A cabinet reshuffle in a Central government is not something that will be the hot potato in any significant conversation. But when the reshuffle happens in the central government of the world’s largest parliamentary democracy, Bharat, or India as the world knows better, it certainly does. The third cabinet reshuffle in Modi government once again upset the equations in the way the duo of Modi and Shah are experts at. While Nirmala Sitharaman’s unexpected appointment as the Defence Minister literally duct taped the overactive feminists of this nation [Yes, I’m not kidding, they all are at a loss right now], Piyush Goyal’s promotion as the Railway Minister promises brighter days for the rail services, which are in a way the lifeline of India.
But the unexpected appointment of Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the legendary silver medalist shooter from double trap in Athens Olympics 2004, as the Sports Minister, indicates a remarkable shift in the way sports is run in this nation. For a country, whose politics is notorious for trying to hoard money even from something as prestigious to the nation’s honor as the Commonwealth Games of 2010, this is something that indicates that Bharatiya Janata Party is in for serious business, and it actually means to take Indian sports forward, and not mislead the nation and mint millions as Congress Party and other power hungry, pseudo secular parties have done for years.
Barring the era of 1950-1967 [the only thing Jawaharlal Nehru did pretty well in his lifetime], India has not been a traditional sporting power, which is a surprise for a country with such a diverse history, and a penchant for martial arts, apart from the fact that we are the world’s second largest nation by population. It’s a matter of irony that a country with archers as skilful as Arjun, Eklavya, Durgavati etc. has not won a single medal till date at the Summer Olympics. The nation, for whom wrestling is a way of life, has won only 5-6 medals till date at the Summer Olympics, and a solitary gold at the World Wrestling Championships, with the highest being a silver that Sushil Kumar won way back in London 2012.
A country, with a diverse range of martial arts, ranging from Kalaripayattu to Gatka, is yet to strike a major blow in sports like judo, taekwondo, be it World Championships, or even the Olympics. In fact, if Indians have created any world records, it is surprisingly in differently abled sports. Our able bodied athletes haven’t won a single medal at the Olympics, and a one armed javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia is the official world record holder in the F46 category of javelin throw. In fact, he broke his own record only last year, at Rio Paralympics, where we won double the medals our able bodied counterparts did. This speaks volumes of our apathy towards sports, something which was an inherent part of our traditional Sanatani culture, right from the age of the Indus Valley Civilization! No wonder why we have one of the lowest Olympic medal to population ratio, with only 28 medals till date.
But with the advent of the Modi government, it seems that the lethal mix of bureaucracy and politics, which has murdered millions of champions who could’ve made the nation proud, is now dying a slow but excruciating death.
Yes, I agree that Colonel Rathore’s predecessor as a Sports Minister, Shri Vijay Goel, had a more controversial than successful tenure, and he was not exactly the best appointment with respect to the aspirations of the Indian sports.
The appointment of a sportsperson as a head of improving the sporting infrastructure is not something new. It was Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, the first Chief Minister of the state of Punjab, who appointed Milkha Singh, the legendary athlete who had missed the coveted Olympic medal in Rome Olympics by a tenth of a second, as the Deputy Director of Sports in 1960, a first in the entire Union of India. As long as he was on this post, he made sure that Punjab contributed well to the cause of Indian sports, which he implemented successfully. It was only when he retired in 1991 that Punjab’s influence in Indian sports began to wane, and the southern regions of India, and Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, apart from the northeast region, took over.
But BJP, learning from its own past mistakes, have turned over a new leaf. From 2014, since the time Modi took oath as a Prime Minister, BJP, be it in Centre or in the states where it rules, means strict business with respect to Indian sports. The very first change should’ve been visibile, when the Target Olympic Podium Scheme was set up, and a chosen breed of athletes, with huge potentials for winning Olympic medals, was chosen, given apt money and resources to train themselves for the same, the lack of which was a reason why we returned empty handed for 16 long years, during 1981 to 1996.
When TOPS was set up, in a significant departure from the Indian norms of mixing bureaucracy with sports, sportsperson were given the charge of administrative posts. Anju Bobby George, who till date remains the only Indian able bodied athlete to have won medals at the World Championships in Athletics, was appointed as the head of this scheme, with respect to specifically identifying the potential candidates and following members, who themselves had an illustrious record, were appointed as co members:-
- Abhinav Bindra, rifle shooter, who till date, is the first and the only individual Olympic gold medalist from India [Men’s 10 m. Air Rifle]
- Hmangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, 5 time world champion, Asian Games Gold Medalist 2014 and the first woman boxer to have won an Olympic medal for India [Women’s Flyweight [51-53 kg.], London 2012]
- Pullela Gopichand , All England Championship winner and coach of Saina Nehwal and Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, the badminton gladiators of India
- Karnam Malleshwari, the only World Championship champion and the first Indian woman to win an individual medal in Olympics in the sport of weightlifting
Even though the committee has not got expected results in Rio Olympics, with only a few sparks dominating the otherwise drab campaign for India, they did register a successful stint with Rio Paralympics, where India got 2 gold [a history in itself], a silver and a bronze medal in all.
