During the last decade, urban development in India has been geared towards the preparation of investor-friendly rather than citizen-friendly cities. Urban restructuring has increasingly come to be based on corporate need rather than genuine public interest. Our recent Governments have been steadfast in their support for increased urbanisation via expansion of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sectors of the economy. They view Indian cities as formidable economic engines replete with the potential to sustain industry-driven projects of “national development”.
India’s winning the bid to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) at Delhi in 2003, and the consequent organisational activities that have, and that are being executed in the city, are among the most recent manifestations of this trend.
Coupling the ability of global sporting events to generate powerfully emotional, shared experiences, with the pervasiveness of global television, we perceive why corporations and governments passionately argue that numerous and significant developmental, political and socio-cultural benefits will flow from their sponsorship of major sporting events - justifying the costs and the risks involved.
While from an internationalist perspective, Delhi’s winning the bid to host the Games over Hamilton, Canada (the only other principal bidder for the Games) may signify a praiseworthy and successful attempt at overcoming global inequalities that limit the capacity of developing nations to host global sporting events, the internal inequalities within Indian society that have been accentuated by the CWG’s organisational activities validates the evolution of an analysis which is critical of the 2010 Games.
In a bid to “Showcase the Culture and Heritage of India”, “Project Delhi as a Global Destination” and to “Project India as an Economic Power”, lakhs of workers have been uprooted from slum colonies along the Yamuna to make way for the Commonwealth Games Village. The Delhi Government has promised to rid the city of 60,000 beggars who “harass” tourists and give the city a “bad name”. Despite having a number of areas in sore need of refurbishment and regeneration, the CWG has been used as a sorry excuse to develop new infrastructure and facilities for the Games right in the centre of the city where no room is available. Collusion between the OC of the CWG and the authorities of Delhi University has ensured a high likelihood of the eviction of nearly 2,000 students from a number of hostels in the University, as these hostels are being renovated and beautified, and are to be used as residences for officials and visitors during the Games.
Probing further into the marginalisation of the working poor of Delhi’s urban informal sector, we begin to perceive a bleak picture of deprivation and exploitation. The total budget of the Games has been estimated at US$ 1.6 billion - excluding non-sports-related infrastructure development in the Delhi - making it the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever. None of this money has been set aside to ensure the welfare of the construction workers, upon whose labour the success of the Games depends the most. Provisions of markedly progressive legislations like the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; and The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970; and The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 (and the accompanying Cess Act); have been unscrupulously neglected and bypassed. Attempts to unionise the workers have been rendered futile, as workers are not allowed to work for more than two to three months at a single worksite.
Viewing these gross violations of workers’ rights in collusion with reports of misuse of the funds intended for the CWG, most notably the diversion of nearly Rs. 700 crore from the Special Component Plan for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) - funds earmarked for their welfare - to infrastructure development for the CWG, the overtly Neoliberal and inherently divisive agendas and policies of the Organising Committee, the Delhi Government and the Government of India become apparent. In the name of reinstating a sense of national identity, they have exaggerated the benefits and downplayed the risks of hosting the Games.
In the context of today’s India, a polity marked by a fractured sense of national identity, both the state and the politico-social elites seek to effectively utilise the potential of Economic Power to undermine the formation of class solidarity amongst the working poor, the unemployed poor, traditionally oppressed and marginalised sections of Indian society (SCs, STs, OBCs, Women), students, political and social activists, and others. The organisation of the 2010 Delhi CWG is just one amongst countless examples of such divisive power-play.
How events over the next month unfold remain to be seen; yet, it is extremely important for us to understand and acknowledge that even though the 2010 Commonwealth Games will end within a fortnight, the legacy of dispossession, injustice and widespread anger that it promises to leave behind will not be as short-lived.
shashank kumar
GL-II
(comments and opinions are welcome. please restrict them to 300 words)
India’s winning the bid to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) at Delhi in 2003, and the consequent organisational activities that have, and that are being executed in the city, are among the most recent manifestations of this trend.
Coupling the ability of global sporting events to generate powerfully emotional, shared experiences, with the pervasiveness of global television, we perceive why corporations and governments passionately argue that numerous and significant developmental, political and socio-cultural benefits will flow from their sponsorship of major sporting events - justifying the costs and the risks involved.
While from an internationalist perspective, Delhi’s winning the bid to host the Games over Hamilton, Canada (the only other principal bidder for the Games) may signify a praiseworthy and successful attempt at overcoming global inequalities that limit the capacity of developing nations to host global sporting events, the internal inequalities within Indian society that have been accentuated by the CWG’s organisational activities validates the evolution of an analysis which is critical of the 2010 Games.
In a bid to “Showcase the Culture and Heritage of India”, “Project Delhi as a Global Destination” and to “Project India as an Economic Power”, lakhs of workers have been uprooted from slum colonies along the Yamuna to make way for the Commonwealth Games Village. The Delhi Government has promised to rid the city of 60,000 beggars who “harass” tourists and give the city a “bad name”. Despite having a number of areas in sore need of refurbishment and regeneration, the CWG has been used as a sorry excuse to develop new infrastructure and facilities for the Games right in the centre of the city where no room is available. Collusion between the OC of the CWG and the authorities of Delhi University has ensured a high likelihood of the eviction of nearly 2,000 students from a number of hostels in the University, as these hostels are being renovated and beautified, and are to be used as residences for officials and visitors during the Games.
Probing further into the marginalisation of the working poor of Delhi’s urban informal sector, we begin to perceive a bleak picture of deprivation and exploitation. The total budget of the Games has been estimated at US$ 1.6 billion - excluding non-sports-related infrastructure development in the Delhi - making it the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever. None of this money has been set aside to ensure the welfare of the construction workers, upon whose labour the success of the Games depends the most. Provisions of markedly progressive legislations like the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; and The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970; and The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 (and the accompanying Cess Act); have been unscrupulously neglected and bypassed. Attempts to unionise the workers have been rendered futile, as workers are not allowed to work for more than two to three months at a single worksite.
Viewing these gross violations of workers’ rights in collusion with reports of misuse of the funds intended for the CWG, most notably the diversion of nearly Rs. 700 crore from the Special Component Plan for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) - funds earmarked for their welfare - to infrastructure development for the CWG, the overtly Neoliberal and inherently divisive agendas and policies of the Organising Committee, the Delhi Government and the Government of India become apparent. In the name of reinstating a sense of national identity, they have exaggerated the benefits and downplayed the risks of hosting the Games.
In the context of today’s India, a polity marked by a fractured sense of national identity, both the state and the politico-social elites seek to effectively utilise the potential of Economic Power to undermine the formation of class solidarity amongst the working poor, the unemployed poor, traditionally oppressed and marginalised sections of Indian society (SCs, STs, OBCs, Women), students, political and social activists, and others. The organisation of the 2010 Delhi CWG is just one amongst countless examples of such divisive power-play.
How events over the next month unfold remain to be seen; yet, it is extremely important for us to understand and acknowledge that even though the 2010 Commonwealth Games will end within a fortnight, the legacy of dispossession, injustice and widespread anger that it promises to leave behind will not be as short-lived.
shashank kumar
GL-II
(comments and opinions are welcome. please restrict them to 300 words)
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