Our population at 140 crores gives us the dubious distinction of being the most populated country in the world, aiming to be the 3rd largest economy with 80 crores population getting rations in doles. The Government says Rs 470 crores were spent on the Paris Olympics 2024 as per TV news, where we won 1 silver and five bronze medals with overall standing at 71th position along with Phogat’s painful episode with around eight sportsperson ending at 4th position. Imagine Phogat was not even on talking terms with the President of WFI at the Paris Olympics, who is tainted BJP politician Brij Bhushan’s coterie. Even Pakistan, with only one gold medal, is many notches above us, and Nadeem, who followed his role model Neeraj over the years, could beat Neeraj with over three 3-meter javelin throw margin. With a little more effort in professional training, motivation, and dedicated professional training staff of the former sportspersons heading the sporting institutions and federations, over some of the tainted political, sporting heads, most of them could be turned into bronze medals.
Frustratingly, the shooter Arjun Babuta, who was 4th in the Men’s 10 M Air Rifle Final in the Paris Olympics, stated that he did not get any support from the Punjab Government, including the promised government job some years back while many countries smaller than Punjab boasts of more gold medals alone than our complete medals tally. Poor infrastructure managed by our power hungry corrupt politicians over professionally trained sports persons and administrators, regional and caste muddled issues, corruption, and accepting bronze winning efforts as optimum are some of our major undoings. Antim Panghal was selected to participate in Vinesh Phogat’s original weight category at the Paris Olympics, forcing Phogat to select a lower weight. While Phogat suffered in the final by just being 100 grams overweight, Antim Panghal lost her bout in just 101 seconds to a Turkish opponent. Our WFI administrators’ selection of Phogat and Panghal was based on harassing and Panghal’s unwinnable capabilities.
We pride the nation on getting lower medals and still be happy that our golden boy has bagged a silver, stamping our mediocre thinking of ‘JO HUVA THEEK HUVA’ mentality. While our country is cricket crazy, imagine losing the T20 championship to Pakistan would be like a hurricane, but Neeraj losing gold to Nadeem still evokes a feeling of silver launching his country’s greatest-ever territory. While winning or losing is part of any competition, including sports, besides putting missionary zeal effort by sportsmen and women, fully dedicated teams of coaches, training facilities, infrastructure, medicos, nutritionists, support staff, and commitment to jobs after their short supporting careers are of paramount importance.
Power-hungry, all too powerful politicians like Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the BJP MP heading WFI, was forced to resign from the organization after allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation of women wrestlers, and his coterie Sanjay Singh was elected its president. Sanjay Singh is a member of the RSS, the BJP’s parent organization.
Our many sports like hockey, football, shooting, badminton, tennis, and athletics federations– are headed by politicians. Besides Sanjay Singh heading WFI, Ajay Singh, who coined the slogan ‘Ab ki baar Modi Sarkar’, is an active die-hard BJP worker. The Indian Football Federation is headed by former player Kalyan is, a member of the BJP, while the president of the IOA is legendary PT Usha, who is BJP nominated Rajya Sabha MP. Former national 100 m sprint record holder Moscow Olympian (1980) Sumariwala has been the only athlete president of the athletics body since 2012. It is a matter of pride Abhinav Bindra’s professional dedication & contribution towards shooting in Paris Olympics won him high commendation.
Needless to say, Jay Shah, son of the Home Minister Amit Shah, the non-playing cricketer, is the secretary general of the world’s richest and most powerful sports institution, BCCI, rather than Gavaskar, Kapil or Tendulkar. It is an accepted norm in a resource starved country like India, politicians play a big role in managing sports tournaments nationally and internationally, raising funds and pulling strings, while most of the former top players lack administrative skills to man big sporting federations and raise funds and like to be coaches and commentators or else why in Tokyo Olympics 2020, the Indian TV channels, instead of focusing on marching players, focused on Anurag Thakur, the then Sports Minister of GOI.
It’s high time our governments at the Centre and states re-evaluate our sporting policies and make significant changes. By appointing sports specialists, administrators, and support staff and by providing the necessary resources, infrastructure, and motivation, we can create the right environment for all sports to thrive. We need to shift our focus from mediocrity, corruption, and sexual harassment to providing equal opportunities based on merit. We should concentrate on sports where we have shown strength, such as cricket, hockey, boxing, shooting, weightlifting, badminton, wrestling, table tennis, and selected athletics events like javelin. We should also consider the inclusion of sports like cricket (T20), kabaddi, and kho-kho in future Olympics. If Breaking and Kite Flying can be included in the Paris 2024 Olympics, why not our traditional sports, too? To end, we are far, far away from our immediate geo-political rival, China, in all aspects except the population explosion.