After threats of terrorism and boycott, the Commonwealth games have formally opened in Dehli tonight, as millions of viewers worldwide crowd round their tellies to watch the diddy olympics begin. There may be more Scots -- particularly Glaswegians -- watching the games than usual, as Glasgow is the next city due to host the games in 2014.

While Glasgow’s unlikely to have all the same problems Dehli has had with the Games, it’s worthwhile for Socialists to look at what’s happened with the Commonwealth Games in India. This years Commonwealth Games have had a bit more controversy than usual, and some of the criticisms of the Games in Dehli are applicable in Glasgow too.

Most of the controversy surrounding the games has been due to the possibility of terror attacks on athletes or spectators at the events, with some sportsmen calling for a boycott of the event on security grounds. There have been other calls for a boycott however, for very different reasons that haven’t been as widely reported in the media -- probably because they are less “glamorous” than terror threats.

Organisations of India’s poor and working class have formed a coalition called the “Anti Commonwealth Games Front”, opposing the way the devastating effect the games have had on thousands of India’s poorest citizens, which are outlined below,

1. In the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, the city has seen the most blatant violation of human rights of the urban poor.

• Around 200,000 – 250,000 people have been rendered homeless and had their homes demolished due to the Games.

• Destitute persons (‘beggars’) have been rounded up from the streets. Additional police force has been sought to “catch them all.” Many ‘beggars’ have been sent back to their home states after serving prison sentences. They are being hidden away in parks because the Delhi government does not want foreigners to see Delhi’s poor. The Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959 has been used to arbitrarily arrest and detain the homeless.

• Migrant workers have been threatened and terrorised to leave the city. Domestic workers, drivers, plumbers and other workers are being packed off to railway stations in an attempt to ‘clean-up’ the city.

• 300,000 street vendors have already lost their livelihoods to the Games. Cart-pullers, waste-pickers, head-loaders, balloon sellers, cobblers, street-food vendors and other informal sector workers are being denied their right to work and livelihood. Since they are not able to earn their daily wage, they are starving as they have no money to buy food. All dhabas (eateries) on the Games routes have been closed for security reasons. Weekly markets in the vicinity of stadiums have been banned for the duration of the Games.

• Workers at the Commonwealth Games construction sites have seen some of the most widespread violation of human rights. The relentless toil of starving labourers has created the new infrastructure in Delhi. But workers have been forced to work day and night, and yet minimum wages and overtime wages have not been paid to them. Some labourers have lost their lives due to the hazardous working conditions. Child labour has also been involved in some Games projects.

• Women and young girls have been trafficked from other states into Delhi for sex work during the Commonwealth Games.

2. The government has completely lost its sense of priorities. While Rs. 70,000 to 100,000 crore (US$ 15 – 21 billion) are being spent on hosting a twelve day sporting extravaganza,

• The budgetary allocation for Indira Awas Yojna (2010-11) is a mere Rs. 10,000 crore [1 crore = 10 million]; for Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana (2010-2011) it is only Rs. 1,270 crore; and for ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) it is Rs. 8,700 crore. • The annual budget of Department of Revenue, Government of Delhi for shelters for the homeless has been Rs. 60 lakh for the last 10 years, while crores are being spent on resurfacing and beautification of streets of Delhi. Rs. 24.42 crore are being spent on beautification of Mehrauli Badarpur Road and the per kilometre cost of beautifying Subramania Bharti Marg is Rs. 1.28 crore.

3. India is a poor country and cannot afford this kind of wastage of precious resources.

• 40% of the world’s starvation-affected people live in India.

• More than 320 million people in India are unable to manage three square meals a day.

• More than 5,000 children die every day from malnourishment.

• 5.6 crore children either don’t go to school or drop out due to poverty.

4. The claim that by hosting the Commonwealth Games, India’s performance in sports will improve, is completely false. For many schools across India a playground is a distant dream for the children. Moreover the plight of most Indian athletes is dismal if not pathetic. India has spent at least Rs. 4500 crore on renovating stadiums for the Games. This money could have been more wisely spent to improve facilities for sportspersons across the country.

5. Residents of Delhi have had to put up with a lot of inconveniences to host an event they were not consulted about and did not ask for. The city residents will eventually pay for this sporting event. The Delhi Government has gone bankrupt because of wanton spending in the name of the Games. The city has become much more expensive and taxes have increased.

