Brasa’s brush with Babudom — commences

Indian bureaucracy is ruthless, can frustrate anybody any good work any number of times for no reasons other than inefficiency and its own bloated ego. Here is another example. Nishant Chaturvedi, stick2hockey.com’s new writer explains how National Coach Jose Brasa is in for long battle with the wonted Indian babudom

Brasa’s brush with Babudom commences

Barely a few days after he took over as chief coach of the Indian hockey team, Jose Brasa
has already realized the enormity of the task ahead. And the main obstacle in his way will be the age-old problem of the Sports Authority of India’s unprofessional attitude and the inherent red-tapism in Indian bureaucracy.

So much so that Brasa had apparently even offered to resign mid-way through the recent camp in Pune. It was only after several attempts by Hockey India officials that he agreed to continue, otherwise India would have been already looking for a new coach! Although, Brasa refuses to say anything about the matter or SAI now.

Actually, the whole problem started with Brasa asking for several new machines and
equipments to improve the performance of the Indian team. But his repeated requests and
e-mails to SAI officials regarding the same did not help, they only upset the babus there.

Especially Praveer Krishna, an IAs officer associated with SAI specially for the
Commonwealth Games. It is also known that Krishna had a heated argument with Brasa in Pune regarding the e-mails and his demands, after which Brasa decided to resign. But after Hockey India officials intervened, the matter reached Suresh Kalmadi who convinced Brasa to continue.

However, with the whole matter reaching sports ministry and Praveen Krishna being issued a show-cause notice by the ministry, SAI officials have now decided to make things even more difficult for Brasa by questioning all his demands and making sure the files moved very slowly. In fact, SAI officials are also planning to investigate whether Brasa has any
personal interest in asking for the equipments.

Interestingly, Praveer Krishna is believed to be the same man who told sports minister MS Gill that the
recent flight-delay controversy in Pune was because of the players themselves and not SAI!
The Indian team had missed their early morning flight to Delhi from Pune on Thursday, before
the one-month Europe tour, because the SAI did not send buses on time and then sent two
min-vans.

But Krishna had told the sports minister that some players had forgotten their things in the
hotel so the whole team had gone back and were delayed! This only proves the bureaucratic
attitude of officials in the country who tend to blame the players for everything while
refusing any responsibility and claiming themselves to be always right!

On being contacted, though, Krishna refused to say anything on the whole Pune issue. He only
said: “I only want Indian hockey to improve. My work is related to the Commonwealth Games
and Indian sports and I am doing my work with full responsibility”.

Before going on the Europe tour, Brasa had made it clear in a press conference that
technology works much faster than SAI does, in an attempt to tell the officials that if they
wanted Indian hockey to develop and be among the top teams in the world, there was no time
to waste. But those who are familiar with how things work in SAI will know that this will
only make SAI officials even more angry.

After all this, though, Brasa must have realized why, despite having world-class players
with brilliant individual skills Indian hockey continues to struggle.