A lot happened in India over the weekend. On August 5th, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India released its final report on the 2010 Commonwealth Games, placing it before the parliament. No-one expected good news. The games, which were held in Delhi last October, have been under a cloud of corruption and mismanagement since last summer, when it was feared that preparations for the event would not be completed on time. The head of the organizing committee, Suresh Kalmadi, is already in jail on charges of racketeering (Kalmadi has claimed he is suffering from memory loss). But the bad news is worse than the possibility of Kalmadis impending dementia. The Auditor Generals 744-page report suggests that nothing short of daylight robbery has occurred. Slamming the organizing committee for being deeply flawed, riddled with favouritism and bias, it unleashes a torrent of ugly details. The games cost a staggering $4.1 billion instead of the $270 million initially estimated. The revenue that was supposed to pay for the event amounted to a measly $38 million. Extravagant contracts from toilets and shuttlecocks to broadcasting rights and the Games Village were awarded on the basis of a single bid. The cost of 'beautifying some of the poshest areas of New Delhi was $22.5 million (imported luminaries were used to improve street lighting rather than the cheaper domestic variety, adding $7.7 million to the bill). The delays in construction that kept the country on tenterhooks until the very last moment were most likely deliberate: according to Rekha Gupta, the Deputy Auditor General, the argument of urgency was used to obviate the regular process of tendering for award of contracts. The ghastly list rattles on, implicating the Prime Ministers Office and the Delhi state governments Chief Minister in the process. Resignations and criminal prosecutions are anticipated (the Prime Minister and Chief Minister are trying to absolve themselves with the argument that they cannot be expected to micromanage every decision.) The Auditor General has given Indians good reason to be angry and judging by the news coverage over the weekend, theres plenty of moral outrage to go around. Yet no-one should be shocked by Indias big heist. Given the opaque decision-making and suppression of voice that marked the foundational fabric of the Commonwealth Games, massive corruption was all but an expected outcome. In May 2010, a seminal study by a Delhi-based NGO, the Human Rights Law Network, revealed that Indias bid for the event was never discussed in Parliament. Nor was there any public debate or opinion poll among Delhis residents as to whether the event should be held in their city (even so, the bid document claimed that the entire nation supports the cause of the Games). In fact, the governments decision to bid for the Games was approved by the cabinet only in September 2003 barely two months prior to the official announcement that Delhi had been chosen as the host city for 2010. The Commonwealth Games were meant to affirm Indias 'world class status and seal its reputation as a rising superpower (the bid document is littered with references to such goals, as were the lavish opening and closing ceremonies for the event). The executives unilateral decision to host the games was so easily accepted because it played to the hubris of Indias newly rich. It spoke to the ambitions of a relatively narrow segment of the population that has prospered disproportionately under Indias regime of neoliberal policy reforms, initiated twenty years ago. This 'rising middle class estimates of its size range from 50 to 300 million people is the force behind Indias towering skyscrapers, luxury shopping malls and pristine gated communities. It is also a major political force. The political party on whose watch the bid was made the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely seen as representing the interests and collective aspirations of this class (one may recall its campaign jingle, 'India Is Shining). In 2003, the Commonwealth Games bid committee was reportedly awarded a 'blank cheque by BJP Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was eager to secure the games in the run-up to the 2004 national election. But the bid was also supported by the Congress party, which led the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition to victory in 2004 on the claim that it (unlike the BJP) represented the concerns of the poor and marginalized. Glowing letters of endorsement were provided by two Congress stalwarts, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit, and the leader of the opposition, Sonia Gandhi. Indeed, as the Auditors report renders clear, it is the Congress that ultimately bears the most responsibility for the flawed planning and execution of the event. It readily trumpeted the BJPs slogan of 'becoming world class once its seductive appeal was recognized. The Congress political elite granted total discretion over spending to Suresh Kalmadi and the impenetrable maze of committees and sub-committees that reported only to him (31 decision-making bodies, 22 advisory panels and 16 implementing agencies reported to Kalmadis organizing committee, over which he maintained absolute authority). With Indias global prestige and national pride at stake, moreover, the usually clamorous (corporate-owned) media looked the other way. In the seven years between the bid for the event and its execution, human rights advocates, students groups and independent activists raised a series of red flags. Most went utterly unheeded. The governments plan to build a massive 'Games Village on the floodplains of the river Yamuna drew a gush of criticism when it was first announced. Environmental groups and social activists pointed out that the land targeted for the Village is ecologically fragile, and that the project would lead to the eviction of hundreds of low-income families from squatter settlements in the area. In November 2008 several years after the initial concerns had surfaced a group of social activists succeeded in getting the Delhi High Court to freeze construction on the Games Village. The court also ordered an environmental panel to investigate its ecological impact. In response, however, the government appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the High Courts ruling would seriously jeopardize the very conduct and holding of the 2010 games in Delhi. Swift to act, the Supreme Court overturned the Delhi High Courts verdict, arguing that the government had met all the approvals it needed. This important decision was only lazily reported in the press, and outside activist circles, provoked little concern. In light of this, the Auditor Generals discovery that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) failed to comply with the Ministry of Environments conditional clearance for building the Village is hardly surprising. Questions were also raised by social activists and student groups about how public money was being used to turn the Games Village into an exclusive, gated community for the rich. Built on a giant public-private-partnership agreement between the DDA and Emaar MGF a real estate giant experienced in executing luxury, master-planned townships the projected cost of the village was a whopping $230 million (unsurprisingly, the Auditor General found serious irregularities in the awarding of the contract to Emaar). According to the deal, the DDA would own one-third of the 1,168 apartments, while Emaar would retain two-thirds, for sale in the open market. While bidding for the Games, the Indian government said that DDAs share would be used to house Delhi University students, thus partially compensating for the dearth of student residences in the city. As construction proceeded, however, it was evident that DDA-Emaar had other plans. The Village was to be equipped with state-of-the-art security, an upscale shopping mall, 'bio-toilets at $10,000 per unit, a water treatment plant (currently lying unused) for $6 million, a 'green power grid for $8 million, noise barriers (later found defective) for $1 million, and a dedicated corridor of Delhi Metro connecting it to the airport. Counterpunch