The game went through a tumultuous year and cricket’s well-wishers would only hope that none of the crises that visited the glorious institution will come back to haunt it in the future. The recent spot-fixing saga threw up many imponderables about how the ICC has handled the matter since all the ugly secrets came tumbling out the first time the fixing scandal erupted. The more a game grows the more the authorities have to be guarded in ensuring its cleanliness. Clearly, the ICC has failed in this.

There was a shockwave across India when the national men’s hockey team failed to qualify for the 2008 Olympics. Many pundits said it was the nadir of Indian hockey, without realising that worse things were in store. Every year after the Olympic fiasco has become progressively debilitating for the world’s most storied hockey nation.

In its 107 years of existence, Fifa has survived many crises, both political and financial. In the 1930s British associations quit in a row over amateurism. They rejoined in the late 1940s. Fifa nearly went bankrupt after the Second World War. The African nations boycotted Fifa events in the 1960s because of the presence of South Africa and their despicable apartheid policy.

Nearly 90 years ago, a veteran freedom fighter from Tamil Nadu wrote in his prison diary about a major issue worrying him — corruption. He wondered how the corruption he witnessed inside the prison could vanish overnight if India achieved political freedom from the British. After all, those indulging in corruption were his own countrymen, he noted. He simply hoped a new value system would be in place after Independence to prevent corruption from becoming a huge menace.

For several deca-des after Inde-pendence, my state Karnataka and my city Bengaluru remained unaffected by the decline in political values and governance standards that were being witnessed in other parts of the country. But somewhere in the hazy mists of contemporary history, there was a point when value-based politics and public service-oriented government changed and morphed into what we have been experiencing for the last several years, propelling our state into a morass of corruption, vested interests, exploitation and dysfunctional governance.

The bureaucracy has ample opportunities for corruption primarily due to scarcity — shortage of ration cards, telephone lines, food supply. Whenever there is a shortage of essential items and it has to be distributed between x, y and z, corruption begins. Further, it is because of rules which allow interpretation in different ways, which gives people the opportunity to use discretion in favour of x or y.

The debate about corruption and Team Anna's role in eradicating it has consumed disproportionate space in the Indian print and electronic media. Team Anna has even come to believe that it can influence the electoral politics of the nation. But the fact remains that poor, lower caste masses have no trust in these middle class movements and their leaders.

This has been a shocking year for corporate India. The 2G scam, the creation of the “Republic of Bellary” within India, the naked and vulgar display of wealth, largescale land-grabbing and disempowerment of the ordinary citizen; these have shocked the conscience of all Indians. It has brought out the dangers of crony capitalism, exposed the capture of the regulators by business interests and shown up the inability of Parliament to set right these wrongs.

While bribes represent corruption in public imagination, it would be unfortunate if we reduce this critical issue of our times to just a matter of giving and taking money. Today, there is a climate of apathy where corrupt people and practices thrive. They are often enabled, at the levels of policy formulation and decision making, by a fixation with mere growth at the cost of a more inclusive idea of development. Under such circumstances, the concept of wealth creation is conveniently interpreted as easy money.

I am an Indian and as an Indian, I am angry. At a time of meltdowns and crises, I see our middle class and our leaders celebrate India. Our celebration of the success of India is premature and might turn pre-emptive. We Indians seem to settle for less, content with winning a spelling bee or celebrating a corporate executive with global colours. My argument is simple. We are being out-thought and out-fought.