Following the neatly rescued debacle that was the Commonwealth Games in India in 2010, many Indians were left debating the true legacy of such major sporting events. With the launch today of the London 2012 Olympics, B24 has no doubt that many Londoners will be asking themselves the same question.

Hosting the likes of the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics requires a four to eight year program. The world cups in other global sports like cricket and rugby are far smaller with regard to the number of participating countries and hence do not require the same inputs with regard to sporting facilities and other needs such as accommodation. Bridging finance has to be put in place, together with a team of planners and political heads who have to manage tenders and then oversee the work being done. In short, a host country has to divert enormous resources, both human and material, into ensuring that it is ready for that all-important opening ceremony.

But is this expenditure and diversion of national energy worthwhile? Does it leave a positive long term legacy? The answer is not straightforward and each host country begs for different criteria to be used. As a recent article in the British Guardian put it: “As every host city is different and has different priorities, the IOC encourages each one to define its own objectives and create a long-term strategy and vision from the beginning of the bid process. Each host is urged to look at how the Games can be a catalyst for development. This subsequently provides the Games organizers with clear objectives to aim for during the seven years of Olympic preparation and beyond.” The article goes on to say, “The best Olympics regenerate neglected districts, inspire children to take up sport and leave a city furnished with world-class venues and rolling in Olympic dollars – Barcelona is a good example of this. The worst are poisoned chalices that leave a nation in debt and a city overrun by white elephants – look no further than Athens.”

There is clearly a wide gamut of experience. Los Angeles and Atlanta mobilized private capital and thus had almost no municipal debt; Barcelona revamped its port and other rundown neighbourhoods and ignited a new wave of national enthusiasm for sport; Beijing reduced pollution; the 2006 German soccer world cup changed the way foreigners regarded the country and consolidated the reunification of East and West. In each case there is a long list of plusses and minuses – for the consequences impact differently given the subjective needs and capacities of each host.

Having said this, the overall evidence shows that unless there are long term contracts signed up front before these mega-sporting events take place (particularly with regard to future and ongoing use of the facilities), then maintenance costs and use of the facilities will fall short of what is needed to make them sustainable and not a drain on municipal finance. In most cases, a city does not ordinarily require stadia as large as the ones built for the mega-competitions; ongoing local and international events have far more modest dimensions. In extreme instances (such as Seoul) the main stadium is being dismantled because of unbearable maintenance costs; Montreal, Athens, Barcelona, Johannesburg and Sydney are also finding it difficult to make good use of their stadia.

Let us conclude by taking a brief look at South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup which cost the country R40 billion (about US$5 Billion). South Africa now has superlative stadia in some seven cities but the maintenance costs are not being met through the earning of income from events – indeed, their use has been extremely limited – and further debt is being incurred or resources are being diverted from other facilities in order to keep them going; the Johannesburg Gautrain (linking the main airport with the city and with Pretoria), is now in place as is a new bus service – but these new transport facilities are too expensive for most commuters and do not yet provide an extensive city-wide service; the regeneration of neighbourhoods was not a success – a clear example of this aspect being rhetorical rather than a serious commitment; tourism has not mushroomed – in fact, there is an over-supply of expensive hotels; local sport (particularly soccer) has not been given an injection of self-belief nor has the bonus received from FIFA been put to good use in regard to providing grassroots support to communities and schools that still lack any real sports facilities.

In short, despite the obvious feel-good factor (and yes, both India and South Africa really did enjoy the party during their respective events with the hard realities of unemployment, corruption, crime and malfunctioning state departments temporarily blown away by the vuvuzelas and mass euphoria), the medium to long term benefits seem to be very skimpy. However, as with most extravaganzas, the spotlight quickly moves to other cities and countries, and the deficiencies of planning and execution are buried under the brilliance of ever more elaborate shows – each being hailed as the best ever. For we humans are suckers for diversion, and these mega-sports events serve as very useful catharses for the pent up stresses of a capitalist civilization that is very precarious.

* – * – *

This is not to take away from the party that is currently being had by those in London for the 2012 Olympics. Hope and positivity abounds for both athletes and the participating nations – in fact, even the UK lottery has been ramped up to epic proportions as part of the hype. If you’re in India and would like to join that part of the fun, visit the B24 play lottery online page today. International readers can visit this website instead to participate.

