Shanghai is a metaphor

Shanghai is a city, a metropolis, a financial capital, a global economic hub. Shanghai is in China but the word Shanghai is a signifier for India.

Shanghai is an attempt by the political class to divert our attention from the immediate problems to a promised future, a transformation. We are sold the dream of a swanky Shanghai like city where prosperity envelops all. And it is all planned for the future. A future, which when it comes will not hold them accountable. A future near enough, but far enough so that people forget as well. Rome was not built in a day they say. But it was also not build by the using the famed Indian jugaad.

Shanghai is a dangling visual smokescreen. Take a look (at the image below) at what happened between 1993 and 2010 in Shanghai. It is this transformation to a gleaming economic hub that rivals the first world that so seduces the transforming third world. Shanghai is a metaphor.

It is the Promised Land that the politicians like to promise in a safely distant future .This future is rounded up into nice sounding numbers – 2016, 2020, 2025. And when time inches towards these years they push it back to another nice sounding year – Twenty Thirty, Twenty Forty what say? Because somehow,we never think of future being imperfect and dystopian. We always hope the future to be better. We have done so from the past. We continue to do so now. Where is the progress, is this the progress we hoped for and were promised in back in 1995. Wasn’t 2012 supposed be the year when every village in India was electrified?  And now, in 2012, we are still debating nuclear power when we are so many megawatts short of electrifying even our cities that it is embarrassing. Who do we hold accountable?

Any social commentator would agree that India of today, of 2012, throws more bewildering contradictions than say it did in 2000. We are young and aspirational, but then we are also sceptical. We have tastelessly designed flyovers and an underbelly right beneath and around it. The malls are swanky and the earth just outside it is murky, the road leading to it potholed. We have grandiose and leaky socialist schemes in a capitalistic economy. Cross subsidy that skews the supply-demand and market dynamics. And then there’s an audacious proposal of regulating a democratic medium like the internet. The models and actors in ads get paler and whiter even as thankfully, it is a sultry Freida Pinto and swarthy Irfan Khan who have a foothold in Hollywood.

As a nation we have regressed in the last 10 years – the traffic, the civic amenities, our open values, what we can see on television, what can be said on it and what is beamed on it. We can all bring out the largest democracy cloak, but hey we are not a mature one. We can’t laugh at ourselves; we are offended by things which we should bother too much with. The people with sense of humour are on Twitter and those numbers don’t total to many a number.

The irony is inescapable when we are promised maglev trains when people are crushing themselves in Bandra-Churchgate local trains. It makes us smirk at the politicians who do not know the ground realities that the middle class go through, we are sceptical when we are promised a Shanghai in India.

If you can’t save a Kolkata, if you continue to see Bangalore crumble, if you go on as usual as Mumbai bursts to seams, what are you promising to convert to Shanghai ? Cities cannot be transformed easily and briskly.5 years is not enough, 10 years should see considerable progress but 20 is enough if you have the will, even in a democracy. Maybe we should emulate Hong Kong or Istanbul for a change. We should let our states compete and build up their cities. Competition wakes us up. If we have 3 Singapores, city based economies, it is progress. Singapore has no natural resources; it is a power because of the commerce and talent it draws.

We do not need just one Shanghai. We want our Pune, Mangalore, Jaipur and the likes to grow up and shed that non-metro feel. Take advantage of the fact that they are not as messed up as the metros are and realise that therein lies an opportunity. Become the new-age metros. That would do two things. We will have better up-and -coming cities and it will stop the migration to metros and stretch their infrastructure.

Shanghai is in another country, another time zone and another 2 decades ahead of us. Shanghai is a pipedream not worth chasing. 

English Premier League in India

Economics of football broadcasting in India.

As a measure to involve more eyeballs, the kick-offs of some games in the recent years have been pulled back by FA in England to noon from the traditional late afternoon to allow Asia, especially Singapore and the South-east Asia to get games starting at 8 pm local time. Although not of particular bearing to India, but this move shows the importance given to the global fan and revenue stream by the FA. The games in India have 5.30 pm and 8.30 pm starts which means that they are half an hour (+/-) off the prime time slot. The starting times happen to slightly favour the Indian prime-time viewing too, but the fans would watch the Monday or Tuesday night late kick-offs as well if the club they support is playing, hence the motivation to watch is present.

