Is India ready to become a top sporting nation?.......... by SP Gurjot Singh Kaler

Chandigarh, August 9, 2021: The Tokyo Olympics is officially over. And Indians certainly have a big reason to cheer, congratulate and celebrate as the country has won 7 medals overall- a notable achievement as compared to India’s performance over the previous years at various Olympics. Innumerable cash rewards, prizes, jobs, etc., are being showered upon the medal winners from all corners of the nation. Going by past experiences, only the passage of time will tell if those cash rewards actually materialize or not.
 

It is a time of euphoria all over. After all, the shining gold medal won by Major Neeraj Chopra in Javelin throw has managed to make a billion plus nation smile and clap in unison. With Neeraj Chopra’s stupendous achievement, boisterous celebrations have rightly erupted across the length and breadth of India as the young lad has scripted history by becoming the first Indian to win a gold medal in track and field athletics at the Olympics. In the same breath, the silver medal won by charismatic Mirabai Chanu in weightlifting brought much-awaited tears of joy amongst the people.

An optimistic hope of rapturous days of Indian hockey came alive with Indian men’s team winning bronze at the world stage and a performance par excellence given by the Indian women hockey team instantly rekindled the old love for hockey across the nation. Wrestlers Ravi Dahiya and Bajrang Punia became the torchbearers of positivity and reignited the hope of millions of Indians as they wrestled their way to win silver and bronze medal respectively.

The power packed performance of PV Sindhu will remain etched in the memories for years to come as she determinedly fought her way to victory podium and clinched the bronze medal for India in Badminton and thus, made the Indians jump out of their seats in excitement and joy. Earlier, she had swelled our hearts with pride when she had won silver medal at the Rio Olympics.

With this Tokyo win, PV Sindhu has now become the first Indian women to win 2 individual medals at the Olympics. Similarly, the bronze medal won by Lovlina Borgohain in Women’s Welterweight boxing has made everyone take notice of our women’s strength at the mega-stage of sports. Overall, the Indian scene at the Olympics was not disappointing and the players gave their years of sweat, blood and toiled hard for making the tricolor fly high at the podium. 

Even though some of the players like Aditi Ashok in golf, Mary Kom in boxing, and others could not win medals, but still, it is needless to even say that their spirit to compete with the best of the best sportspersons at the international stage of sports deserves to be truly appreciated and applauded by all measures.

Now, since the prestigious games are all over, it seems like a right time to take stock of the entire situation before we get ready to launch ourselves into action mode for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

As we, Indians, rightly celebrate the achievements of our Olympic champions at Tokyo, one should not forget that there are certainly a lot of pending tasks which need to be urgently attended to and completed before we can actually take pride in calling ourselves a sports oriented nation. If we notice the socio-economic profiles of our sportspersons who have excelled at the Olympics, it is a foregone conclusion that most of them live in poor conditions and their parents struggle everyday to provide them proper diet and training which are the prerequisites for any sportsperson.

The training facilities for their nourishment and honing of sports skills is completely absent at the ground level. There are innumerable cases where the successive governments have desperately failed to provide basic amenities to the sportspersons and support them during their formative years. Lack of sufficient funds, absence of qualitative sports infrastructure at the village levels, non-availability of efficient coaches and corruption have marred the prospects of India to emerge as a sports oriented nation.

Even the one-sided over-indulgence of the Indian masses in the game of cricket has also somehow hampered the chances of other sportspersons in various events as the private sponsors seem disinterested to offer financial help or assistance to anyone else, other than the already super-rich cricketers. Honouring the Olympic medal winners can be described as a sort of sports fad in Indian mindsets which comes into existence only after a periodic gap of 3 years and is then conveniently forgotten until the next Olympics.

Indeed, it is a sad and depressing state of affairs to witness that for many of our sportspersons in India, it is a deep struggle to cater to their needs of food, shelter, clothing and job.

Performing well at the Olympics happens to be their only chance of getting a decent job afterwards and a financial gateway to become capable of taking care of their impoverished homes and families. Except a few privileged ones, the issue of ‘Roti’ and ‘Naukri’ (Food and Job) seem to be their real concern which eclipses their love for sports. Why cannot we support our sportspersons when they need us the most in their dire circumstances? Why do we appear on the scene to offer help to them only when they manage to win medals for us? Why not sufficient budgetary allocations are made annually like other American or European nations for promoting sports of all kinds at the grassroots levels?

Many parents in the Indian society do not want to take the risk of allowing their children to pursue sports as they are fearful of spoiling their wards future in the absence of any worthwhile financial opportunities for them in the later years of life. Not everyone is lucky or fortunate enough to win Gold, Silver or Bronze medals at the Olympics.

Does that mean we should only care for the medal winners and not inculcate and nurture the talent by promoting sports in the Indian way of life? It is not enough to just cheer for the medal winners, but to undertake a journey of deep introspection at the collective consciousness of the nation to understand that why despite a burgeoning population and presence of talented youth, we are still not able to compete effectively with other nations at the international stage of sports as we have failed to develop a sports culture in India and typically lag behind in research in the scientific aspect of sports.

We can say that our overall performance at Tokyo was good than Rio, but certainly not even close to what we aim at in terms of becoming a top sporting nation. The expected results will come only when we start treating sports as a way of life in India and begin to respect and support our sportspersons irrespective of their medal count.