7. Ray of Hope

 Amidst the constant threats of corruption, government’s indifference towards sports, its funding, there still lies a ray of hope, for a better and developed future of Indian sports.

We hope to see our sub-continent flourish in International sports with medals, trophies and every Indian sportsperson acknowledged equally, irrespective of the sports they play or society they belong to.

The emergence of IPL, ISL or Pro-kabaddi marked the emergence of young brilliant sports talents in the nation as well as, hugely boosted the interest of Indian population towards games like kabaddi and Indian football.  For example, many of the current players in the Indian Cricket team have come up from the IPL teams. Moreover ownership of the teams by eminent personalities like Shahrukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan , Ranbir Kapoor etc. attracts the common mass.

So, certain modifications in the field of Sports can pave newer avenues for its development:

  Sport federations may be freed from government control by promoting a multi-stakeholder approach. Private ownership of teams or training camps should be encouraged to guarantee transparency.

  To involve independent ombudsmen to settle conflicts to bring in accountability

  State responsibility to promote different sports among young India by providing infrastructural development at school and college level.

  The mentors work can be acknowledged and credited for the successes achieved by trainees under them in fields of badminton, boxing, wrestling, shooting, etc.

Indian society is largely influenced by promotions, advertisements, campaigns-in short, the ‘Media’. Hence, there is a need of better projection of vitality of sports by the media and the Government. The Government should revise their policies towards sportsmen and assure them a secured future in the field.

6. Prejudice of Cricket over other Sports

Cricket is a game that has dominated the country for the last 20 years. At any point if sports are mentioned in and about India, it usually is cricket. Ever since the Indian cricket team won the world cup in 1983, it has become the centre of attention in the sports world, side-lining many sports, including the national sport of the country, hockey.Ever since then most of the government funds have been utilised to make our countries cricket team one of the best in the world. Even the private companies started to invest in cricket, using the fame of the cricketers to advertise their products. This catapulted the cricketers to a new level of fame, alongside movie stars and singers. Even though this has helped make the Indian cricket team as one of the best, it has cast a long shadow over other sports. Many sports like football, hockey, badminton, swimming, athletics etc. have been neglected. This has led to the youth ignoring these sports altogether. This also leads to lack of equipment and grounds to practice on. If even a small part of what goes to cricket goes to some of the other sports it really helps.

Cricket also siphons a lot of money and publicity through IPL(Indian Premiere League) where players are bought at a ridiculous amount’s and plenty sponsorship deals and publicity deals are struck. Also this league has become a game for the rich to play orfor fights to be ignited between people of different states. Since cricket is almost considered a religion all across India it is a hard to be exposed to any other sport.

Here are some of the sports that could have become a major sport in India if it was given the same amount of attention as cricket:-

1.   Football-These are one of the sports that could have really taken flight with the amount of talent among the youngsters but failed as the government did not spend enough money on the sport to even give the players normal jerseys or give them the pitch and equipment required to play at par with the other international teams. Also most students wouldn’t even consider it as a job as most of the football players in the state end up doing an odd end government job or taking up part time jobs to support their career. This is not a job what any children would want take up. The government has also let us down by not letting us have the opportunity to make a mark in the world of football. We can take the example of the 1950’s world cup where FIFA asked India to play and even offered to cover a big part of the expenses but the authorities refused saying that the players are not used to playing barefoot.
2. Hockey-Once considered one of the best sports in India, hockey has fallen a long way . Hockey players are not being given their worth even after winning world championships. For example India`s triumph at the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy.The peanuts offered to the team, a paltry sum of Rs 25,000 to each member of the winning squad was met with apt criticism and dejection. Even though, the government tried to save its face by increasing the amount and coming out with a list of its benevolence dished out for hockey and other sports in the country, the damage was already done.In fact, the ailment is a combination of different elements- maladministration, internal politics, lack of funds and the foremost; missing infrastructure.
3. Olympic Sports (Athletics, shooting etc.)-In terms of population size and medals won, there is no worse Olympic performer than India. It seems strange that a country of more than 1.2 billion people can only collect an average of less than one medal per Games. Beijing 2008 was India’s most successful Olympics to date; it finished with one Gold and two Bronze medals. That is over 383 million people per medal, the highest ratio of all competing nations at Beijing.Poor infrastructure and governance are playing their own role in this. Lack of facilities at grass root level is another problem. If an athlete belongs to a village then there is no way to practice and move forward. Poor transportation and many such hurdles break the enthusiasm of players. Experts believe that lack of social mobility and poor infrastructure are also the reasons for India’s poor performance in Olympics.Government should provide funds to train budding sportspersons. There should not be any discrimination, reservation and biased opinion while selecting the sportsperson for Olympics or other such events. Every sport in India must be encouraged like Cricket so that players can play with full enthusiasm.