Motives for EPL viewing

Times have changed since the pre-Independence British India when the poor followed football and cricket was aristocratic. Now and for the past decade too, it is the affluent middle-class youngsters who have become the new followers .A largely urban fan base, with fans in four metropolitan cities and their satellite towns, the motivating factors are many. The cities with fairly good following of the leagues are Trivandrum, Bangalore, Mangalore, Surat and Pune. For the followers it is also about differentiation. They do not want to be identified as cricket crazy .They would rather be true sports aficionados and know the difference between off-side of cricket and football.

The supporting of a club that is half way around the world doesn’t contribute to local, ethnic or national identity; rather it is an expression of individual identity. This need to stand out is the reason to embrace the exuberance and class of the EPL and in that a club to support and root for. And when there are enough people with a similar attitude, they form a sizable chunk of new fans, which is particularly observed in colleges where trends can be infectious. An example can be the city of Mangalore on the west coast of India, very close to where Manipal University is based with more than 20, 000 students. The adjoining regions of Udipi, Mangalore and Manipal and the student cluster over there ensures that Mangalore regularly features in Google trends of searches made regarding the English clubs even above, Kolkata and Pune.

The EPL follower in India is like a fantasy football manager of the club he supports. The use of ‘he’ here is deliberate as the fan is invariably a male. Quite analogous to the armchair quarterback myth in American Football. This fan is a passionate person, religiously following the games throughout the season consumed by the saga of his club’s fate. A positive result uplifts his mood and a terrible performance spoils it.

Indian media and football

The role of media in EPL popularity is also not a small one. By covering the EPL in the newspapers, the reader gets a gradual recognition of the players, teams and the league rivalries. Unlike England where the build-up and post-match reviews and analysis are found in the newspapers, India just carries the results in the following day’s newspapers. However the coverage is substantial especially in metro editions of leading tabloids and newspapers. What is also noticed that other leagues are given decreasingly low print-space. The Spanish League is next on the priority list followed by Serie A .Other teams from Europe like Bayern Munich or Shaktar Donetsk are mentioned only when UEFA Champions League games come along. And the Indian league and domestic tournaments are covered in the local or national sports section. But quite consistently, the EPL stories remain the headline grabbers.

In simple words, India is outsourcing its football entertainment now. Commercial interest of football in India is in the metros and big cities that have become used to seeing the best leagues beamed live into the living rooms and pubs. Increasingly Indians now clamour to buy their official merchandise to exhibit loyalty to respective clubs. This is largely because as on television, even in the newspapers, the visibility of European football is hard to miss. People would wear a club t-shirt as casual wear. Indians would however think more than twice to wear a Nike made Indian cricket jersey if it is not peak cricket season.

The creation of a national TV network and the simultaneous creation of a new consumerist middle class has helped EPL grow a great deal and while India may not have a Ji-Sung Park yet nor decent football parks, yet the game is slowly growing. The broadcasting administration is being quiet about their ambitions and doesn’t want to wage a war against cricket by entering into open competition with the number one sport. That is not going to happen in a very long while, but football is well on its way to become a very close second. The EPL has some major positives, and those being that EPL has a very good system and match schedule worked out which is spread over September–May, carefully addressing the issue of overkill by deft scheduling. Its only weakness is the same as an opportunity – it’s limited to urban areas and its satellite towns, so there lays tremendous room for improvement.

There is a difference in a developing market like India and mature markets elsewhere .In a mature market, the fans support local teams .With the chaotic and ill-organised national league, that option is not even able to present itself, as the collective consciousness has been subsumed by the EPL and its glamour.

Note : This is brief part of a 10,000 word fully referenced essay on this topic.The essay explores a detailed look into the economics, marketing, socio-economic, globalisation aspects for spread of EPL in India .Anyone interested can contact me. Just drop a mail.