Even as the Union sports minister, Vijay Goel, and his unruly cohort(group,समूह) bring disgrace upon the nation by bullying their way into prohibited spaces at Rio, our sportspersons have brought us little glory. Although hope lies undying within the human breast, it is highly unlikely that we will match our tally of the last Olympics.
I hasten to add that this is not in the
least the fault of our sportspersons. It is the inevitable consequence(result,परिणाम) of our never having had
a comprehensive sports policy aimed at developing a sporting culture to make
ours a sporting nation. Indeed, sports policy, such as it is, has been wholly
concentrated on funding sports bodies and administrators who are intent on living
in style while hoping that Lady Luck will produce some athlete or team that
will compensate for our being the worst performing large country in the world
of sport. If we do happen upon a Milkha Singh or a Dutee Chand, it is more
chance than an earnest search for catching them young and then assiduously(laboriously,परिश्रम से) nurturing them to
a world-class showing at the Olympics.
Indeed, what our sports administrators wish
to concentrate on is hosting mega-sporting events on which government, for
reasons of false prestige, goes out of its way to shower its largesse. We saw
this with devastating consequences at the Commonwealth Games, 2010, that did
more to sully our good name the world over than any failure in field and track.
×
The worst job I have ever held was as Union
sports minister, 2006-08. CWG ‘10 was under preparation and everyone expected
me to be a complaisant team player although I discovered within a few days of
taking the assignment that what it meant was that I ask the government for more
and more money while keeping prescribed financial procedures at bay as far as
possible. I repeatedly protested my reluctance(unwillingness,अनिच्छा) to be part of these
shenanigans and was eventually sacked — to my intense relief.
But before I was shown the door, I was
instructed to prepare a “comprehensive sports policy” to replace the few pages
of clichés prepared by the previous government. I got my 72-page document ready
within weeks but the Indian Olympics Committee got all sports bodies to boycott
the effort. I, therefore, submitted the paper as it was. A discussion on it in
cabinet was scheduled but, with a day or two to go for the discussion, I was
eased out and my successor’s first task was to withdraw the paper. When the new
government was formed in 2014, the new BJP minister (who has since been elevated to
chief minister, Assam) requested me for a copy. I sent it to him. I was then
asked for another copy by Vijay Malhotra of the IOA, who, as the
longest-serving sports administrator in the country, has been responsible for
more sporting disasters than several of his colleagues combined. However, I
complied post-haste with his request. That is the last I have heard of it.
The gravamen of my paper, based on
constitutional provisions relating to sports, numerous(many,बहुत से) expert committee reports
since Independence, repeated parliamentary standing committee recommendations,
the Olympics Charter and a host of UN declarations on education and sports to
which we have subscribed, and recent and earlier policy statements at the level
of PM and below, was that we cannot win medals before first becoming a sporting
nation. Instead of waiting for talent to appear out of the blue, we must create
a national sports culture, fostering(nurture,विकसित) a nation-wide sports consciousness and building a
reservoir of sporting talent by providing universal access to sports, as other
comparable countries have done.
The paper drew on 2000 data (this now needs
updating) to show that China had created 6,20,000 sports facilities with
3,50,00 popular sports instructors and another 1,00,000 part-time trainers,
working through some 40,000 grassroots sports associations, to involve an
estimated 37 per cent of its population in physical education and sports
activities stretching across all age groups. India, on the other hand, was
estimated to have provided access to sports to no more than 5 crore out of its
77 crore population of youth and children. In consequence, where China had won
a total of 379 medals in recent Olympic and Asian Games put together, India’s
tally stood at a meagre 55.
The paper pointed also to little Cuba’s astonishing(surprising,आश्चर्यजनक)
score, in the Olympics and Pan-American Games
put together, of 179 medals, amounting to an average of 157.2 medals for every
10 million of its population as against India’s 0.5 medals for every 10 million
of our population. It was stressed that out of some 11.5 million people, Cuba
had 2 million “recognised athletes”, of whom 23,000 were in the “high
performance” category spread over 38 sporting disciplines, trained by 1,20,000
retired sportspersons and 48,000 professionals, leading to this tiny island
inhabited by fewer people than are to be found between the Jawaharlal Nehru
Stadium and the Yamuna Sports Complex at Surajmal Vihar, New Delhi, becoming
one of the best performing countries in the Olympics.
Drawing from the experience of China and
Cuba, the paper laid out a strategy for adopting their methodology to the
Indian reality. The Action Plan comprised nearly a hundred steps to be taken,
and is too detailed to be summarised in this article. It broadly aimed at
securing “sports for all” through promoting universal access to sports. Besides
schools from the primary level upwards, the three-tier Panchayati Raj system
was to be involved through the already-launched Panchayat Yuva Khel aur Krida
Abhiyan and the 2.5 lakh clubs of the Nehru Yuva Kendras (since abandoned(leave,छोड़ना)by the BJP ministers).
Scientific talent-spotting was to be encouraged through district and
sub-district sporting competitions, followed by an elaborate system of
specialist sports training with suitable nutrition at special education
institutions that combined normal school and college education with
overwhelming emphasis on sports for selected sportspersons of exceptional
talent. Promotion of indigenous sports and the preparation of a sports grid and
sports mapping to monitor what disciplines of excellence were emerging in which
parts of the country was emphasised. That, not squandering(waste,व्यर्थ) tens of thousands of
crores on hosting mega-sports events, is the way forward to medals and to
national glory.
courtesy:indian express
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