Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

SPORTS

SPORTS

OVERVIEW Ever since the dawn of Independence, India has been striving hard to achieve world order in every field of its development. Despite the legacy of an ancient heritage and the beginnings of many sporting activities in the 19th century itself, thanks to the British Raj, Indian sports at the end of the 20th century is still at the cross roads and has left a lot to be desired. The post Independence euphoria when the Indian football and hockey teams were at the pinnacle of glory (the Indian football team qualified for the World Cup from group 10 in 1950 and the hockey team was winning international golds left, right and centre), has now given room to an utter sense of despair, which cannot be better emphasised than the 'no-medal' haul at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. India's sporting excellence, in fact, has largely been individual- istic in nature and international calibre high performance from Milkha Singh to Sachin Tendulkar has been far and few like comets appearing occasionally on the horizon. The country no doubt has produced a few world champions in sports like badminton, billiards, snooker, cricket and a few world beaters in games like chess and tennis; on the whole the Indian sporting show does not compare well with the international sporting scenario. One of the contributing factors can be the attitude of the people at large towards sports, which even today has more of an audience appeal than the necessity for mass involvement. Unless sports is taken to the multitudes, it may not be possible to generate talent that can be moulded into a world beating combination. Another, much talked about, factor is the lack of a 'killer instinct' among Indian sportspersons. Perhaps, steeped in a culture of tolerance, Indian sportspersons lack the knockout punch. Over- coming all the odds a few brave Indians have now and then re- minded the country and the world of India's inherent potential in the field of sports. While cricket continues to be the rage-largely due to the TV medium-among the masses, football and hockey too have a large following. The quality of Indian football took a downward trend after the 1950s while hockey continued to hold its charm till the mid - 1970s. The development of the robust European style of hockey on artificial surfaces spelt the death knell of the Indian 'dribbling' magic. The Indians are still to adapt to the newer innovations of the game. Cricket to some extent has provided solace to the sporting fraternity but not with any level of consistency. Though Sachin Ten- dulkar at 21 is the rising star, the names of Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev stand out for their respective batting and bowling feats. It is believed that chess originated in India, but sadly today India can speak of only two Grand Masters in Vishwanathan Anand (rated fourth in the world) and Dibyendu Barua. While the indigenous games of kabaddi and kho kho are trying to make an international mark, some of India's top international performers in- clude: Prakash Padukone (badminton), Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira, Geet Sethi (billiards), Om Agarwal (snooker) and P.T. Usha (athletics). The Central Government on its part has been mak- ing efforts to improve the quality of Indian sports. l In

1954 the Centre set up the All India Council of Sports (AICS) as the advisory body for the development of sports in the country. Stal- warts like Field Marshal Cariappa, Gen. Kumaramangalam and Field Marshal Sam Mankeshaw played important roles in the AICS. Much before this the Rajkumari Amrit Kaur coaching scheme was started to train sportspersons. In 1960, the National Institute of Sports was started in Patiala as the premier institute for training sports coaches. The NIS spread to different parts of the country with regional centres catering to the different zones. The Centre subsequently set up the SNIPES Board as the advisory body for the development of sporting infrastructure. However around 1988/89, the SNIPES Board was merged with the NIS and thus was born the Sports Authority of India (SAI) with its corporate office in New Delhi. With the formation or NIS, the role of AICS became defunct and was dissolved. An autonomous body with direct funding from the sports minis- try, the Sports Authority of India is now responsible for the growth and development of various sports in association with the respec- tive national federations. The SAI has evolved schemes to unearth talent from the nooks and corners of the country and to mould the same into world winning combinations. The Central Government has also evolved a sports policy, which has earmarked four grey areas to be given top priority for the improvement of sporting standards of the country. The four areas are creating a sports environment, broadbasing of sports, improving competitive standards and sports management. Thus with a national sports policy and a sports ministry, Indian sports has a long, long way to go before making up for its inadequa- cies and catching up with the world order. Following is a discipline-wise brief history of Indian sports.

Vijaypat Singhania won the round-the-World Air Race in May 1994 flying a Cessna Conquest named‘Tiger’. The race began in Montreal, Canada lasted 24 days and covered 33,523 kms. Vijaypat Singhania zdso holds the world record for his solo flight from the UK to India. _____________________________________________________________________