"Healthy mind resides in healthy body" and Sports make this phrase a reality. Earlier, it was believed that if a person plays sports, it would spoil his/her educational career. But with time this mentality eventually diminished as sports became a profession, the source of good income and platform of fame. Games and Sports in India are not new, but played since old ages. After invasion of Europeans, new flavor of sports was also began to be accepted in India like Cricket, Football. Chess, Ludo and on the other hand other games that were originated in India were modified after reaching other countries.
The popularity of sports in India increases after we hosted several international sporting events. Such events include the 1951 and 1982 Asian Games, the 1987, 1996 and 2011 Cricket World Cup, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, the 2010 Hockey World Cup and the 2010 Commonwealth Games. We had a very good team of hockey, they performed exceptionally well in many sporting events and won gold in Olympics. The popularity of hockey diminished because of introduction of astro turf. Popularity of cricket increases after 1982 World Cup victory. And now situation is that every other sport is faded in front of cricket. It is treated as religion. We are doing better in other flavor of sports like Boxing, Wrestling, Tennis, Badminton. But what lead us to stand far behind as compared to other countries?
First and foremost is sports facilities. We lag behind in providing world class infrastructure and facilities to players. Corruption plays an important role. The sports are also prone to corruption. The governing organizations only intend to make profit out of sports. Recent case of spot fixing in IPL which is the second highest paid league in world after NBA, shake up the faith of people toward the credibility of cricket. There is need to clean up the sports by taking strict actions both against the accused sportsman or bad working of organization. Government should make a regulatory body to keep a check against it. One more problem is lack of commitment toward sports. Like in archery, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, the Archery Association of India (AAI) president for 40 years. Involvement of ex-sportsman is less in administration.
Our performance is also a matter of concern. We are billion in number but win few medals in Olympics. Is this merely a co-incidence? No! this is the result of poor facility, lack of investment in sports and education system. In India, we focused more on academics rather than sports. Children from initial stage of school should get opportunity to play and participate in various games activities apart from books. Sports governing bodies like (BCCI in cricket) should pay handsome amount like BCCI pays to cricketers. This will encourage youth towards other sports too. Sports should be kept so far away from the internal politics and the good sportsperson should get chance to play. Also the governing bodies should be barren of politicians and their administration must be in hand of retired players who would definitely be more aware of the do's and don't's of the game as well as of the challenges faced by the players on ground. If all this concurrently been applied, we will get extraordinary results.
-By Prateek Dixit
(Reviewed by- Anand Choubey and Rusheel Shukla)
