No sports please, we're Indian

India betrays a lack of appreciation for the 'soft power' of sporting glory by setting its sights so low that we have to be satisfied with that solitary medal or odd victory in cricket

Anybody who watched Akhil Kumar take out the bantam-weight boxing world champion at the Olympics on Independence Day must have got an instant shot of serotonin in the brain and resumed whatever they were doing with added zing.

Once the serotonin wears off, however, will come the nagging question: Does a nation of more than a billion people with an obvious passion for sport, and a sporting culture that goes back ages, not deserve more than its meagre handful of sporting heroes? 

This becomes more evident, in fact, when the whole nation erupts with joy, and amazement, over the odd sporting glory - and goes back to sleep until the next oddity.

Everyone knows the dismal state of our sports administration, infrastructure, and resources, and seems sanguine about it too. After all, isn't it more important to build roads, fight terror, and manage the economy?

At least, that seems to be the attitude of those running the country; who don't seem at all perturbed that there is no systematic effort or significant commitment of resources to promote greater achievements on the sports field than we have had so far.

I mean, is it likely that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is bothered that India has just lost a Test series to its tiny neighbour in the south, which is no bigger than Kerala? Or that India has only progressed from one silver medal to one gold medal in four years at the Olympics?

Should he be bothered that billions of people watch Indian sportsmen cut a sorry figure, arousing sympathetic amusement among audiences in front of TV sets in homes, offices, and public places?

To Chinese President Hu Jintao, in stark contrast, it matters a great deal. Two billion dollars is what China has spent just on the infrastructure at the Olympic venues, and Jintao says it's worth it. Experts worldwide have been busy analysing that intangible worth, ever since the stunning opening ceremony.

"If the Games go well, I think it will have a positive effect on China's global diplomacy and the confidence of its government," says professor David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University. Jintao has said in an interview that he's going to press forward with economic reform after the Olympics.

So, when US President George W Bush cheered the American basketball team as it comprehensively beat the Chinese 101-70, there was clearly more at stake than a ball game. It was no trifle that the 7-foot-6 Yao Ming, who plays for the Houston Rockets in the American basketball league, the NBA, carried the Chinese flag at the opening ceremony. It was a signal that China was ready to take on the sporting superpower USA at its own game.

India betrays a lack of appreciation of this so-called 'soft power', which is the spin-off from sporting glory, by setting its sights so low that we have to be satisfied with that solitary medal or odd victory in cricket.

Nobody really expects anything more than the rare triumph, usually the result of individual commitment, brilliance and accident of circumstance, even though all of us sit and watch hours and hours of Olympic programming, and that's the irony.

We have all got so conditioned to accepting India's gross under-achievement in sports that we have stopped asking why. Drowned in the euphoria over India's first individual gold medal at the Olympics was the reaction of its winner Abhinav Bindra: "In our country, Olympic sports are not really a priority, I hope now they will get more attention." High hopes, Bindra. Ask Rajyavardhan Rathore, who expressed similar sentiments after he became the only Indian to win a silver medal at the Athens Olympics, four years ago.

I suppose silver to gold has to constitute some progress, but the infinitesimality of that progress becomes apparent if you look at in per capita terms: One by billionth of a silver medal to one by billionth of a gold medal. Even in GDP terms, India's show at the Olympics is embarrassing because countries like Jamaica with GDPs much lower than that of India earn many more medals. Even Suriname got an individual gold medal 20 years before India.

The more important point, though, is it's no longer just about sport. In a globalised world, we should ask what sport can do for our national psyche, Brand India, and the way the world looks at us, our products and services.

And conversely, what is the intangible impact of the image of a poor, helpless, bumbling country that we project in the sporting arena on the way that countries, organisations and people around the world deal with us? How does it affect their attitudes toward everything Indian?

That India is not athletic, or that it lacks a sporting culture, are arguments that are easily disproved. Just look at examples of the few individuals who do make it against all odds with little support, and against opponents who are backed by a whole system designed to produce sporting excellence. Just look at the Indian in the US gymnastics team who has thrived in the American system.

When China committed itself to Project 119 eight years ago, after it won the right to host the Olympics, it was no hollow resolve. It poured money into more than 3,000 sports academies so that China could extend its sporting reach from things like diving and gymnastics and table-tennis - in which it had traditionally excelled - into the unexplored territory of the 119 events in track & field, swimming and water sports. The world is now waiting to see if China will topple the reigning superpower in Olympic sports, the United States, in Beijing.

Yes, nobody wants to see, in a liberal country like India, the military bootcamp methods of training that China appears to have borrowed from the erstwhile communist regimes in Eastern Europe. And okay, India still has a way to go in its economic growth before it is willing to match the kind of resources that China puts into its sports.

But, even then, to be able to win just a medal or two when its neighbour, which is also a developing country with a similar size and population, can aim to top the medal tally is not OK. It shows a lack of understanding of the potential benefits of sport, which "are not really a priority", as Bindra said after winning his Olympic gold medal.

And it's not just about the Olympics either. Take cricket, where India clearly has the passion as well as an abundance of talent, attracted by the oodles of money pouring into the game from private sponsors. And yet we go and lose to Sri Lanka, choosing to field a team with half its members being above the age of 35 and struggling for form and fitness.

With the number of people who take up the game in the country, our century-old culture of cricket, and the resources available for the sport, professional management and selection should make India the world champions in all forms of the game, considering that only seven other countries are any good at it. And yet, we have to be content with the odd one-day world cup way back in 1983, and the somewhat fortuitous twenty-twenty world cup enabled by the withdrawal of four ageing players of their own volition.
c_sumit@dnaindia.net