By Kollengode S Venkataraman

One Indian news item this summer that drew global attention — from the media in Europe, North America, and even China — is why India with its 1.2 billion population does so poorly in the quadrennial summer Olympics. If you Google-search on this topic and read the top 10 news stories, you will get a good idea of why it is so. There was no smirk in these stories. They were simple, straightforward, and matter of fact. In every social group — extended families, ethnic/caste groups, temples, churches, corporations, hospitals, even nation-states — outsiders readily see what is wrong that the insiders do not see, or refuse to acknowledge, or are embarrassed to admit.

Sakshi Malik after winning her Bronze for wrestling in the 2016 Olympics. Look at her gleeful, joyous smile! In the Indian context, Sakshi, like the other winner Sindhu, is not “fair.” But she is not just “lovely,” but gorgeous.

This year, India’s medal count was abysmal, even by Indian standards. The total medal count in the last five Olympics, including the 2016 at Rio are: 1, 1, 3, 6, 2 out of over 700 gold, silver and bronze medals. Only two medals in 2016, one bronze for wrestling, and the other, a silver, in badminton, both won by women. Cherish the irony here, given the macho atmosphere of the Indian sports scene!

Shobha De, the ultimate gossip columnist titillating anglicized Indians, stirred the pot on the India Olympics this year with the tweet, which, in translation read, “Go to Rio, click your selfies, and return empty-handed.” De is the mother of the phrase Bollywood she coined in derision decades ago for the Bombay-based Hindi film industry. Now, Bollywood is mainstream, and has given birth to Lollywood (for Lahore, Pakistan), and Kollywood (Kodambakkam, Tamil), and Mollywood (Malayalam), and Tollywood (Tollygunj, Bangla, and also Telugu).

She was widely berated for her comment. Among the many thoughtful responses to De’s comment, one stood out. I regret not jotting down the name of person. I do not have the exact words. If I can paraphrase his comments, it went something like this:

“Why everybody is piling of the poor performance of the Indian athletes in Rio?  For all the money India spends every year and the vast infrastructure it has in national science labs, IITs and IIMs, nobody asks why India’s record is poor in Nobel prizes?  And for the 100-plus years of history in the film making, why India’s record is so poor in the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars?” 

A valid point, requiring soul searching and serious discussion.

In any case, if you scan the hard copies of any Indian English newspapers, one glaring observation stands out: over 90% of the column inches are taken up by the raw, personality-based political news at the national and state levels; news and gossip about films and film personalities; cricket news; European culinary trends in the Indian Metros; real estate; how Indian techies are ruling the world (?), and fashion.

Sakshi malik received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi after her return with the Olympic Medal.

With these items taking up so much oxygen for the greater part of every year, not much is left for anything else. Add to this the Indian ethos of disdain for all physical activities in general.

In many countries, sports & athletics are a serious business with governments pumping in lots of money. They identify youngsters before they are 10, and train them in gymnastics, track and aquatic events, and all others. That is the only way to nurture excellence in sports. 

However, excellence in sports and athletics is not a priority for the Indian middle class — unless it sees money in it, lots of it, as in cricket. That is how India killed field hockey, a very intense game in which India excelled years ago. If America is  obsessed with sports from high school onwards, India is antipodal in its total apathy to school/college sports. The governmental indifference to providing the critical athletic infrastructure and training is only a reflection of the Indian middle class’ apathy for sports.

Besides, nurturing and demanding excellence and weeding out incompetency and under performance are not priorities in today’s India in most facets of human endeavor. Acquiring wealth using any and every way possible, and flamboyantly consuming it are the main pursuits for a big chunk of the Indian middle class. The poor performance of India in Olympics is only a glaring manifestation of this underlying ethos of today’s India. Given this Indian disdain, we need to admire the Indian  athletes for their persistence with very few resources and the ridicule of the elites a la Shobha De, when they return with very few medals.