Olympics-The India Story

by Boria Majumdar

  Talking specifically about the Asian Games, the letter painted a dark picture, pointing out how close the Games were to being abandoned altogether:

  …in the organization of these Games, Government was putting up many hurdles. A stage may even arise that all of us may throw up our hands in despair and call quits from the 1982 Asian Games.33

  But the pessimistic Ashwini Kumar had not reckoned with Indira Gandhi’s desire to use the Asian Games as a vehicle for her own politics and diplomacy. Soon after taking power, Mrs Gandhi’s government took over control of the Asiad. In September 1980, her cabinet brought all the implementing agencies under one command—the Asian Games Special Organising Committee (AGSOC). Unlike Nehru’s government in 1951, state funding was generously given without delay and the Asiad was turned into a massive state venture, just the way Sukarno had done with the Jakarta Games in 1962. The Union Cabinet approved the budget for the Games and the AGSOC was mandated to function on its behalf. As Buta Singh noted: ‘The delegation of such powers by the Cabinet was in itself an indication of the tremendous importance attached by the Government of India, to the IX Asian Games… It [would] enable Government to take decisions without time-consuming circulation of proposals to various Ministries/Departments for their considered view and approval.’34 Command of the AGSOC was given to Buta Singh, himself a government minister, and its secretariat was headed by an IAS man, S.S. Gill.35 The full scale of the governmental intervention is evident from the composition of the AGSOC. Apart from sports officials, it consisted of as many as 33 members of Parliament, six Central government ministers and a couple of chief ministers. In addition it boasted as many as 11 secretaries in the government of India, several joint secretaries; representatives from the department of revenue (customs) and the vice-chairman of the Delhi Development Authority. This was complemented by the army chief, the naval chief, the air chief, the vice chief of army staff, the Delhi police commissioner; and the director generals of the National Cadet Corps, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Border Security Force, Doordarshan and All India Radio. Completing the list of heavyweights were the chairmen of various governmental bodies: Air India, Indian Airlines, the Delhi Transport Corporation, ITDC, Hindustan Aeronautical Limited, Steel Authority of India, Trade Fair Authority of India, the Railways Board, Indian Oil Corporation and many such.36 The full might of the government was put behind the event. It was a far cry from Anthony De Mello and his small core team of just two full-time members in 1951.

  The Asiad also became the blooding ground of Rajiv Gandhi in the power structures of Delhi. Content with his airline pilot job, he had never shown an interest in politics until the untimely death of his brother Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash in 1980. A reluctant Rajiv only entered politics because, as he put it, ‘mummy must be helped somehow’ and after winning the Lok Sabha by-election from Amethi in 1981,37 the 1982 Asiad proved to be his first leadership experience in a political context. Rajiv was only one of the 33 members of Parliament who were part of the Special Organising Committee of the Games but as the son of the prime minister he had a moral and unofficial authority that far outstripped the others’. Indeed, the official report of the Asiad makes special mention of Rajiv’s ‘drive, zeal and initiative’ which were mainly responsible for the ‘outstanding success of the IX Asian Games.’ The ever-pliant Buta Singh was as transparent in praising Rajiv’s contributions, as he was when praising Indira:

  In the run-up to the Games, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was at the time a Member of Parliament, inspired the members of the AGSOC-project engineers and workers, to what seemed to be impossible deadlines while completing the stadia, fly-overs and organizational arrangements for the IX Asian Games. It was his thrust, leadership, dynamism and follow-up action that inspired and produced the near miraculous success that the IX Asian Games achieved in staging the biggest Asiad in the limited time frame of 22 months.38

  Undoubtedly, Buta Singh’s own political ambitions and the sycophancy around the Gandhi family partly explained the high praise. But to cynically dismiss Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s role in the 1982 Asiad purely because of the ecstatic accolades by their partisan followers would be to miss the wood for the trees. The 1982 Asiad was as important for Indira Gandhi’s politics as the 1951 event had been for Nehru’s, except that their reasons were not entirely the same.