I conclude this assignment by saying that even though in the recent years there have been improvements in terms of recognition of sports other than cricket, but there is still a long way to go. We can take examples from countries like Australia or China and give equal importance to different sports so that one day India can be a country that is known for multiple sports, not just one.

5. Corruption in Sports

Sport (UK) or sports (US) are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Usually, the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other.

India is home to a diverse population playing many different sports across the country. Cricket is the most popular sport. Football is the popular sport in some of the Indian states. The country has won eight Olympic gold medals in field hockey, another popular game in India. Kabaddi, an indigenous sport is popular in rural India. Several games originated in India including Chess, Snooker and other regional games. India has won medals in Badminton, Kabaddi, Hockey and many other sports and disciplines. Until today, Cricket is the most played sport followed by Badminton and Football. Cricket is also the most popular sport in India, the other popular spots being Badminton, Football, Tennis, Hockey, and Kabaddi.

Though sports are very entertaining, it also has corruption. This is a bitter truth of today’s world. This has become a thought-provoking topic for every individual associated with sports and the earnest spectator of it. Recognized faces in sports have charges against them for corruption. Today, corruption plagues all major Indian sports, including cricket, hockey, weightlifting, and athletics.

The first major sporting scandal was reported during the 1990s. It involved match-fixing by Indian cricketers through a Protean bookie, Mukesh Gupta. This scandal led to the fall from grace of cricketing demi-gods, namely, the then skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, ManojPrabhakar, NayanMongia and Ajay Sharma. The decision by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was to ban Azharuddin for life and Ajay Jadeja for five years. This sent a strong message to Indian cricketers and match-fixing had reduced drastically.

Corruption in the famous Indian Premier League (IPL) dates back to 2013, where three famous cricketers namely, Sreesanth, AjitChandila and AnkeetChavan had been arrested by the Delhi Police. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had suspended the players till further investigation. On the above context, BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdalehad said, "The BCCI is shocked and saddened at the recent developments. The BCCI has zero tolerance to corruption. We will offer all cooperation to the Delhi police and all other authorities in their investigations in this matter. The IPL Governing Council has met and decided that the cricketers found involved will be dealt with severely." On 4 June 2013, Delhi Police said that Sreesanth, Chandila, Chavan and 23 other people arrested by them in the spot-fixing scandal were going to be charged with the provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) since they were acting under the command of underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and ChhotaShakeel.

Sreesanth, AnkeetChavan and 17 other people (including 14 alleged bookies) who were arrested by the Delhi Police were released on bail on 10 June 2013 by a Delhi court due to lack of evidence to be charged under MCOCA. AjitChandila had not applied for bail.

The 2010 IPL franchise bidding process also led to the resignation of ShashiTharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs, whose friend and current wife, SunandaPushkar, was alleged to have received $15 million in ‘sweat equity’ from one of the franchises.

In June 2010, appalled by the Commonwealth Games corruption scandal, former Indian Olympians launched the Group of Clean Sports India to raise public awareness and fight corruption in sports. In a short time-span, the group has enlarged its support base and campaigned hard to oppose politicians with no sports background from entering and contesting for executive positions in sports bodies.

The 2010 Women’s Hockey World Cup, held in New Delhi, was hit by a financial corruption scandal involving the Federation of International Hockey (FIH), Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and HI. Suresh Kalmadi, the IOA chief, was again said to be involved in financial corruption during arrangements for the World Cup. IHF was suspended in 2008 by the IOA over an alleged bribery for selection scandal. In addition, sex scandals involving the coach of the women’s hockey team, and favoritism and bribery for selection in the men’s team, have tarnished the image of both the federations and brought Indian hockey to an all-time low.

