Barca vs Man U from India

It is close to midnight of the 27th. Champions League final (football is the game under consideration) is about to begin in an hour: Barcelona vs Manchester United. Both recently champions and probably the best two club sides in the world. They said Messi vs Ronaldo, lets see what goes down. Probably the biggest match before the world cup kicks off next year. The news is full of it, sports fans everywhere must be holding their breath.

But isn't this the case every year? Now I am in India. 146 is a mere number to others, but to India its a proud ranking among footballing nations. It could be worse. Well actually it was worse back in April and May of '07 (Ranked 165) but that's beside the point. None the less, there is a renewed interest in football and most strangely among the elite and they bypass all the great games on i-league (Domestic competition) and go right ahead to Europe. I hear of all those deranged fans in West Bengal and the folks of sunny Goa who have always held pride in their football, played in their neighborhood. But for all of their professed love for the game, lets face the facts, football is tough. I know, I tried out at all my schools and colleges with limited success.

Football in India I would imagine is in fact the single largest sport played in schools as opposed to cricket. A little wiki-ing will tell you that India qualified for the '50 world cup on the back of a lot of withdrawals and again came in 4th at the '56 Olympics, 4th! Also won '51 and '61 Asian Games. I even remember reading in the papers that once footballers from Hyderabad weren't half bad. My guess is that in this period the game wasn't an elitist game. Even today football is the most accessible game in India.

European Football has been aggressively promoted to India and indeed all of Asia. It is promoted to such an extent that when I switch from an EPL match to an i-league match on TV, I find it hard to find a metaphor to describe the contrast in class. In fact last May we had Bayern Munich come down to Salt Lake Stadium to play an exhibition match against Mohan Bagan. 130,000 spectators were there and Bagan lost convincingly. The marketers know that football is such a beautiful game that people will watch it no matter who plays. But the point is to be able to create real loyalty among the fan base based on a shared identity. This is only possible when we talk of local clubs not ones that play half way arond the world.

There is hope though, cricket went from an elite colonial sport to what it is today in India regardless of all its shortcomings. With football there is less to overcome and more to gain in India if only kids are allowed to take up the sport with the knowledge that there is a livelihood there.

Meanwhile Eto'o scores for Barca 10 minutes into the game.


Interesting Reading:

1. http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=ind/ranking/gender=m/index.html
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_football/3937015.stm
3. http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/136/india/2008/05/28/713897/post-match-analysis-mohun-bagan-bayern-munich
4. http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/index.html
   

Market for Mandate

Honesty is such an important virtue, but in places where trust can be misplaced, credibility needs an audit. In every deal struck, the parties involved look at their own benefits before the illusive benefits of synergy arrive in the elaborate non zero-sum games. Although trust is claimed as the bedrock of any business, this trust is easier arrived at by keeping the other party honest.

And one of the most crucial deal made is the five year periodic bargain for an endorsement at the seat of power. The vote is akin to awarding of a contract, the stipulations of this contract are present in the constitution and the contract is awarded by the voters. Much like the tenders that are floated in the newspapers, the bidders have to come up with a winning offer for the contract. Ideally the winning offer should be of just & fair representation, development and what have you, but in India the offer can be converted into plain old money.

At the recent elections and in the elections of the past a curious resource is created, one that is perishable and whose rate is not fixed: The Commodified Vote. The selling price of a vote is subject to so many political conditions that the parallel to the market seems almost flawless. If it wasn't illegal, there might have been an exchange for votes with options and derivatives. It might seem naive of the candidates to trust people who sell their votes with keeping their word when the ballot is "secret" yet that is what most candidates have to settle for their money. Hardly a safeguard on their investment. But with the limits imposed by the law and public outrage, the mechanism behind the highest-bidder votes have to necessarily not get too complex or formal yet arrive at a model that delivers.

Enter Mr. Campaign Manager, the instrument for winning elections. It is only fair to have expertise on your side when faced with a seller's market. Make no mistake, if you have voted either because of a convincing campaign or by ending up with a heavier pocket, the Campaign Manager has done his job. The average going rate for a vote in 2009 was Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 depending on who you ask. Anything less and the voter is swindled and anything more and the candidate is desperate. Even at those rates, loyalty is tough to ascertain. There is always a threat that the voter collects from multiple sources and does as he wishes. That is exactly the reason why poll management is such a demanding job.


