Lalit Modi and the Indian Premier League
Lalit Modi and the IPL
There can be no doubt that Lalit Modi (born November 29, 1963), Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL), created the IPL in 2008.
There can be no doubt that Lalit Modi took IPL to its dazzling, dizzy heights.
There can be no doubt that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and many, many people minted money, directly or indirectly, through the IPL.
Lalit Modi has been unceremoniously ousted from the IPL.
In the legalistic jargon, he has been suspended from the post of Chairman and Commissioner of the IPL and from all committees and sub committees of the BCCI.
A show cause notice has been issued to him.
He will have to submit his explanation.
And the BCCI will take a decision in due course.
Is Lalit Modi alone to blame ?
Let us presume for a moment that Lalit Modi is guilty of all the charges,
of numerous irregularities, and a host of deed or misdeeds.
He was heading the IPL as a functionary under the broader control of BCCI.
What were the members of the Governing body of BCCI doing all these
years?
Why did not even one of them enquire about the financial transactions, about the various agreements and payments.
Why did the auditors of BCCI not verify the huge transactions with reference to the different agreements.
Did the auditors ever point out a single irregularity in their audit reports?
Probably every one was content with the free tickets and other freebies.
Lalit Modi, IPL and the future
What is the future of Lalit Modi and IPL?
Personally, I feel Lalit Modi is in a mess.
He has bitten more than he can chew.
He will find it difficult to wriggle out of the strangle hold.
Even he is lucky, he would have to remain out of cricket for several years.
In my view, Lalit Modi had grown larger than the institution he had build.
He equated himself with the IPL.
He thought he was the IPL.
Or he thought he owned the IPL.
IPL is an institution.
All institutions survive their founders.
IPL will survive after Lalit Modi.
Dr. Verghese Kurien
I am reminded of Dr. Verghese Kurien who literally built Amul.
He ushered the milk revolution into India.
He made India from a milk deficient country to one of the largest milk producing countries in the world.
He received due recognition and several honours in India and all over the world including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963), Padma Shri (1965), Padma Bhushan (1966), Krishi Ratna Award (1986), Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie Foundation (1986), World Food Prize Laureate (1989), International Person of the Year(1993) by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and Padma Vibhushan (1999).
Dr. Verghese Kurien resigned from Chairmanship of the Gujarat Milk Marketing federation (GCMMF) on March 20, 2006.
The real reason is that eleven out of the 12 chairmen of district dairies (who constitute the GCMMF board) had moved a no-confidence motion (slated to come up in a March 24 meeting) against him.
Rather than face the humiliation, Kurien resigned.
Kurien has left Amul.
But Amul survives because it a strong institution.
Lalit Modi and the future
There is no doubt that Lalit Modi has proved himself a marketing wizard.
He will go back and head the Rs 3,500-crore Godfrey Phillips India (GPI), the makers of Marlboro, Four Square and Red & White cigarettes.
And may be he will prove even more successful in his business endeavours.
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Let me first welcome back and thank you for returning after such a long wait.
And, congratulations and kudos for the timely, brilliant and revealing piece “Lalit Modi and the Indian Premier League”.
The points raised by you are u\indeed very poignant and characteristic of the Indian mindset. As long as the milch cow produces milk, it has value-after she ceases to do so, she is sent to the butcher-and literally so.
This is precisely what has happened to this young wizard Lalit Modi, the scion of yet another big business house of the country. He can fume and name names-but he can never produce the documentary evidence of the payments required of the India’s built-in system to be paid to the politicians, the top bureaucrats and the lowest menials of the State to be able to survive in any enterprise. For everyone abandons a sinking ship-none will come forward to accept and show the unaccounted receipts for years from Lalit. This is the rule of nature. No one really brings back a use-and-thrown-piece of once-useful article! And let Lalit not be nourish any false pretension or hope that the law courts, the Settlement Commission, the concerned departments -or even the mandarins of the BCCI- would come to help out the boy who stood on the burning deck!
And look at those who have suddenly become strange bed partners now in the game of ouster/dropping of the hot potato/bad boy of the Indian Cricket! The BJP-Congress alliance in the cricketing high-stake arena shuld be teplicated in the political field tuly to the benefit of the public who have to sacrifice a lot of their rightful share in the elections from time to time. If these two parties, essentially the two sides of the same coin, join hands politically, however bad it is for the moral fibre of the nation, it would be better for us-the hapless citizens.
But pardon me for deviating from the main issue. What is the moral of the razzle-dazzle of the IPL story, almost a 4-year pld garbaze in our backyard?
The moral is that, India’s national religion is corruption in every seen and unseen field. Moral corruption, pecuniary corruption, political-diplomatic-security-related corruption… and et al. The all pervading and overlowing filth and sewerage are now well inside our homes through the media-TV, and we have an over-production of the corrupt IRS-couple, corrupt IAS-corrupt IFS-B….corrupt MCI chairman..and more than corrupt film-cricket-politics-underworld-criminal-politician-civil service-media-NEXUS.
Lalit modi is now the cast away, the dropped catch, the accursed Abhimanyu of Indian cricket surrounded by half-clad glamour girls and tainted money without any protection of any sort. No, not even legal protection.
So, the ordinary cricket lovers, if you have tears, shed it now for the bad boy of IPL, Lalit, who made money for thousands of others!
Have you noticed that the boisterous Lalit Modi has suddenly become silent.
Binoy Gupta