established political parties over the polity and political process. This is because despite the political and administrative systems having been thoroughly compromised to the point of degeneration into open banditry, leading lights of the establishment have carved out comfortable niches and perches for themselves. Indeed, there is ample evidence to support the proposition that post-independence India’s national development effort has been restricted to advancement of the establishment and middle class, to the utter neglect and exclusion of the subaltern population in the lower reaches of the country’s socio-economic pyramid.

The prospect of a politicised Team Anna’s single issue anti-corruption drive whose natural outcome will be root and branch reform of politics and administration to the benefit of the subaltern classes, upon whom the weight of institutionalised corruption bears most heavily, is subliminally unwelcome within the intelligentsia which prefers to bear the ills we have than fly to others they know not.

Lessons from the London Olympics disaster

Just one sportsperson, US swimmer Michael Phelps, has won almost as many Olympic medals — 22, including 18 gold — as the total medals tally of India (24), in all the Olympic Games it has participated in since 1900. This embarrassing statistic highlights our pathetic record in global sporting events (apart from cricket which is seriously played by just nine nations). India’s largest ever contingent of sportspersons, 81 in all, which participated in the recently concluded XXX 2012 Olympics staged in London returned with just six medals, not one of them gold. Yet, this was touted as India’s best Olympic performance — even bronze medals were given front page headlines in the print media back home.

The blunt, unpalatable truth is that the Indian contingent at the London Olympics had very limited success, confined to shooting, boxing, wrestling and badminton. In the glamorous track and field events, Indian athletes drew a blank. Perhaps the most unkindest cut of all, was inflicted in field hockey in which India had routinely won the Olympic gold until 1960. In the London Olympics, the Indian team lost all the six matches it played, ending up at the bottom.

In sharp contrast, our neighbour nation China (which won its first ever Olympic gold in 1984) won 88 medals including 38 gold, and was ranked second on the medals league table behind the USA. Even South Korea (pop. 50 million) bagged 28 medals including 13 gold.

This miserable display by India’s best sportspersons is a sharp reminder of the abysmal condition of this country’s sports development and administrative organisations. It’s also a discomfiting indicator of the backwardness of India’s education system, because sports champions are nurtured and shaped by schools, colleges and universities.

How can India improve its disgraceful sports standards? Firstly, by overhauling the country’s numerous sports and games organisations dominated by politicians and bureaucrats, who know precious little about sport. If they are to exist at all, these organisations need to be administered by proven sportspersons. The country’s badminton academies run by two former All England badminton champions, Pullela Gopichand and Prakash Padukone, are good examples to emulate. Olympic Gold Quest (OGC), a non-profit started by Padukone and former billiards world champion Geet Sethi to promote sports, also needs government and public support. Moreover miserly corporate India needs to combine brand promotions with sports events as is normative in the US.

Finally, a far better public sports infrastructure has to be built countrywide offering children and youth easy access to stadiums, gymnasia and public playgrounds. Perhaps most importantly, school and college managements as well as the parents’ community need to shed their obsession with academics and learn to appreciate that participation in sports and games — which develop the life skills of focus, discipline, ambition and teamwork — is intrinsic to education. It’s not at all a coincidence that communist China has simultaneously emerged as the world’s premier manufacturing and sports champion nation during the past decade.