  The denouement of the 1982 Games came in 1985 when under Rajiv’s government V.C. Shukla, another minister, and by now the president of the IOA, formally bid for the 1992 Olympic Games on behalf of Delhi, committing himself to a guarantee deposit of $100,000.39 It was a bid that stemmed from the success of the 1982 Games but it was never followed up energetically, partly because by 1987, Rajiv was engulfed in crisis after crisis—Punjab, Assam, Sri Lanka, Bofors, Ram-Janmabhoomi, Shah Bano—but also partly because he did not seem to have too much faith in Shukla.40

  ‘STOP THE EXPORT OF BREAD’:

  THE ‘SUPER ASIAD’ AND DELHI’S MAKEOVER

  Like Jakarta in 1962, Delhi’s skyline too changed due to the 1982 Asiad, but on a larger scale. The event that the Games’ organizers called the ‘Super Asiad’41 was to fundamentally change the infrastructure of Delhi. The most obvious manifestation of the changes were the new stadia, referred to by their creators as the ‘temples of Indian sport’.42 They were borrowing their terminology from Nehru’s memorable description of the great new dams of the 1960s—the oft-repeated quote on how these constituted the new ‘temples of modern India’. Certainly the organizers of the Asian Games thought they were doing no less for Indian sport. Five new stadiums were constructed in two years: the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, with a seating capacity of 75,000; the Indraprastha Indoor Stadium with a seating capacity of 25,000, and the third largest dome in the world, the Velodrome; the Talkatora Swimming Stadium; and the Tughlakabad Shooting Range.43

  Delhi also got seven new flyovers, four equipped with high-mast lighting. Most accounts of the period give prominence to the flyovers, particularly since some of them were unnecessary at the time. But this was not all. The organizers also widened 290 km of roads; re-designed 50 intersections; and developed 19 areas within the city. Anticipating tourists and visitors, two new hotels were built—Kanishka and Ashok Yatri Niwas—with 3,500 rooms. The international airport got brand new arrival and departure lounges. At a time when getting a telephone connection was a privilege, the telecom department laid 12,000 new lines, putting 150 km of cables between the stadia and the hotels. No wonder the official Asiad report described the hectic preparations as ‘Asiad Fever’:

  For two years preceding the Games, Delhi throbbed with the cacophony of gyrating cement mixers, that kept rhythm round the clock with giant pile-drivers and massive earth movers, as Project Engineers, workers, planners and architects, went all out to meet the deadline—June 1982! If the pace was frantic—the dedication was total.44

  Some of the changes were subliminal. For instance, all the five units of the Indraprastha power station, for the first time, were provided air pollution control equipment. More than four lakh trees were planted and all archaeological monuments spruced up. 45 Special attention was paid to the monuments near the stadia and those near the other venues and the athletes village. In the athlete’s village itself, the wall of Siri Fort—Allaudin Khilji’s 13th century capital—was restored, and monuments like the Tofewala Gombad were renovated and flood-lit. Shahjahan’s Red Fort too got a ‘lusty scrub’.46 Unauthorized hoardings across the city were removed and new fogging equipment was introduced as an anti-malaria measure.47

  The organizers were certainly not implementing these measures for altruistic reasons. Their main purpose was to put Delhi’s best foot forward for international visitors and at times the lengths they went to were ridiculous. For instance, they wanted to portray a city blooming with flowers. And since November, the month of the Games, is generally a poor month for flowers in Delhi, they flew in the requisite flowers from Bangalore. After detailed discussions with horticulturists, Delhi�
�s municipal gardeners were ordered not to water the city’s bougainvilleas to ensure their flowering in November.48

  Delhi’s power distribution also got a shot in the arm. An additional 60 megawatts of power were made available for the Games—about one-tenth of the city’s total requirement at that time of the year. This was ensured by augmenting Delhi’s own power stations at Indraprastha and Badarpur with supplies from outside. To ensure better distribution, more transformers and 15 sub-stations were installed. Unforeseen hitches came in the way. The organizers discovered that the phone system was so poor that communication between the power substations and their control rooms often went awry. So they invested in a special wireless VHF system that was imported from abroad. To ensure that the events were not disrupted due to voltage fluctuations that were common in the city, special giant transformers were brought in from Kerala and Bombay, on specially built railway wagons. All this infrastructure remained after the Games.49 Additionally, Delhites began getting an extra 15 million gallons of water a day after the completion of the Ganga-Yamuna link.50 All of this was done in less than two years. When it was over and the organizers sat down to take stock, Buta Singh was to marvel at the perpetual question that came up: ‘Was it or was it not madness, to have tried to build A, train up B, etc. within the constricted time-frame’.51

