CRICKET

Never before has a scam been enjoyed and celebrated by such a massive proportion of Indian people. Apart from the very poor in remote rural areas who have no access to television, everyone seems to have relished the fast-pace Twenty-20 cricket matches of the India Premier League cricket, which has just finished its third season blighted by massive allegations of corruption.

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India is of course a country of scams. To many abroad it is seen sentimentally as Mahatma Gandhi's country of khadi cloth, good ethics, and care for the poor. To some it is an economic miracle and a future super power, while to others it is an unkind cruel place of caste, ethnic and rich-poor divisions and violence. Above all however, and not far below the surface, India is a maze of unethical, unlawful and illegal swindles that link most politicians, many bureaucrats, and a large number of businessmen.

It is scarcely surprising therefore that there is a scam surrounding the IPL, which has grown in just three years to a massive $4bn wealth-creating package of sponsorships, broadcasting and other franchises, fees and other takings.

Cricket is not just a national sport in India but also a passion, and people have watched in awe as the rupee and dollar figures have grown to such an extent that over $300m has recently been bid for new franchises, raising the total from eight to ten teams

A lot of the IPL activity has been alleged in the past week or so to be unethical, unlawful and sometimes illegal. Politicians and others are said to be laundering black money via Mauritius and other tax havens which, though officially recognised, hide investors' identities through shell companies and benami (false) names. There are suggestions that matches and bids for team franchises have been fixed, and that there have been bribes, tax evasion, illegal betting, and breaches of foreign investment rules.

At the centre of the growth, and the controversy, is Lalit Modi, creator of the IPL and vice president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), who is facing calls for his resignation. "Overlord of a national passion" was the headline on a Financial Times profile of Modi two years ago. More details of his business career appeared in the India's Mail Today newspaper a few days ago headlined "Modi and controversy go a long way back".

The national celebration of the lucky few getting rich in a poor country is one of India's many curious contradictions. This probably partly explains why the workings of the IPL were not looked at earlier by the government's financial and criminal investigations agencies, nor the media, even though rumours of illicit deals and links between politicians and investors have been around for some time. It was just too big a tamasha (party), with too powerful hosts, to be interrupted.

John Elliott is a former FT South Asia Correspondent (1983-88) and now writes from India