In July 2011, the Indian Sports Ministry sacked Yuri Ogrodnik, the Ukrainian coach of Indian Athletics, after six female 400 meter runners, a female shot-putter and a male long-jumper all returned positive results in doping tests, marking the rapidly growing trend of banned substance abuse among Indian athletes.

While the government fails in the first instance to weed out systemic corruption, the prospect of clean sports appears grim. The Indian government is currently at loggerheads with a civil society movement spearheaded by veteran social activist, Anna Hazare, over the passing of the Jan Lokpal Bill 2011 for the creation of a Lokpal (Ombudsman). The Bill is aimed at fighting corruption in government offices and the judicial machinery, and also covers various sports bodies. The Lokpal or Ombudsman will be empowered to act on complaints and to take suomoto actions, investigate matters, determine penalties and blacklist entities. The government is dragging its feet over the scope of the Lokpal bill.

Bibliography:

Wikipedia.org

Transparency International (2010) Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 [http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results]

4. Women in Sports

Cricket is considered equal to a national religion, while hockey is our national game. However, given a choice, people would rather watch a men's hockey match than a women's cricket match.

Women having bringing India to the forefront in sports for a very long time, but haven’t got the attention they deserve. In a country like India with its regressive mindset especially in the rural areas, it is very difficult for anyone to get proper recognition in sports and being a woman means it’s much harder; especially if she hails from the rural parts of India.

This is due to women being traditionally considered as the weaker or inferior sex. The divide between rural and urban area also decreases the number of sports personality that India produces, be it men or women.  In the Indian society, education is given more importance than sports.

Throughout human history, the role of women in sports has reflected the changing status of women in society. This is because sports has always considered a man’s domain, right from the time of the first Olympics. Nowadays, many Indian sportswomen have been excelling in the national and internationalscience as well.  Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Mary Kom are some of them who are bringing women's sports to the forefront. Even then, the journey has been more tedious for Mary Kom than Saina Mirza or Saina Nehwal who’ve been brought up in more urban areas.

Another issue is that women are under-represented in the leadership of sport. The number of women coaches, directors of sport organizations, physical education teachers, and researchers is very small. Hidden curriculum at school, which covertly imposes womanliness or manliness upon children and fixes gender roles in society, is another problem. It is urgent that we create a society, where every woman and man can play and enjoy sports regardless of gender or sex.

3. Society's perspective towards Sports

The people who get into the depths of the field of sports are the ones, who would be able to fathom the reasons, pertaining to the problems of sportspersons. In the countries, where sports academies or training centers are well-equipped and supported financially by government bodies or private sectors, sports persons have chance to excel. They have the confidence to select any sport as a choice of career and even discontinue education.

Indian society encourages you, to aspire to be a doctor, engineer, banker, government employees or even actors, or anything that comes with a certainty to earn your life. The maximum a parent can think in the field of sports, is a career in cricket, especially after the emergence of the glamorous Indian Premiere League!

Can you find anyone around you assuring you a career in short-put? Who knows about Heptathelon, rowing etc.? How many of us can imagine ourselves watching the short-put game in series like Olympics or Asian Games? How many of us have at least read about Inderjeet Singh, India’s first track and field athlete to qualify for the Rio Olympics, who has set a benchmark of 20.65m in short-put in the 19^th Federation Cup in Mangalore.   Yet throughout his career, he received no financial assistance from the Government, sponsors or the federation, and so currently he is in huge debts.

Most of the Indian mountaineers share a similar ethos as they arrange the huge sum of money for any expedition, on their own, from their savings, taking massive loans, selling jewelry or mortgaging the properties.

Things get more difficult and discouraging for a sportsperson with fake promises and unjust prejudice by the Government towards them. Mohammad Asab, a Commonwealth Games broze medalist was promised a Government job by the State Chief Minister. Sadly, he is still struggling to get his file passed for that job.

