Letters: Ask the real question

With reference to the column, "Our sport, your honour", I agree with the writer Shekhar Gupta that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is not the cause of drought in Maharashtra and shifting IPL matches outside the state will not change the situation.

Much of the brouhaha is symbolic. Just reduce Mumbai's per capita water supply, divert some of it to Latur and see what happens. Gupta says that "club sport is not a tamasha"; but some aspects of IPL do resemble one. First, the ownership aspect. One would expect owners of the IPL teams to be from the fields of sports and business; instead, we have celebrities from Bollywood. The tamasha quotient is enhanced by the presence of scantily-clad cheerleaders.

Gupta regrets the disappearance of great sporting teams derived from the armed forces. But that was at a time when the Indian Army did not have to contend with terrorists, insurgencies and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The Army cannot maintain soldiers to play sports now. If it does, questions would be raised by some quarters.

Gupta has shied away from asking the judiciary a crucial question: What, if at all, is it planning to do about the real water guzzler in Maharashtra - the sugar industry? It consumes 1.3 trillion litres of water - enough for all of Maharashtra for 240 days. Sugarcane accounts for about six per cent of the cultivable area, but consumes more than 60 per cent of the water available for crops.

Until this issue, which is more political than agricultural, is tackled, Maharashtra will reel under water shortage, IPL or no IPL.

T R Ramaswami Mumbai

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