Articles

Sports: Another Communal Entity in India-Where Minus Sportiveness, Plus Alienation is the Overarching Policy

By Pitambar Naik

When someone asks, “Why can’t you (Indians) pursue sports with staggering spirits? Why can’t you be like the Chinese lions in competitions? Why can’t you achieve more than your neighbours?” People respond in many different ways hurling scores of disgruntled ripostes and most of them opine that India is an emerging global power. How sycophants we are! We are desperate in all areas of life including sports. Let India be good in sports in Asia first. How many brilliant sprinters have been groomed after PT Usha declared her retirement? So murky and disgusting is the scenario that is beyond our imagination. After sanskritising social systems- education, religion, economy, health, culture, and everything the protagonists of the higher gods communalized sports in recent centuries. Women in sports in India seldom get prerequisite coaching and moral supports and boost from their families as well as from the government.

They encounter discrimination on a daily basis in every domain in their athletic career. Instead of availing them veracious sports ambience; often they are humiliated and even sexually assaulted by their male counterparts. Deep-rooted deprivation and centuries old alienation of Dalits, Adivasis and women are some of the reasons that push India to a corner. India always wrestles with socio-cultural schizophrenia alienating a large chunk of people and depriving them of their due rights. They face the same treatment even in the sports. It so happens that innumerable brilliant and promising sports personnel emerge from the abyss of socio-cultural and economic alienation but the social cruelty and apathy shatters their  hope soon as they march forward. A few months after winning a bronze medal for India in the last Olympic, Mary Kom said, “I would definitely have outshone all others, if I had better ambience and privileges like my counterparts.” This country witnessed to the greatness of hockey legends like Dhyanchand and Jaipal Singh Munda and both were from the suppressed communities. Today how poorly are they remembered? Caste, community and communal inclinations play the biggest role in India to motivate and illegitimate country’s growth and upward mobility.

Vinod Kambli a superb cricketer from Maharashtra when he was inducted into the Indian cricket team; he performed extraordinarily stunning. Later he was scrapped of the team forever it was definitely a well thought conspiracy of BCCI to bulldoze the gusto of children of the lesser gods. Did not this sports man possess the stamina of real sportiveness as others? Did not this cricketer exhibit the spirit of subliminal order in the ground? Certainly he did. No matter how excellent upbringing he or she accesses in the field. It’s absolutely the prerogatives of caste and culture of an individual that mould and shape his or her career here in India.

How many of us remember Limba Ram another incomparable sportsman (archer) from Rajasthan who took Indian archery to the new heights. In fact, it was this diminutive (as people interpret) tribal boy who shaped and dramatically changed this segment of sport to be of the higher facade. He represented India to scores of international events and brought innumerable medals including gold multiple times lifting the zeitgeists of the nation. It was this tribal boy who penned a new history in the field of archery. But nobody remembers him now; simply because he was a tribal.

All these talented sport personalities have emerged from the abyss of socio-cultural dehumanization and corrupt inhuman systems that always have crippled them to excel in India. Can the Sports Authority of India and the concerned departments of both state and central government assess the factors of India’s dismal performance in international sport events? Why does China our neighbor outperform us and compete with the US today?

If these suppressed communities can produce stalwarts like Bichung Bhutia, Dillip Tirkey and Pithu Marandi the legends of Indian hockey and football; then why can’t they give birth to the next big things India wants? What are our loopholes? Do we ever regret when we lose in the international sport events? Innumerable times we have been humiliated in all spheres of athletics, because we are incorrigible. The interests and future of the caste is always more important than the interests of the country. What was our medal tally in the last Olympic. Where were China and other European countries? Let the ruling class of India be repentant of its sin. Sports reflect a country’s integration, unity and oneness. Sports need to be above caste, religion and race let the merit class of this country be ashamed of this.

About the Author: Pitambar Naik is from Odisha and based in Hyderabad in India. He is a widely published poet and advertising copywriter. He can be reached at [email protected]

One Comment

  1. Excellent Pitambar