One of the recent example, is the World renowned badminton champion Saina Nehwal’s rejection to the Padma Bhushan claim. She openly protested about the injustice she faced, from the sports ministry of India.                                                   Check the link: http://www.abplive.in

These few stories are like drops in the oceans. Financial constraints, gender bias, fake assurances form the root cause of societal unacceptance of a sports career. Certain sprots like golf, are not even affordable for the middle class and hence comes the class-based discrimination in sports.  Can a common man afford a quality bicycle worth more than 2 lakhs ?

India is a country where the most talked about topics include cricket, Bollywood and politics. So often Indian athletes are either carried away or are compelled to drift their career from sports to fields of entertainment, like acting, modeling, business or even politics to safeguard their living.

2. Negligence of Indian Government

          “If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not you will find an excuse”—this statement seems to reflect the perspective of Indian Government when it comes to national sports. Our present Sports Minister Sarbananda Sanowal(2014-) of the Bharatiya Janata Party after taking charge of his post put front his vision to make his ministry “important and visible”. When quizzed further about his priorities, he said, “Some other day I will talk about my future plan and action. I will discuss matters with sports experts and sports personalities of the country to carry out my functions and responsibilities effectively.”

          Our question to Mr.Khel Mantri is how far has he achieved his vision to make sports significant in the last 2 two years? Where does Indian Sports stand currently in the International Level?

Reality Check! The only sports promoted and developed the most in India since Independence, is cricket.

          It is pathetic, when World Boxing Champion, like, Mary Kom was unknown to the nation until she won the Olympics. Even then, her stardom was too short-lived and she was not a familiar face of Sports to the nation. It was the Biopic movie (Mary Kom: 2015) enacted by Priyanka Chopra that brought her into the lime light. As she confessed, before the release of the movie , the western world did not properly acknowledge her as an Indian. Quoting her, “If people like it(film) then it could happen. Promotion is necessary. Just like Kabbadi and Football. The country is getting medals in individual sports like archery, weight-lifting, wrestling and with promotion more medals can come in future.

         Leave alone the endeavor to enhance the psychological and mental well-being of sportsmen, which is important, government’s negligence to sports is evident from meager budget of sports federation, abysmal sports infrastructure, hostel facilities of SAI(Sports Authority of India), training camps etc.

            The Sports Federations in other countries are multi-stakeholder in nature. On the contrary, in India these institutions are under the State control. Most of the training centers in India and sports federations are managed by inefficient and unskilled politicians and bureaucrats, who care about money and not medals. This results in nil innovations in the field.

            “The subject ‘Sports’ does not figure in the Concurrent list of the Constitution of India therefore, it is only the State Legislature that is competent to legislate in relation to any matter concerning sports. It was also conceded that any issue concerning NSF can only be raised by the concerned officer appointed by the concerned State Government under which the society is registered. It was conceded that even the guidelines for assistance for NSF comes under the subject ‘Sports’ in the State List, therefore the Union Government does not have any mandate to frame rules/ legislate on any matter related to Sports. Since the subject Sports does not come under the Union List, the Sports bodies cannot participate in any manner in “International Conference / Association”.

           -these Laws themselves portray the ignorance of Sports by the Government and the Legislature.

1. Introduction

  

How many of us have been genuinely interested in a particular sport at some point of time in life and have thought of making a career out of it in future? And how many of us, among them, have gained support and encouragement from the parents or teachers?

Alas! In Indian set-up, it is very rare!

Indeed, there are some solid reasons for this pessimistic approach.

 The reasons of lack of societal support to a sports career may be traced to Indian government’s attitude  towards national sports, their lack of support and funding into it.

In a country of 1.3 billion(in 2016) people, it is hard to believe that we cannot even afford one representative in each sport in international series like Olympics, Commonwealth games, Asian games etc.

In India, a country, set to become the ‘youngest country’ in the world by 2020, it is extremely disappointing to notice the lack of indulgence of the youth in sports.

Our blog focuses on some of the basic probable causes of this:

   Lack of infrastructure: not enough facility of sports in every district, for example absence of Badminton Court, Tennis Court, stadiums etc.

    Low Income :non-affordability by middle class

   Career consciousness : instability and insecurity of career; prejudice of sports

    Lack of political will :sports promotion restricted to some sports only

    Unawareness – common people unaware with the games, played in Olympics.