  The organization was not without its glitches. For instance, the taraflex, the synthetic surface to be installed at the volleyball court in the Indraprastha indoor stadium, got delayed. The ship only arrived from France in the Bombay docks by mid-September 1982, by which time the trials of the new stadia had already begun in Delhi. The volleyball nationals were due at the stadium on 19 September as a way of trying out the new surface. Except that the surface was lying rolled up in a ship called the Amethyst outside the Bombay harbour. ‘In the congested Bombay port, there was not a chance of the ship getting a berth.’52

  Just a few years earlier, V.S. Naipaul had dedicated an entire essay to the horrors of babudom at the Bombay port, painting in stark detail the madness of bureaucracy that faced the new traveller with baggage. But this was not some foreign tourist coming home to see the land of his forefathers. Nothing less than the honour of the country was at stake here and the power of government can never be underestimated. After frantic phone calls to the chairman of the Bombay Port Trust, the Amethyst was taken off the waiting list and the taraflex bundles unloaded by the midnight of 17 September. That same morning they were flown into Delhi by a special Indian Airlines airbus and the material was laid in the stadium for the matches, due to begin in a few hours. Officials worked through the night to position the rolls so that the public could watch the volleyball nationals. In a government notorious for poor delivery systems, this was proof that if those at the highest level wanted to get something done, it would be done.

  Another such example is the hilarious story of how far-off Madhya Pradesh was spared some power-cuts due to the Asiad. It seems that the organizers wanted a particular type of teak-wood for the volleyball and badminton courts at the Indraprastha stadium. This was located in Madhya Pradesh. But then they realized that continuous power cuts in the state would delay the sawing of the teak logs and thus delay their being sent to Delhi. So, in time-honoured fashion, a phone call was made from Delhi to the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh electricity board. The compilers of the official report chose not to see any humour in the situation, dryly pointing out:

  … the power cut was lifted in respect of this particular lot of teak logs, and it was only as a result of this, that the supplies were received in time.53

  It is not clear which part of Madhya Pradesh the teak logs were sourced from, or if the residents knew that they were beneficiaries of the Asian Games but it is certain they suffered no power cuts during the time it took to cut the logs. Surely this was a first in the history of international sport: residents of a far-off town getting uninterrupted power supply so that the host city could receive its building materials in time.

  There were other serious problems such as the faulty design of the Talkatora swimming stadium. Originally conceived as an arena with a roof and air-conditioning, it was realized too late that it would no longer be possible to construct the roof. So it was left roofless, the organizers having to construct ‘additional works to give the top portion of the structure a look of completion…Similarly, at the last minute, the heating system of the Swimming Pool and the Diving Pool, because it was open, had to be enlarged considerably, to maintain the temperature of the pool’.54

  The 1951 Asiad had played host to just 489 athletes from 11 countries. The 1982 Asiad played host to as many as 5,000 athletes, 3,000 technical officials and another 2,000 overseas guests.55 For these guests, a special Asiad Village was built in the vicinity of the Siri Fort. With 850 dwelling units spread over 135 acres, its centrepiece was a dining hall with a capacity of 1,800. In the manner of Indian bureaucrats, the compilers of the official report of the Games have left behind delicious statistics of what it took to feed the denizens of the village. On a daily basis, it meant 20,000 eggs, 10,000 litres of milk and 10,000 slices of bread for breakfast. Each meal needed 1,250 chickens, 2,500 kg meat and fish, 500 cauliflowers, 400 kg cabbage and 500 kg carrots. The residents also consumed 10,000 apples, 10,000 bananas, 10,000 oranges and 10,000 cups of ice-cream daily.56 The cuisines were Indian, Continental and Chinese. How much of this material actually went to the athletes is not known. But the meticulous accounting was another triumph of the record-keeping abilities of the ubiquitous Indian clerk.

