Vijay Kumar Gaba

The 27yr old Australian swimmer Emma McKeon has won seven medals (4 Gold and 3 Bronze) at the Tokyo Olympic 2020. Overall, she has won eleven Olympic medals (5 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze).

In comparison, India has won 35 Olympic medals (10 Gold 8 Silver and 17 Bronze) in the history of modern Olympic. The first medal for India was won by Norman Pritchand - who won two silver medals in Men’s 200m and 200m hurdles at Paris 1900, 121yrs ago. For next medal, we had to wait 28years when Indian men’s hockey team won gold at Amsterdam in 1928.

After 1928, India won medal in the Men’s hockey event for next ten successive Olympics till Munich 1972. The only other medal during 1900-1972 was won by K. D. Jadhav in bantamweight wrestling (Bronze Helsinki 1952). Our contingent returned without a medal from Montreal in 1976.

Post Moscow 1980 Gold in the men’s hockey, India failed to win any medals till Leander Paes’s tennis Bronze in Atlanta 1996. We have won medals in each Olympic since 1996. Our best performance so far has been in Tokyo 2021 ( 1 Gold 2 Silver and 4 Bronze).

Eight of the ten gold medals have been won by India in the men’s hockey event (the 9th being in Air Rifle Shooting by Abhinav Bindra in Beijing 2008 and 10th by Neeraj Chopra for Javeline throw in Tokyo 2021). Other medals have come in Shooting (4); Boxing (2); Badminton (3); Weightlifting (2); Wrestling (7); athletics (2); tennis (1) and hockey (4).

I have been observing for past four decades that we as a nation start with extreme hopes and excitement three months prior to the Olympics. Media, corporate houses and now politicians also, make all efforts to raise hopes and expectations of billion people. However, by the end of the games, most of the excitement fizzles outs; hope turns into despair; criticism overtakes the appreciation; media and politicians move on to the next high TRP story; and sports enthusiasts mostly get back to their routine life after throwing few sacks of suggestions and advice for the sportspersons and sports administrators.

This cycle gets repeated for every major sporting event (including cricket) without fail. This raises two questions in mind that relate to politics and philosophy of sports:

Politics of sports

In past two decades (particularly after advent of IPL), sports has emerged as a large industry with huge employment potential. More important, sport is becoming increasingly democratized, allowing large number of people from underprivileged sections of the society (a fertile political constituency) to participate. Looking at the profile of successful sportspersons in recent years, it is evident that many sportspersons with modest socio-economic background have excelled in their respective sporting disciplines.

A lot of clamouring, financial support and other efforts are made to make athletes competitive at the international level. These efforts have certainly yielded good results in past two decades. With larger corporate participation, the sports infrastructure in the country is improving materially.

A number of sportspersons have performed well at the international level. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that one successful athlete might motivate 100k more to join the race.

The reluctance of the government in formally declaring sport as an industry is however baffling.

Philosophy of sports

Various societies in the world could be divided into two broad categories - (a) Ladder societies; and (b) Cliff societies.

The ladder societies are usually upwardly mobile societies. In these societies all get support and an equal chance to move up step by step. The place at the top is strongly believed to be infinite; therefore, the competition in these societies is mostly internal - people compete with their frailty, depravity, fear, and vices like lust, anger, greed, haughtiness, and infatuation.

Peace, asceticism, abstinence, benevolence, goodwill, spiritual evolution are some of the key words in these societies.

Cliff societies on the other hand are usually static societies. The core belief of these societies is that the place at the top is limited. The competition in these societies is therefore mostly external and fierce. To stay at the top, one must (i) stop others from climbing higher; (ii) be vigilant about those who have already reached the top, as they may try to push you down; and (iii) be consistently at fight with the peers and try to throw them off the cliff to secure your space at the top. Considering the intensity of the external conflict, the internal malice in these societies could remain unattended for unusually long periods of time.

Animal spirit, killing instinct, survival of fittest, relative competitiveness, material comfort, economic evolution, are a few of the key words in these societies.

All modern global sporting events, like global industry & commerce, have evolved in the cliff societies. These promote relative competitiveness as key sporting objective. The necessity to win medals incites the "animal spirit" and "killing instincts" in the participants. Unfortunately, this animal spirit and killing instincts do not die at the podium. These stay with the participants for long and impact their personal, social and economic life.

Moreover, this concept of "relative competitiveness" (also known as first past the post) is a major impediment to the quality in life, as the focus remains on doing better than the competitors rather than doing best for the self and the society.

Traditionally, India had been a ladder society. The concept of Ram Rajya is used to outline the tenets which promote absolute quality, equality and harmony in the society, permitting each individual to pursue his/her own chosen path with passion and dignity. Winning Olympic medals does not fit into traditional Indian ethos, but excellence in sports does.

Actually, traditional Indian businesses were also based on individual/social excellence (arts and crafts). The entire R&D effort remained focused on upliftment of entire society rather than profiteering.

But as the episodes involving wrestlers Sushil Kumar and Narsingh Yadav etc. show, a part of our society might be transforming into a cliff society fast.

More and more of our sportspersons are getting closer to international medals and trophies. Of course we will start winning more of them in next decade or so. More of our businesses are becoming globally competitive now. The natural corollary is that we would see more businesses getting crushed or gobbled by these large businesses over next few decades. Unfortunately, besides numerous cases of abrupt bankruptcies and hostile takeovers, we shall also see many more cases of road rage, domestic violence, divorce, back stabbing amongst professional colleagues, etc.

The idea is definitely is not to undermine the effort and achievements of the sportspersons playing for the country. It is also not to suggest that participation in competitive sports makes people aggressive and violent.