Usman Rangila

When Institutions Bow to Egos, Sports Pay the Price By Sharan Kumar Nothing destroys an institution faster than allowing personal prejudice to masquerade as institutional policy. Democratic bodies exist to uphold principles, not personalities. Decisions must serve the sport, not the ego of a committee member. Once likes and dislikes begin shaping official decisions, governance gives way to arbitrariness. Indian horse racing is at that crossroads. For decades, racing has drifted without vision while the rest of sport embraced innovation, marketing and fan engagement. Stagnation has now become decline. Yet those entrusted with reversing that decline often seem more interested in protecting the status quo than confronting uncomfortable questions. The response to criticism is revealing. Question a decision and the issue becomes the critic, not the criticism. Debate gives way to defensiveness, disagreement to hostility and accountability to authority. It is a tendency we routinely condemn in politicians. It is no less damaging when it appears within sporting institutions. The Bangalore Turf Club should have been a warning to every racing authority. Warnings were ignored, advice was dismissed and a crisis followed. Institutional failure rarely arrives in a single dramatic moment. It accumulates when inconvenient questions are repeatedly brushed aside. Good institutions learn from others' mistakes. Great institutions encourage scrutiny before mistakes become crises. For years, I regarded the Royal Western India Turf Club as one of those institutions. It had earned a reputation for maturity, openness and administrative wisdom, and appeared confident enough to accept criticism without treating it as disloyalty. That confidence now appears to be waning. After more than four decades covering horse racing, cricket, athletics and major international sporting events, I have learnt a simple lesson: institutions that welcome criticism evolve; institutions that fear it eventually become prisoners of their own echo chamber. The present controversy illustrates the danger. The Marketing and Media Sub Committee should strengthen racing's relationship with the public and media. Instead, it appears that personal differences have been allowed to influence institutional decisions. Following an avoidable public disagreement, the chairman reportedly approached the Managing Committee claiming that the institution itself had been insulted. That argument misses a fundamental point. No office-bearer is the institution. Every office-bearer is merely its temporary custodian. Criticism of an office-bearer is not criticism of the institution. Confusing the two is where institutional vanity begins. A healthy institution has several choices when faced with criticism: it can answer it, rebut it, correct it or ignore it. What it should never do is use institutional authority to punish the person who raised the question. There is also a larger governance issue. Racing clubs once witnessed genuine electoral contests, with rival groups presenting manifestos and seeking members' confidence. Today, consensus arrangements and unopposed nominations have reduced that competitive accountability. When office no longer has to be seriously contested, complacency can gradually replace performance. The present committee deserves credit for securing a 30-year lease extension and permission for an ambitious new clubhouse. Those are significant achievements. But they also bring an even greater responsibility. The clubhouse must serve racing, not become the reason for preserving racing. Sporting history is littered with institutions that gradually became exclusive social clubs, with the game itself pushed into the background. Horse racing must not travel that road. The clubhouse exists because of racing, not racing because of the clubhouse. Against this background, seemingly minor incidents acquire significance. For years, the club provided complimentary webcast access to a small group of journalists to facilitate racing coverage. It was not a personal favour. It was a sensible investment in publicity for the sport. When Racingpulse questioned the committee's failure to expand racing's audience, attract major sponsors and modernise its presentation, the webcast connection disappeared. The criticism was not answered. The critic was. Then came Media Day, where races are traditionally named after publications that support racing. The Racingpulse Trophy quietly disappeared from the programme. Individually, these incidents may appear insignificant. Collectively, they raise a much larger question: should personal differences influence institutional decisions? Racingpulse and Turfbee have consistently provided comprehensive, year-round coverage of Indian racing. Our team also helped build and operate the RWITC website during its formative years. Recognition in those days appeared to be based on contribution to racing. Today, apparently, the definition of "media" has become rather more flexible. Racingpulse can be excluded, while those whose contribution extends little beyond posting race results on social media apparently qualify. Even a major publication like Indian Express does not have a Cup named after it. One can only admire the elasticity of the definition. But this is not about a webcast connection or a trophy race. Those are merely symptoms. The real question is whether personal prejudice should be allowed to determine institutional policy. A confident institution welcomes uncomfortable questions because criticism can expose weaknesses and create opportunities to improve. An insecure institution treats every question as an attack and every critic as an enemy. Indian racing does not suffer from a shortage of critics. It suffers from a shortage of listeners. That is dangerous. When media access, recognition and institutional decisions begin appearing to depend on personal relationships, others eventually learn that silence is safer than scrutiny. Once that happens, an institution stops receiving the very criticism that might help it improve. And if racing's institutions continue confusing personal authority with institutional interest, they may eventually succeed in silencing every critical voice. They may then discover the uncomfortable truth: When there is nobody left to question the institution, there may also be nobody left to care about it.