Therefore I'd like to illustrate an example (Courtesy: Dad) of a successful mechanism of election fraud mastered in India. This is a method to ensure that a vote that is bought does not end up with another candidate on counting day. (Spoiler warning: This method is no longer possible with the advent of Electronic Voting Machines used in India now)

Modus Operandi:

• Assumption: The money exchange has already taken place prior to the election date
• On the election day, each candidate is allowed to have his representatives outside the election centers seated at a designated locations.
  
• At the start of polling, one of the candidate's representative goes into the center to cast his vote but inadvertently puts the the ballot paper with the candidate's symbol marked in his pocket and walks out without voting.
• Later when the voter (who sold his vote) turns up at the representative's desk outside the center, he is given the previous ballot paper with the party's symbol marked on it. This is carried with him into the booth and he brings out his new ballot paper, which he hands over to the representative. Thus the operation is repeated all day.
  

This method obviously is not fool proof i.e. when the voter simply fails to drop the paper in the ballot. But it does ensure that the voter does not vote against the candidate after taking his money, which has to be worth something.


Interesting Reading:

1. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-selling-votes.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud
   

A Wasted Vote

It is the 14th of May and the pundits are out! The Election Commission only allows the media to come out with their exit polls after the elections are over (and by that, they mean all the phases). So now its over to the experts, the verdict is for them to call until the truth (a.k.a mess) is for all to see on the 16th.

Babies might have started talking in the month since I voted. My estimate (no opinion polls or surveys here) is that atleast half a million people who voted this time wouldn't make it to the date of the final result (people can wither and die in a month, especially in this Indian summer). For a whole month all were equal in this country. At the table was the control over our lives for half a decade.

As I said, I voted. I voted for a party which made the right noises, refusing to believe that the point of voting is predicting the winner. My expert friends on the TV now tell me that my vote will be a "Wasted Vote", that my candidate will go home. Moreover they say mine was a "Spoiler Vote", meaning all I did was make it difficult for my second choice candidate to win: I spoiled his chances and wasted my vote.

Clear conscience is difficult to find in election season. Back until November I followed the US elections, all the websites and blogs, TV too. I had an opinion, but that wasn't my place. Now this summer I finally had a chance to excercise my opinion and choose. So I prepared well, watched all the 13 telugu news channels, a few of the national networks and the papers too. The political satires were out, the cartoons and songs, all the political TV spots. The absurd mixed in with the pertinent. After all of that, I voted along with the 710 million others (well atleast 55% of them anyway).

And now I am told my voice was not in unison with my neighbours. That I am the problem in a democracy: people who don't take a hint. I am like the 97,421 citizens of Florida back in 2000 who, in all good faith and clear conscience voted for Ralph Nader only to be told that they inadvertently brought in the greater of the evils to power by 537 votes. I always wondered what these people did in their next shot in '04, did they buy the spoiler argument or did they stand by their dented convictions again.

In the media, for months we had all these campaigns basically saying "Vote!". They told us that's what is wrong with the country - me not voting or voting without sense. Well I voted every opportunity I got, but never with satisfaction. I even asked the polling officer this time if I could cast a blank vote, he asked me if that's why I came all the way for. I fell in line, I voted. Any case, it turns out that that legislation is not in place in India.

The word "Rajnithi" is both apt and profound. I do not share in the disgust that some might hold towards politics. I realize that the smarter people in any society would obviously choose to rule over the rest and most often the smartest would actually make it. I just hate that I am made to play the fool at the end of it all.

But the LORD ponders the hearts

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD ponders the hearts. - Proverbs 21:2

How does one justify dishonesty? By being dishonest to the self too, perhaps. Our actions and words may not always coincide with our intentions. But to live with that disappointment, one has to start down the difficult road of forgiving oneself. And forgiving self is nothing like absolving others, it means that one has to understand one's limitations, vacate long held dreams and ambitions and wake up to bitter reality - an end of innocence. This is such a trial-by-fire process that many times we choose not to accept reality so as to avoid the pain, by refusing to recognize the shattering of a dream. And to this end a logic builds in us justifying our actions or inactions. By avoiding the truth we give ourselves reprieves for the transgressions committed against the self since no law holds in such a domain.

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows - Paul Eldridge

Doing the right thing is a tough decision to make. It is hard not only because of its consequences but more because the right choice is so difficult to identify. Indeed, it is almost impossible to define this notion of "right", but even with the assumption that it is defined and known, with all the inherent limitations that we are bestowed with, it would become crippling if every decision had to be weighed to the extent that it is determined to be infact "right". Yet it is the responsibility of everyman to own up to the decisions made, imperfect as they may be and understanding that there are consequences to actions and learn to understand and forgive oneself for not being right.