Lalit Modi - The new face of Indian Capitalism

According to Wikipedia "Capitalism is an economic system where capital factors of production (also known as the means of production), are privately owned; labor, goods and resources are traded in markets; and profit, is distributed to the owners invested in technologies and industries. The pervasiveness of wage labor is another important feature of capitalism, though a business owner may be self-employed and land, the non-labor "  If we closely take a look at the IPL controversy that is rocking the "shocked" nation, Lalit Modi by far used successfully used all the forces of the Capitalism for his and other stakeholders growth and success. Many blogs on the internet and most of the national newspapers in India declared Lait Modi's guilt. Will that verdict hold? May be for now, but not forever.

Before the IPL controversy broke out, at the IPL official website I saw a banner item declaring the IPL value at US $4.3 Billions. Now, let's compare this IPL declared value with India's most credible and successful business Infosys Technologies. For FY 2010, Infosys declared revenues are US $4.8 Billions. To reach this level it took Infosys, a quater of the century and incredible effort. The declared assets of this iconic India company after 25 years of existence are US $ 6.1 Billion.  IPL in less than 5 years created a value that is almost on par with Infosys. I wondered if there is a bubble in this valuations? Or some easy money being made like at Wall Street?

Beating my thoughts, IPL is now emerging as the new face of India capitalism. Lalit Modi - proved to be a true capitalist for using the resources -- let it be Business tycoos, Bollywood icons, Dalal Street brokers, Cross border punters or the political figures at the heart of India's political power - no one were left lone in this "value creation". Lalit Modi created a "brand value" that could be sold to anyone from the common man (ticket buyers) to richest man (Ambani's). In the process just like we are seeing in US, he became the Goldman Sachs of India - challenging everyone from the BCCI, Government to the shady dealers by spreading the inherent "risk" (blackmailing)

As US Government is struggling to deal with Goldman Sachs or Citi, Lalit Modi proved that he is not an easy pick. By inviting franchises to share the profits, now he equally shared the inherent risks. Now let it be Vijay Mallya or "Bollywood Badshah" Shahrukh Khan or "Maratha King" Sharad Pawar - all are sucked into this either knowingly or unknowingly. Interestingly all these are different faces of India's capitalism coming from business, Bollywood and elite political power.

If we were to believe the news quoted in the national Newspapers - the technology power of Lalit Modi is such that he knows Dawood Ibrahim (India's Osama bin Laden) intimately and deals with him regularly while India Government agencies are struggling to catch him since 1993 Bombay blasts.Then Sunanda Pushkar (the front-end of Shashi Tharoor) tells the dirty game of women, money and power that is involved behind the IPL. All in all the saying Cricket is all about "22 fools playing and 22,000 fools watching" is repeatedly proving true.

What happened to the match fixing scandal for the One day (50 over) match's that rocked the nation some years. Azharuddin was directly implicated and banned from cricket. He went to oblivion for a while and then returned back with vengeance. Today, Azharuddin is a Congress Member of Parliament from Utter Pradesh. Now, Mohammad Azharuddin is a Law maker in India. Cheerios!

The smarter Lalit Modi got perhaps even a brighter future. He is the new face of Indian Capitalism. Forces in Capitalism always need an ubiquitous force that could "glue" all of them together and then "reward" them explicitly and implicitly. No one is better placed than Lalit Modi. He the one who we could bring - power, glamour, women, money, greed, punts, lust, business, entertainment, hope and perhaps even beyond - all under one umbrella called Indian Premier League.The fact is, all these ugly forces in Capitalism do need people like Lalit and hence, even if he does not want to remain in this system, these powerful forces need him if not in IPL some where else.

This is not end of people like Latit Modi or Lalit Modi himself. We will see many more in India in coming decades. But all of them would have a great reference in Lalit Modi's modus operandi.