CWG and Nation’s priority towards Sports

‘India bashing’ is an old sport. And who can do it better than those with Indian genes themselves! I read the following article by Mihir Bose, published in The Independent, UK:

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Why India is a bit player in the world of sport
Deep-seated cultural attitudes may be to blame for the Commonwealth Games fiasco
By Mihir Bose
Thursday, 23 September 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-india-is-a-bit-player-in-the-world-of-sport-2087034.html

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Here is what I sent as a comment and feedback:
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We have organized Asian Games before, right? And many other individual games, without any such mess (like the one with CWG)! Has our ‘deep-seated cultural attitude’ changed over-night? I don’t think so. The fact is that these games have become a victim of “organized corruption”. Government officials, organizing committee, contractors and subcontractors - they have joined together to exploit the bulk of money that was to be spent on the games. And I hope once the games are over, we would probe the thing well and fix the blame.

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There is no need to go into extensive but misplaced self-criticism, as a nation.
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I agree that the sports position in the Indian society’s eye is not very high. But let us also look at their ‘point’. A scientist gives the world something different, an engineer makes our life more convenient, a doctor heals human misery, a priest gives us peace; but a sportsperson plays only for fame (for self/team/nation’s) and awards. His profession (definitely sports are a profession) doesn’t add anything new to the world at large. In fact sports are a natural activity - babies start playing from the time they are born. It’s like ‘eating’ as a natural activity; or ‘fighting’ as a natural activity too. And all such activities or inclinations should not be done in ‘over-dose’.

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For a nation which is building itself, there are some areas of focus. And it is very important that our society’s priorities should match the nation’s aspirations. When Japan went on the rise after WW-II, they didn’t start playing some new sports - they invested in science and technology! Today when Mr. Obama asks American kids to study hard to compete with Indian and Chinese science students, I don’t see a parallel when he had to ask Americans to play Cricket harder to leave India or Australia behind! In fact when it comes to ‘National Priority’, sports are poor laggard anywhere in the world. Let us accept this fact.
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Only when a nation has achieved its dearest aspirations, it starts to think about the new areas in which it can prove its excellence. But the same doesn’t go the other way round! (No nation which is great in a particular sport goes around building great companies and products) So I completely agree with our society’s view which doesn’t give sports a priority over other ‘career options’, even if there is enough money in sports today. It’s because sports don’t reach us ‘there’! And we don’t want to support our players too beyond a limit (We saw Jaspal Rana and Sania Mirza dumping us in a way, right?)

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Also, let us not compare our nation which some others which ‘depend’ on things like sports and tourism in order to run their economy. It would be erroneous to believe that they are doing that ‘by choice’. There are so many small (in size and GDP) nations which are great in many sports, but we haven’t heard any of their companies to match the might of our Tatas or Birlas or Mahindras.
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I repeat that CWG are not connected anyhow with our nation’s attitude towards sports. CWG was a sports event, organizing which was to be our nation’s pride. Otherwise we would not have agreed to organize CWG in the first place. And the Asian games that we had organized or other international events like World Cup never got us in such a soup!

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Still, I definitely appreciate the author’s willingness to evaluate and think 360 degrees on the issue. That is very much needed for any progressive society and the article has made some points very well.

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- Rahul