If you feel that national investment in these mega-sports events are tantamount to gambling here or on some online casino, then you are clearly not alone. Unfortunately, only time will tell whether the likes of the Olympics, World Cup, or Commonwealth Games will deliver the legacies they promised. So far, for the most part, the empirical evidence does not paint a hopeful picture at all.

3rd May 2012 was World Press Freedom Day. Whilst international media generally targets the likes of China for their clampdown on ‘sensitive’ programming, it is concerning that India seems to be following close suit. It appears to be becoming increasingly easy to offend the Indian powers that be, and consequently face the reality of censorship or even legal action.

Whilst the Indian constitution does not specifically provide for freedom of the press, it is implied from Article 19(1)(a). As is currently the case in another BRICS country, South Africa, the caveats to this clause are providing leverage for the government. While seemingly innocuous on paper, the broad and subjective nature of the restrictions have significant ramifications on press freedoms. These restrictions include:

1. Security of the State – i.e. anything that could be deemed to endanger national security including the waging of war or rebellion against the government;
2. Friendly relations with foreign States – e.g. inflammatory articles that may jeopardise India’s good relations;
3. Public order – i.e. anything that might upset the public peace – would promotion of the recent mass action against corruption a la Anna Hazare meet this criteria?
4. Decency and morality – Whilst pornography may be an obvious target of this restriction, Indians would be wise to bear in mind that until a few years ago, even kissing in Bollywood movies was regarded as a form of obscenity;
5. Contempt of court – this speaks to statements made that would undermine the authority of the court;
6. Defamation – statement that harms the reputation of another person
7. Incitement to an offence – i.e. statements that encourage wrongful or illegal behaviour, and finally
8. Sovereignty and integrity of India – i.e. utterances that question the integrity of India.

One of the biggest cause of concerns in India with respect to these restrictions is the rise of Internet censorship. Recently, Member of Parliament P. Rajeeve introduced in the Rajya Sabha a motion calling for the Intermediary Guidelines Rules (aka Internet censorship law) passed last year to be annulled. Should this motion not receive the support of the majority of both Houses and be passed, the consequences to freedom of expression in India would be dire.

Already, India has witnessed multiple cases of abuse of the free speech laws, especially through the Information Technology Act. Evidence includes the forced removal of CartoonsAgainstCorruption.com, the arrests of M. Karthik, a young Hyderabadi atheist, and of Prof. Ambikesh Mahapatra for allegedly ‘defamatory’ cartoons of Mamata Banerjee. Make no mistake, internet censorship is not a new thing in India. Even in the mid-90’s, certain websites were blocked through executive order. In 2008, the Information Technology Act was amended to increase transparency but there is still significant evidence of extra-legal censorship (this can be effectively measured by observing the disparity between Google censorship statistics and the official government stats).

The current censorship rules remain in place since April 2011, despite much protest from various champions of free speech including individuals like P. Rajeeve, Rajeev Chandrashekar, and Kumar Deepak Das, as well as organisations like Google India and Software Freedom Law Centre. These censorship rules allow for any person or organisation to get content removed from the Internet within 36 hours by simply requesting an intermediary like Google, Facebook, Rediff, etc. to do so. The content provider would be obliged, with zero recourse to any challenge, to remove the content. Once again, internet censorship was made as unaccountable as it was before the 2008 amendments to the ITA – the only difference is that now, the power to censor lies in public hands, and is not just the remit of select state officials.

Following a media backlash, the censorship rules are currently under review but the spate of lawsuits effectively promoting censorship indicate that India has still not found its way forward.

“Especially in the creative sphere, the last two decades have been progressively intolerant.” – Nilanjana Roy, literary critic and columnist

Press censorship has had a particularly negative impact to those in the arts. The examples are plentiful: from the banning of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the late eighties, to the recent gagging of political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi for treason because he was inspired by Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement and took to ‘insult’ India’s national emblems in his illustrations.

Couple this with increasing politically motivated news censorship and shocking statements like the judge in the Delhi high court warning that: “Like China, we can block all such Web sites”, in reference to the likes of Google and Facebook, it is clear that the world’s largest democracy may be straying from its path when it comes to freedom of expression.

Leave your comment on Freedom of Expression in India

* * *

Stay tuned for more editorials covering poverty in India, the legacy of large sporting events like the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the legality around Indian online gambling and reviews of new sites that allow people to buy lotto tickets online from India. B24 will also be producing a series of articles on disability in India, the stumbling blocks to economic growth and overtaking China. Until then, thanks for reading and we congratulate the efforts of all those working toward improvements for a free press in India.