IPL is not about national pride????

B. Raman wrote an article in rediff about postponing and chasing away the IPL matches from India.

http://cricket.rediff.com/cricket/2009/mar/09/braman-ipl-not-about-national-pride.htm

I totally disagree with Mr. Raman. Nationalism will exist, only as long as the common commercial interest exists. We never had a common commercial interest in the past to exist as a single country. Now we do and that’s why we have a nation called India. If terrorists are winning over in spoiling our commercial interests then they are winning the very war they are waging, the war against the core that unites us to be a single country.

By sending IPL to another country, what is the signal the government is sending to foreign investors? Are they saying that India will stop all its activities when it’s election time? That India doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the security requirements? That India is unfriendly to businesses?

In my opinion, the government and the election commission should have acted responsibly. They could have conducted the polls in January. They are conducting the polls in the height of summer months which by itself is very stupid. How can they expect voter turnout to be good? Election commission knows very well about the IPL craze in India and the revenue it generates. People keep saying that the billionaires are gaining money by this. Why, now they don't consider tea shops and the other vendors as small businesses? Aren't they profiting from this event? I am not an economist but isn't that how the economy is supposed to work? I even read that political commentators like Cho dismissing it as an entertainment. I wish he had considered the revenue of the entertainment industry in India.

India will not change unless the unfriendly attitude of the government toward businesses changes. This needs a generational change. All the Gandhian era people should retire so that the next generation can move the country ahead instead of just lingering in nostalgia of the freedom movement.