Sachin Tendulkar Refuses the Government Bungalow

When Sachin Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2012, becoming one of the very few sportspeople to receive a nomination to the upper house of India's Parliament, the question of his entitlements as a Member of Parliament arose — including the question of whether he would accept a government bungalow in New Delhi.

Tendulkar's decision, announced June 9, 2012, to decline the government accommodation — the Type 7 bungalow at 5, Tughlaq Lane allotted to him as a Rajya Sabha MP — was noted with approval in the press. He told CNN-IBN he was "not keen on staying in any government bungalow when I will be in Delhi for only a few days," calling it a waste of taxpayers' money, and said the bungalow should go to someone who needed it more. The allotment of official bungalows to members of Parliament, ministers, and government officials had long been a source of controversy in India, with regular reports of properties being held well beyond permissible periods, of families occupying government housing years after the relevant official had vacated office, and of the general opacity around who was entitled to what and for how long.

Against this backdrop, a cricketing legend choosing not to claim a perk he was entitled to registered as a quiet statement about the right relationship between public service and private privilege. Tendulkar, whose commercial earnings from cricket and endorsements had made him extremely wealthy, had no material need for government accommodation. But many who do claim such perks have similarly limited material need — the issue is entitlement and the exercise of it.

His parliamentary tenure was viewed with mixed assessments. His attendance record at Rajya Sabha sessions was criticized as poor even by the undemanding standards of nominated members, and he acknowledged in later interviews that his cricketing commitments had made it difficult to engage substantively with his parliamentary responsibilities.

The bungalow decision was a moment of grace in a tenure that was otherwise unremarkable. For Tendulkar, as in cricket, it was the specific gestures that people remembered longest.

Source: Coastal Digest (June 9, 2012); see also myKhel.