If it weren't so humiliating, it might actually be funny. Responding to allegations that dogs and shit (and dog shit) were to be found in abundance at the Commonwealth Games athletes' village, one organiser said, entirely without irony, that it was a "stray incident". Meanwhile, the chief minister of Delhi, where the Games are being held, tried to calm visiting delegations after a pedestrian footbridge collapsed outside the main venue. The bridge was only for the use of spectators, she told the press, not for athletes or officials. And even as one of India's leading newspapers ran a story calling India the world's third most powerful country, New Zealand – New Zealand! – flexed its little muscles and warned that the Games could be called off.
That, however, would be a shame. The Commonwealth Games must go on, not so much for what they actually are ("the third largest multi-sport event in the world") but for what they represent.
The Games, much like the organisation that spawned them, are often dismissed as a pointless anachronism. Why does the world need another grouping of nations? One whose members share nothing in common apart from a one-time oppressor, whose entry requirements include recognising the Queen as the head or you can't get in, and whose very name is factually inaccurate?
The answer is to be found in the question. Think of the Commonwealth as a scaled-up version of a support group for survivors of testicular cancer. We may not share much else but all of us are linked by this episode in our histories when our bodies were not our own. We're over it now but we still recognise that it changed us and binds us.
The Commonwealth is an acknowledgment of our shared histories: our bureaucracies, our strange systems of governance, our food and drink, our societal mores, our sports, our language. This is the wealth we share in common. They may not work as well as we would like them to, but like Cadbury's chocolate and cricket and chai in the morning, we think of them as ours, not foreign. Yet we are loth to admit it.
India romanticises Mogul rule while dismissing the Raj, even though both were invading forces. The normal explanation is that the Moguls mingled and stayed but the Brits kept to themselves and sent the country's riches elsewhere. But then ancient imperialists are always fondly remembered while more recent ones are vilified.
The Games are an acknowledgement that whether we like it or not, British culture is as much a part of modern India as that of our Mogul and Hindu rulers. They must go on, not only because they do really showcase modern India (as one newspaper editor tweeted, "Scrap the Games? Why? This is India. This is normal. Indian men pee everywhere. Indian dogs shit everywhere.") but because they have become a physical manifestation of the hallmarks of Commonwealth countries across Asia and Africa: corrupt, filthy and falling apart.
