Friday, April 11, 2008

The light that never goes out...


The Olympic fire is spreading around the world, in the form of the torch making its stuttering and eventful journey across the globe. China will be hoping that the 'fire' stays within the torch itself, whether lighted or extinguished, but it is proving to be a difficult genie to keep bottled up!

Having its origins in ancient Greece and commemorating the theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus by Prometheus, the Olympic torch has always been couched with a certain symbolism and has been a tool to extending and projecting ideology. The Berlin Olympics in 1936 was perhaps the first attempt at such projection and Hitlers' always efficient propaganda machine used it effectively to try and add myth and mystique to the Nazi regime. So therefore, the current heart burn over the torch relay of the Beijing games was perhaps more expected than China winning a clutch of gold medals at those games!

The Free Tibet Movement did not need genius strategists or a second invitation to see the potential of the torch. They have used it well as a beacon to guide and focus the worlds' attention on the plight of their country. The burning torch has achieved more in a few weeks than what others have achieved in the last forty years. And I conciously include His Holiness in this list, who I think could have achieved more if he finally decided not to persue a policy of redundant appeasement.

Some contrived excitement has been recently generated in our country too, on account of the relay when the torch reaches here in a few days time. The focus has been on shameless headline grabbing, with the president of the Indian Olympic Committee, the Right Hon'ble Mr. Suresh Kalmadi (who I personally think should have resigned on moral grounds a very, very long time ago) grandly announcing that he has personally invited several young politicians, including Mr. Rahul Gandhi to run in the relay. Good for Mr. Kalmadi and my heart bleeds for Mr. Gandhi, because the bad little SPG will not let him run in the relay! And of course good for the TV channels, all of which analyzed this stunning development, with live inputs from Mr. Right Hon'ble himself, for a full half day!!

What lay buried in all this noise was the news of a quite man who had decided to take a stand. Baichung Bhutia, captain of the Indian football team, deciding not to run in the relay, was I think one of the biggest acts of personal courage in Indian sports. By saying that he has a lot of Buddhist friends in Gangtok and that this was his small way of showing solidarity with them, he has possibly blurred the line that is necessary between politics and sports. But, and this is a very big 'but' in the context of the feudal structure that is Indian sports, it has shown the strength of heart inside that man. To go against the diktat and expected role laid down by Mr. Right Hon'ble and his self serving cronies is possibly not the wisest course of action in Indian sports. He may be victimized by the administration for this or he may be considered too insignificant to bother about. Either way, he has shown something that is sorely lacking in a lot of the more established superstars of Indian sports...he has shown a heart and, more importantly, the courage to follow it.

The Tibetan issue suffers from the huge drawbacks that, firstly, there is no oil under its otherwise beautiful lands and, secondly, China is too damn big and too damn mulish to bother about small things like self- determination, sovereignty, world opinion or human rights. The result is that the world has chosen to forget the problem. If you cannot see it on CNN and if Mr. Bush does not lose sleep over it, then it does not exist. It is left to the little voices to do what they can. Baichung may not be the most articulate of men you will meet, but what is important is that he spoke when it was most required!