We, Indians, seem to be obsessed with scandals. For three weeks, the IPL spot fixing scandal took centre stage while everything else was reduced to a footnote. Was it really that important? Did nothing else happen for three weeks?
Although the IPL spot fixing scandal is important to a nation where cricket is virtually a religion, it hardly justifies the amount of hot air that has been blown in the media about it.
By scale, the football match fixing scandal that broke out a few months ago was much larger. The allegations were that a total of approximately 680 matches including World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and two Champions League games, were fixed. It was alleged that 425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals from at least 15 countries were involved in fixing football games dating back to 2008.The news networks all over the world were sensible in reporting this, giving it the importance it deserved while not ignoring the other news stories.
After three weeks of IPL spot fixing scandal, after Jagmohan Dalmiya took the BCCI reins and the stories on the scandal ended, instead of shifting our glance away from scandals and to other news stories, we dug up another cricket scandal. This time featuring Indian cricket team captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The scandal broke out with R P Singh denying that he was managed by Rhiti Sports. It was reported in the media that Dhoni has a 15% stake in Rhiti Sports, a firm that also manages Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Pragyan Ojha, besides the Indian captain. The allegations was that there was a conflict of interest since the players signed with Rhiti Sports were likely to be favoured when the team was selected sice the Indian Captain was a shareholder. 
The player was given the 15% stake in the company on 22.03.2013. Why didn’t news break out then?
"As on date, MSD holds no shareholding in Rhiti Sports Management (P) Ltd. However, it is made clear that shareholding was allotted to MSD on 22.03.2013 only to secure certain old outstandings which were due for more than one year. Further, the payments were cleared in April 2013 and the shareholding was transferred back to promoter of the company on 26.04.2013," Rhiti Sports chairman Arun Pandey said in a statement.
If the shareholding was transferred back to promoter of the company on 26.04.2013, why did the media report Dhoni as a stake holder in the first week of June? Even if Dhoni was a stake holder and there was a conflict of interest, it was something to be reported along with sports news, along with updates about the French Open and Champions Trophy.
A sport related scandal does not affect a nation. Dhoni choosing Suresh Raina or Ravindra Jadeja or Pragyan Ohja over another player does not affect commodity prices, affect foreign policies, change legislation or bring loss to anyone outside the sport. So why are we so fixated on the scandal?
How can a nation of over a billion people have nothing better to do than worry about whether one millionaire is being chosen to play a sport and getting paid millions instead of another millionaire?
Maybe we focus on the trouble the famous people get into so that we can, at least for as long as the scandal lasts, take our minds off our own problems. Or maybe we love scandals because we are unconciously sadistic, deriving happiness from the failures and troubles of others. Whether we use it to take out minds off our problems or to derive happiness, we should learn from the rest of the world and reduce cricket scandals to the sports pages and not interfere with the reporting of other stories.