WHY DON'T WE PLAY?
12:01 pm, 25th July, 2021
Jorhat, Assam.
It is a Sunday today and it has been a lovely day at the Olympics, for Indians till now. It seems like a day for Indian women. The day started with PV Sindhu winning her badminton match, Manika Batra came second and won her table tennins match and finally, MC Mary Kom won her boxing match. I still wait for the men’s Indian Hockey team match against Australia.
I have always grown up following the Olympics. It has been a phenomenon which has been tracing my life, every 4 years.
So amidst news of Covid hitting us, came the news of Tokyo Olympics, and with it came India’s strong representation in the games. I saw it online day before. I was still digesting the news for a couple of days. But yesterday, came the big happy headline:
‘Mirabai chanu wins a silver for India!’
Suddenly, my happiness knew no limits. I read every news story about Mirabai and the happiness which followed. And then came the big question:
Why are we, as a country, not so great in sports?
The answer is pretty simple. I will talk about it in this week’s blogpost:
PRE INDEPENDENCE:
I think the saga started long ago, when the British came to India and suddenly, the Indian kings, became slaves. Living one’s own life, was suddenly very tough for Indians. This was a time, when playing a sport was purely a luxury.
Under the British Raj, our education system became completely westernized. Becoming western is still fine, but an education system, which made us realize that we are ‘lacking’, was what the British raj aimed at. But what was scary was, that they excelled at doing so.
The British realized that the best way to break this country’s backbone was to break its education system. All of a sudden, our gurukuls and madrasas were getting closed.
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| Gurukul |
| A Madrasa |
Though the British left us in 1947, but they left us with about 3 generations of Indians, who believed in the GORA psychology of slavery.
We did not want to teach our kids by stories or games, but by things written in their text-books. This was the time, when we started mugging up!
And this gave rise to a completely sad system of learning, which was not ‘our’ way anymore.
The traditional gurus were replaced first by the white professors in college, which later got transformed to the brown professors.
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| The White to Brown 'System' |
1960’s and 70’s:
This brand of teachers did not encourage the kids to learn anything beyond the books. As this mugging-up required us to spend more time with the books, the first thing which went away from the kids’ daily schedule, was SPORTS!
In a way, we stopped learning by playing GAMES. The concept was no more a sport.
Pic:
Though we still played sports, but the schools never encouraged kids to take it up as a profession.
What happened was that the country was that with a humungous population, we only had a minute number of successful sportspersons. A PT Usha or a Milkha Singh were a rarity in our society. They too had struggled a lot. Afterall, after the stupid British education system, we finally had to get ourselves a ‘roti, kapda and Makaan’ first, and then think of any sports.
There is a British theory which says that they made India a country first and they made us ‘civilized’ us. In a way, they discovered us. I agree that they did get Cinema, cricket and all the big British buildings to India.
I firmly believe that they did make India, but they killed Bharat!
1990’s
Then we entered a decade, when the country was poor and under-developed. I agree that the era of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation had begun, but again, we were nowhere in sports. We only played on international sport: CRICKET.
The BCCI story:
It was not a government entity. It did start in 1928, as a private entity, recognized by the Madras High court then. But it was not an entity by the Government of India. It was started by the rich.
Unlike the Indian athletics federation, or the Indian Hockey federation, it started on a totally different level. It bought media in the 1980’s and 90’s and bombarded the country with its own stories.
I do not hate cricket. But I do not like the massive attention it enjoys, in a not-so-rich country like India.
We do watch the cricket world cup, but the fact of the matter is that only 10 to 14 countries play cricket. I do not feel they are the world.
The Olympics story:
The first time I saw Olympics was in 1996, when it took place in Atlanta. I was little. I realized how big the world is. I witnessed it on doordarshan.
I loved watching some games then, but later those sports were replaced by cricket tournaments. I was definitely sad.
MY MEDIA LEARNING
It is only when I took up journalism in graduation that I understood the idea of TRP (Television Rating Point).
When you watch any channel, you send its feedback rating to the channel, and the channel grows by the TRP it gets.
I believe we should watch all cricket matches, but we as Indians, also need to watch the Olympics. Afterall, it is our countrymen representing us. And this is not about 10-14 countries.
It is about more than 200 countries competing.
CONCLUSION
So every time we have the Olympics or Asiad or the Common Wealth Games happening, the television plays with full josh.
I am sure I have started playing badminton and table tennis because of these matches. Though I do not play like a professional player, but I follow the games.
I guess these athletes are changing we are developing as a country. But we get to know about it only if we watch them.
I do not own a television set right now, but I am following the Olympics on my cellphone.
These sports men and women do need our attention. Watch them and cheer for them.
Channels to catch: The live broadcast India's Olympics matches will take place on Sony Sports Network. Sony TEN 1 HD/SD, Sony TEN 2 HD/SD and Sony SIX HD/SD with English commentary. Sony TEN 3 HD/SD to live telecast Tokyo Olympics 2021 with Hindi Commentary
I guess it is time to make India, Bharat again.
Meanwhile, I get ready for the hockey match.
See you, next Sunday.
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