  Table 8.1

  Menu for Asiad Village

  Lunches Dinner

  1. Fruit Juices 1. Fruit Juices

  Assorted Salads Asparagus Soup

  Fried Fish Tartare Sauce Assorted Salads

  Fried Potatoes Fish Belle Meuniere

  Carrots Vichy

  Mutton Roganjosh Fish Belle Meuniere

  Plain Pulao Pommes Hongroise

  Dal Makkhani

  Paneer Kofta Curry

  Bhindi Masala

  Chilly Fried Chicken Cauliflower A L’ANGLAISE

  Vegetable Fried Noodles

  Chapati—Nan Murgh Palak

  Yoghurt Yellow Rice

  Paneer Kofta

  Yoghurt

  Nan

  Papad Achar Chutney

  Cheese Platter Chilly Fried Pork

  Vegetable Fried Rice

  Fried Mushrooms

  Bamboo Shoots

  Fresh Fruits Cheese Platter

  Assorted Ice Creams Trifle Pudding

  Coconut Barfi

  Tea—Coffee Tea—Coffee

  2. Fruit Juices 2. Fruit Juices

  Assorted Salads Mulligatawny Soup

  Chicken Chasseur Assorted Salads

  Potatoes Maitre D’hotel

  French Beans in Butter

  Masala Fried Fish Fish D’Antin

  Vegetable Pulao PommesDauphinoise

  Matar Paneer Vegetables in Cream

  Yellow Dal

  Nan/Paratha

  Yoghurt

  Prawns with Garlic Sauce Bhuna Beef

  Vegetable fried rice Vegetables Pulao

  Bamboo Shoot and Beans Dal Lobia

  Sprouts Fried Bhindi

  Yoghurt

  Papad-Achar-Chutney

  Cheese Platter Fried Chicken with Pineapple

  Fried Rice with Ham and Beans Sprout

  Fresh Fruits Cheese Platter

  Assorted Ice Creams Eclairs

  Rasmalai

  Tea—Coffee Tea—Coffee

  In an illustration of how serious the government was about feeding its guests in the Indian spirit of hospitality, it took steps to increase the capacity of bread-making and to remove glitches in the movement of milk and milk products, not only in Delhi, but also outside the city. Milk cooperatives in Gujarat were alerted far in advance of the Games for the supply of milk. Our favourite story is about the decision to impose ‘controls’ on the export of bread from Delhi to other areas, whi
ch could result in shortages during the Games.57 The rest of India could eat roti, the foreign athletes had to get their bread.

  The stamp of Indira Gandhi was unmistakable. In the run-up to the Games, she personally visited every single stadium, dined at the Games Village and personally monitored virtually every aspect.58 The army and the NCC were specially tasked with the ceremonial functions of the opening and closing ceremonies. This included a nationwide effort to showcase the diverse cultures of India in the form of dance and song performances and the director general of the NCC, Narendra Singh, recalls that Indira Gandhi personally summoned him and asked him to take charge.59 All state chief ministers were ordered to support the cultural programmes in conjunction with the NCC and the army’s formation commanders received special orders to coordinate the event. Rajiv Gandhi brought in sitar maestro Ravi Shankar to compose the music for the Asian Games hymn at the opening ceremony and its English translation was recited by the other great icon of modern India, Amitabh Bachchan.60

  What is an event in India without elephants? For the Asiad, whose mascot itself was the tubby baby elephant, Appu, the government specially brought in elephants from Kerala for the opening ceremony. Transported by train, the heaviest of them weighed 5,000 kg. The youngest, three-year-old Pushpa, weighed in at 750 kg.61 The last word perhaps belonged to Sepp Blatter, then the Secretary General of the International Football Federation, FIFA. While congratulating the organizing committee, he noted: ‘There is very little I could say towards their improvement’.62

  APPU ON INSAT:

  THE TRANSFORMATION OF INDIAN TELEVISION

  Six months before the Asiad, in May 1982, India Today carried as its cover story a review of Indian television. The headline—‘The Tedium is the Message’—left the magazine’s readers in no doubt about its views on the industry. It began with its authors imagining the state of television two years into the future. In light of what was to happen after the Asiad, it deserves to be quoted in full: