Liquor, Cheerleaders and the IPL



Blending cricket with celebrities and corporate moguls, IPL has emerged the most colorful sport India has ever seen. Doled out with a teaspoonful of masala (the skimpily clad-‘fireworks,’ in other words) the gala event has been received with unprecedented fan-turnout and copious revenue and thus seeks to redraw the contours of the very sport.
Though many cricket pundits had raised opposition to bending the rules to churn out an instant and miniature version of cricket, those sane voices have ceased to be heard thanks to the overwhelming popularity the IPL matches enjoy now. Against this backdrop, has one to look at some Delhi lawmakers’ criticism of IPL’s assault on India’s age-old notions of modesty and ethics.



They raised the issue accusing that during the IPL matches, in the Ferozeshah Kotla cricket ground, the event organizers of sold liquor in a playing arena, promoted gambling through SMS, encouraged indecent dancing by semi-clad girls and evaded taxes through sale of lowly-priced tickets. Congress Chief Whip Kunwar Karan Singh, pointing that there was evasion of tax taking place through a very innovative manner, says the premium tickets had been priced at Rs.100 instead of Rs.5,000 and this would result in loss of tax to the Delhi Government and the Rs.100 ticket is being used to oblige people through Gate No. 3. They also charge that the Delhi Police personnel present at the stadium were turning a blind eye to all the wrongs there.



One of the congress MLAs, Subhash Chopra, alleged that SMS contests encourage people to send messages on who will win the toss and to win a chance to meet the cheer girls. “This promotes gambling,” he said. Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma also charged that SMS contests that offer a date with the cheer girls were “against our culture”. It is IPL that introduced semi-clad girls’ dance in any sport in India, for the first time in living memory. The Congress MLAs question the manner of dressing up and dancing of these cheer girls. “Who are these cheer girls? This is not our culture,” said Mr. Chopra. Ramakant Goswami, another Congress MLA, termed the cheer dancing as “open mujra”.



The ‘imported’ cheerleaders and other artists who made the inauguration ceremony grand success proves that the Indian tradition or legacy doesn’t have any thing to do with IPL. This instant avatar of cricket plays into the hands of the covert consumerist elements
trying to shake our cultural framework off the hooks and to apply western hedonistic ethos in Indian soil. Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister Tarvinder Singh Marwah rightly said, “The dances are spoiling our children”. Why cannot our government take measures to curb such obscenities?



IPL presents an ‘amazing’ combination of liquor and cheer girls. As the Lok Janshakti Party’s Shoaib Iqbal says the dance by semi-clad women and open sale of liquor were giving the image of a night club or bar to the stadium. Every one knows that the owner of Royal challengers Bangalore is Vijay Mallya, the unofficial king of Indian’s liquor business. That he wants to promote his liquor brands through cricket is no more a secret. One of his brands and his team share the same name. Should cricket entertain its fans through such ways that transcend all boundaries of decency?

It can be well assumed that the corporate media need something colorful to fill its columns and airtime is to divert people’s attention from the grave issues that matter. The rulers too want to have issues such as the state-sponsored insurgency in the tribal belts
of our country, price rise, and poverty kept under the carpet. Shedding light on the emerging middle class, India is trying to show to the world something that it is not. IPL is the important element of this propaganda and deception