Even then, following athletes proved that Narendra Modi’s initiatives to improve Indian sports didn’t miss the mark completely:-
- Dipa Karmakar, one of the few gymnasts in the world who can execute a Produnova successfully, who created history by qualifying for the vault finals, though she missed the podium by a thousandth of a point. She is a promising gymnast who can do what we couldn’t in the past.
- Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, a consistent shuttler, who created history by cruising into the finals of Women’s Singles event at Rio Olympics 2016 in badminton, and lost after giving a tough fight to Carolina Marin. She had to experience the same unfortunately in the recently concluded World Badminton Championships, where she missed the gold by a whisker, losing to the shuttler she defeated in Rio to enter the finals, i.e. Japanese stalwart Nozomi Okuhara.
- Sakshi Malik, who surprised one and all by snatching the bronze medal from the jaws of the defeat in the final seconds of the repechage round, pinning down Aisulu Tynebekova of Kyrgyzstan by 8-5.
That’s not all. I observe many jokes on Modi government doing nothing for Indian sports. If that was so, what is this? I know, Modi government is not directly responsible for everything, but if one can credit Congress for the wins in ICC Cricket World Cups, then why not for the following:-
- India winning gold at the Asian Games in field hockey after 16 years
- India standing Runners Up at the FIH Hockey Champions Trophy
- India winning a gold medal in World Junior Athletics Championships [Neeraj Chopra creating a world junior record in Javelin Throw. He was also a part of the Target Olympics Podium Scheme]
- India winning the FIH World Junior Hockey Championship 2016 without conceding a single match
- Indian women’s cricket team reaching the finals of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2016, after a long haul of 11 years etc.
- India winning the Kabaddi World Cup and the Asian Games gold medal
While how Modi government contributed to the above is always up for a healthy discussion, provided logic is included, Modi government never ignored the winners. Even the women’s cricket team, who lost in the finals by a whisker against the English girls, were royally treated and lauded by the Central government, especially Narendra Modi, who rated them as winners all along.
While everyone talks of the comprehensive victory of BJP in Uttar Pradesh, and also debates on the controversial appointment of priest cum politician Ajay Singh Bisht alias Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of the same, none noticed something that most Chief Ministers refrain to do. His predecessor, Akhilesh Yadav, did promote sports, but never opened the doors for sportspersons to join the Cabinet. But Yogi Adityanath did, and how? He appointed Chetan Chauhan, an illustrious cricketer, who was also a successful opener with Sunil Gavaskar in Test cricket, though without any century, was appointed as the Sports Minister in the Yogi cabinet that was inducted in late end of March, 2017.
Besides Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who is now the new Sports Minister of India needs no special introduction. An illustrious army officer who once fought the enemies of the nation, he is known for legendary comeback. After winning a silver at World Shooting Championships in 2002, he suffered serious injuries, which included a disc break and a fracture in the patella. However, he bounced back in style like a true Armyman to clinch a silver medal at Athens 2004, becoming the first Indian individual to do so. Before him, individually, Indians could manage only bronze medals. The other medals had come from field hockey, where once, India was the ultimate Emperor, with six consecutive gold medals from 1928 to 1956.
Besides, even though he couldn’t repeat the magic at Beijing 2008, he did perform well at Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Championships. After retiring as a colonel in 2013, Rathore joined BJP, and was soon inducted as the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting. When inducted as the Sports Minister, the very first statement that he gave was ‘Sportspersons are the real VIPs’, which mean that this party did not make a wrong turn in choosing him at all. Probably some are right, only a sportsperson knows the value of the other.
From electing sportspersons as parliamentarians and heads of important sporting committees, to giving them seats in the Cabinet, it now looks like PM Modi is up to some serious business in giving the state of Indian sports a major overhaul. Who knows if Tokyo 2020 becomes a witness to the very sporting revolution that Narendra Modi and his band of ministers are trying to bring out? Apart from the man at the helm, that is the ‘Chilly’ Colonel Rajyavardhan, someone else will be smiling [from heaven]. That would be our ‘Dadda’, Major Dhyan Chand for sure.
