HAS INDIA ALWAYS HAD A STRONG SPORTING CULTURE

 A particular emphasis has been placed in the current government’s policy documents on the idea that India always had a strong culture towards sports. While probing this further, we came across a fascinating book, Nation at Play, written by Ronojoy Sen, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore. In his book, he traces the history of sports in India from the very beginning – the ancient and medieval periods – to contemporary times.

The role of caste in accentuating socio-economic inequalities can hardly be understated. In the context of sports, Sen notes that India’s culture and caste traditions have played a role historically, since social stratification meant different castes tended not to play together.

There have been mentions of sports in some rudimentary form of fitness activity or entertainment throughout the ages. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata mention chariot racing, hunting, wrestling, swimming and archery as forms of training and entertainment. Caste barriers had a huge role to play in access to sports. For Kshatriyas or the warrior royal class, sports served as a necessity and a pastime. Some sports such as archery and those involving horse riding, chariot racing and polo were restricted to their class, Sen writes.

India’s progress in international sporting competitions: Olympics and Asian Games

Sports in India are a part of Indian culture. India has many traditional sports such as kabbadi, kho kho, pehlwani, and gilli-danda. Also, there are sports which were imported from the West such as football, rugby union, cricket, golf, tennis, squash, hockey, Javelin throw, boxing, snooker, and billiards.

Today sport emerges as an important component of socio-economic development of a country. The active participation in sports improves community health and productivity, reduces medical expenses, imbibes discipline in character and enhances social cohesion.

India is continuing its dismal Olympic performance this time too. Since the inception of the Olympics in 1900. In the last 121 years, we have got 28 medals till 2016. We aren’t going to add significantly to this tally. If we take medals per population, we are at rock bottom in the ranking. We are the second-most populous country in the world. China, the most populous country globally, started participating in the Olympics in 1980 after a long hiatus. In the brief period of 1984 to 2016, China had added 224 gold, 167 silver and 155 bronze to its kitty, totalling 542 medals in just 32 years. 

Like most other parameters, in sports too we lag behind our neighbour by a ridiculously huge margin. Nothing exposes the hollowness of our superpower pretensions other than our mediocre performance in the sports arena. Unlike other parameters like per capita income, the standard of living measurements, HDI etc., where our dismal performance goes unnoticed except in academic circles, our pathetic performance in sports gets rubbed on our face every Olympics or Asian Games. Theoretically, India should be dominating every sport.

We are 135 crore people, and it shouldn’t be challenging to find a champion in every conceivable sport. We are an ethnically diverse country with almost all races living in India. We have blessed weather with various climatic conditions, from snow-filled mountains to steaming tropics. Every possible sport could be played in India, almost throughout the year. Yet, year after year, we fail even to qualify in most international sports, let alone excel in them. Many reasons like government apathy and lack of infrastructure have been ascribed to this abysmal performance. There can be no doubt that India lacks world-class infrastructure for sports. But is the

government apathy the only reason for this sad state of affairs? Then what makes poor countries that are smaller than an average Indian district produce more Olympic golds in a single Olympics than we have earned since the beginning of modern Olympics?

The reason may lie in our culture and tradition. The privileged of India had never placed any value on sports or adventure. The caste system glorified intellectual achievements over physical ones. We are not overflowing with Nobel laureates and genius inventors; even in that, we have a ridiculously low achievement rate. Physical labour and activities were always meant for the so-called lower castes. Thanks to the rigidity of the caste system, group sports activities involving people from varied backgrounds were and are still rare. The elite of India never placed a premium on adventure or sports.