6. It has been reported that CWG is being counted as one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country. The government instead of providing accountability for the financial irregularities is focusing its attention on the success of the Games under the garb of ‘national pride.’ However twisted the understanding of ‘national pride’ may be, how can Indians support or be enthused about a sporting event that is making a selected few richer?

7. Rs. 744 crore meant for Scheduled Castes in Delhi has been diverted to meet the Games related costs, in complete violation of the Special Component Plan and the 2006 Planning Commission Guidelines.

8. Every decision relating to the Commonwealth Games has been taken in secrecy and in violation of the democratic norms of the country. The permission to bid for the Games was taken under Rule 12 (one line); the decision to hand over the Commonwealth Games Village to Delhi University to be used as a hostel was secretly reversed; the decision to evict students from hostels; the decision to reserve special lanes for CWG participants, was not the result of any democratic procedures.

They’ve protested with calls to “Boycott the poverty games”, and demands for “Schools not Stadiums”. Theres also criticisms of the treatment of workers at the Commonwealth Games sites, with 2 workers still in a coma after a footbridge collapsed.

Alongside these criticisms of the excessive money spent on the games and mass evictions, there have been protests against the CEO of the Games, Mike Hooper.

Effigies of Hooper have been burned by protesters calling him a racist, for attacking Delhi’s “population hazard” after officials refused to shut down roads and use them exclusively for the Games -- causing more disruption for ordinary citizens of Delhi and isolating them even more from the games. Hooper’s also been criticised for the money he’s alleged to be making out of the games -- reported to be up to $600,000.

It’s unlikely Glasgow will see the same levels of strife as Dehli when the Games come here in 2014. But there are similar practices to Delhi being enacted, with one resident of Dalmarnock being threatened with eviction. Margaret Jaconelli, a resident in the cities east end is being threatened with a compulsory purchase order that would seize her house, which she has lived in for 34 years.

You may have heard of compulsory purchase orders before -- they’re what Aberdeenshire Council and Donald Trump would like to use to seize folks houses in Aberdeenshire so that they can build a golf course there.

Mrs Jaconelli has been offered a paltry 30k for her house, which is in sharp contrast to how Glasgow City Council dealt with multimillionaire property developer Mayfair. Mayfair’s property developer Charles Price was able to negotiate with the Council and sell his land for a whopping £20 million quid (with the tab picked up by the taxpayer). This is despite Price buying the land for only £8 million, and the fact that the Council could have used a Compulsory Purchase Order on his land as they have done to Mrs Jaconelli. Glasgow City Council’s eviction has been backed by the First Minister, Alex Salmond leaving Mrs Jaconelli to face the oppositon of both a Labour run city council and a national SNP government.

The facts are that the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and Glasgow are not being carried out in the wishes and for the benefit of the majority of the local population, but in the interests of prestige and “soft power” by different forces. Soft power is when countries or institutions try to garner influence and standing in ways other than outright warfare or sabotage -- for example, space projects, international aid, and in this case, sporting events.

The best example of this in recent times was the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, which China’s leadership used to grandstand their position as a major superpower. Like Delhi, these games went alongside evictions of the poor with little if any compensation. China’s continuing to display soft power by expanding it’s space programme -- despite the abysmal safety records in many Chinese industries.

India wants to use the Commonwealth Games to boost it’s soft power the same way China used the Olympics. India is already growing in influence across Asia, and is one of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) a group of four nations with growing economies that want to expand their own influence regionally and globally, the same way the US and the EU does.

Obviously Glasgow’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games are a bit different to Delhi’s but it’s likely that the virtual one party state that is Glasgow City Council want to use the games to promote their own gentrified, shiny, shopping friendly version of the city -- regardless of the effects it has on folk like Mrs Jaconelli.

The Games itself is also a display of soft power by the UK -- the Commonwealth is a collection of countries almost all of whom were at one point part of the British Empire. Having the Commonwealth allows the UK to maintain soft power over it’s former colonies in international relations, conflict and trade etc.

Very few of the athletes at these games will be concerned about a lot of the international and social issues in Dehli and Glasgow the Games have brought up and caused -- most will be focused on trying to win their own personal battles in their own events. But if sporting events are going to be made accessible and attractive to the majority of people in the world, they need to ditch the practice of putting the prestige of different countries at the expense of their poorest citizens and workers.

The Popular Olympiad, an alternative to the 1936 Olympics hosted in fascist Germany.

Here is an interesting blog folk should check out about the upcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.