“Even as millions go thirsty, activist Palagummi Sainath, who has spent much of the past three decades writing about rural poverty, points to real estate companies enticing property buyers with high-rise buildings in Mumbai that boast a swimming pool on every floor. Urban areas in Maharashtra get 400 % more drinking water than rural areas, he said.” “People have to decide if availability of drinking water is a human right,” Sainath said [Link]

Here is another needlessly provocative framing of issues:



“The cricket-crazy are equally, if not more, to blame. They must have their fun, come rain come sun. The Great Indian Middle Class does not realise that its on-screen sportoxication is, in times like these, complicit in a great wrong. This complicity by the urban Indian middle classes in its own exploitation would not be half as gross if it were not happening in a drought…. … And our only cricket Bharat Ratna, a Member of Parliament as well, Mr. Tendulkar, has an opportunity now to dazzle the nation by saying cricket is his life but there are lives beyond his own that are no less important and that no water, ‘fresh’ or recycled from sewage, must be used by money to spin more money at a time like this. That would recycle a sewage world of opportunisms, greed and worse…. … The use, misuse and abuse of water in the Maharashtra IPL matter is not about water. It even goes beyond money to our priorities as a nation.” [Link]

In the past, I have written about the Indian Premier League and its malefic influence, myself. India’s inability to perform well in the longer versions of the game are due to the relative unimportance of batting technique and skill in this version of the game. Of course, this is an argument and that is different from a conclusion. A batsman like Rahul Dravid and a thoughtful person at that, may have a different view. That should carry more weight than mine.



Perhaps, the crass commercialism, the murky ways in which the teams were funded and sponsored by not-so-clean characters were, perhaps, more important factors to shun IPL than the cricket itself.



Of course, on the positive side of the ledger, it is also true that IPL has created many copycat leagues in other sports like Field Hockey, Kabaddi and Badminton. They are good for the sporting culture in the country, good for the sportsmen and women, good for youngsters and good for fitness levels and consciousness.



Indeed, even in cricket, thanks to IPL, many youngsters who would, otherwise not have had a look-in, get opportunities to transform their lives and to serve as role models in their communities, villages and towns.



All that being said, there is no need for a conflation of issues as Gopalkrishna Gandhi (GG) had done. I can be a middle-class member of India who is as concerned about water as he is, I can contribute to rainwater harvesting initiatives with money, with harvesting water myself and yet be keen to immerse myself in a 3-hour mindless entertainment through IPL after a long and demanding day at work in the Indian summer. The life of an average middle-class Indian commuting to work on a daily basis is really no fun and this is what Gandhi’s grandson had to say about them: