How India keeps its athletes off the
podium By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It is a recurring theme every four
years - why does a country of more than a billion,
considered to be a future economic powerhouse, fail so
miserably on the world's biggest stage of competitive
sport? It has taken 100 years of participation in the
Olympic Games for India to bring home its first
individual silver medal. Army Major Rajyavardhan Rathore
won the medal for trap-shooting in Athens, which has
elevated him to icon status, felicitated by the nation.
Before Rathore, India won nine golds in field hockey and
three individual bronze medals, the first in 1952, then
1996 and one more in 2000.
Accounting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that India should win
10 medals in Athens, but as things stand, the Indian
challenge is almost over, with one last hope pinned on
long-jumper Anju George, who won a bronze at the last
world championship but faces stiff competition from the
likes of Marion Jones of the United States. But as one
views the progress of Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe,
Brendan Hansen, Paul Hamm, Amanda Beard, Justin Gatlin
and so many more sporting heroes, it is indeed sad to
note that the Indian anthem will in all likelihood not
be played in Athens this summer. Thus many are wondering
how such a large country - with so many Indians now
setting the standards of excellence in such diverse
professions - find such little success in Olympic
competition. China, with whom India likes to benchmark
in every sphere of achievement - except democracy - is
second in the Athens medals tally, after the United
States.
There have been various explanations
offered - from bureaucratic apathy, since Indian sport
is closely handled by the government, lack of funds and
infrastructure, Indians being innately non-athletic
(though Mohini Bhardwaj of Indian origin, who
represented the US in gymnastics, won a silver), the
sultry climate, or the over-emphasis of the youth on
cricket. Writing in the Indian Express, editor in chief
Shekhar Gupta says Indian sport will never reach golden
heights as long as the coaches have to report to a joint
secretary in the government of India and players, as
well as sports federations, have to depend on official
largess rather than private sponsors. M J Akbar, who
heads the newspaper Asian Age, says the only way India
can win an Olympic gold in the foreseeable future is if
cricket is made an Olympic sport.
Watching an
Indian athlete struggle is a sorry sight, but he/she
still deserves accolades for simply being there despite
the odds. Rathore's victory has been attributed to
individual perseverance and being an officer of the
Indian army, which has long tried to retain its credo of
heroism and sacrifice for the country, despite the
Defense Ministry maintaining a stranglehold on funds,
arms deals, transfers and appointments.
There is
another way of looking at India's abysmal performance,
and that is to fit sports into the development model of
pockets of high growth and brilliant individual
performance combined with other sections that continue
to languish. Sports, sadly, like so many other aspects
of Indian sub-sectors such as agriculture, primary
education, power supply, health care for the poor, and
road and rail infrastructure, falls into the category of
low growth, thanks to outdated technology, a lack of
investment and private sponsors, and government red
tape. It is also instructive to note that each of the
above low-yield and inefficient areas are closely
managed by the government.
Anju George recently
said, "If an Indian manages to win a medal in Athens, it
will be only because of her hard work and not due to any
help from the government authorities." Prominent
sportswriter Rohit Brijnath said, "What's galling, of
course, is that India does have talent. Potential
exists. But officials, who are world-class at arranging
junkets, are mostly unsure what to do with it. Imagine,
we can write software for the world but can't form a
coherent plan for our athletes." Rathore might have won
the silver, but the Indian shooting team has been
without a coach for more than two years now. Rathore
said financial insecurity and lack of resources are
major impediments in the field of sports.
Indeed, India and Indians have performed well
when the field has been open and the competition
unshackled. India's sunrise industry, information
technology (IT), has grown with the least amount of
government interference, generating more than 80% of its
revenues from overseas markets squeamish about quality
and cost. Cricket, which happens to be the sports
equivalent of India's IT and IT-enabled services
industry, is managed by a private board, the Board of
Cricket Control in India (BCCI), which is one of the
richest in the world. Its president, Jagmohan Dalmia, is
considered to be one of the most astute managers in the
country. The Indian Institutes of Technology and the
Indian Institutes of Management that have for so long
supplied the best engineers, software professionals and
managers across the globe have done so with the
strictest norms of merit and the least outside
interference in management. The telecom and
communications business, aviation, banking, computer
hardware, garments, automobiles, retail and hospitality
have all made great strides in the recent past because
of the advent of free spirit and competition. Inward
remittances by Indians working in the Persian Gulf
region and other countries form the largest component of
foreign exchange flowing into the country.
In
the United States and the United Kingdom, where the
playing field is more even, Indians have taken on roles
as the best doctors, engineers, nurses and teachers, and
are making their mark in other fields such as films (M N
Shyamalan, Gurinder Chaddha), investment bankers,
managers (Rajat Gupta, Rono Dutta, Rakesh Gangwal),
politics (Bobby Jindal), economics (Amartya Sen) and
even sports, as demonstrated by Mohini. The IT czars
include Sabeer Bhatia, Vinod Khosla, Gururaj Deshpande
... the list goes on and on.
The solution to
curing what ails India's sports program is the same as
that which has been tried the world over - decentralize
and privatize to allow the entry of private sponsors and
loosely regulated boards who take on the cause of an
athlete, manage his/her career from inception, build a
sports infrastructure and inject accountability, merit
and the creation of brand names that are good for
business. Such is the case with BCCI, where a mass of
young cricketers provide a base for choosing the best
talent. It is said that if the Indian government were to
spend US$1 million on each athlete, India would be on
top of the world. But the bigger worry is how much of
the money earmarked for athletics will actually trickle
down to the athlete. In the case of the government-run
poverty-alleviation programs, the most liberal estimate
puts the ratio at less than one-tenth.
Sports
today is about business and branding. The jargon used to
manage the stars is the same as one could find in a
power point presentation in any corporate boardroom. The
government has little place in such an environment.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
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