During one of the summer Olympics in the recent past (before Beijing) India had won a bronze medal and there was euphoria all round about this particular achievement. But the fact also remained that despite having more than one billion people, the country could garner only one lone medal. This was not awe inspiring one bit. The verdict was that India had miles to go in the field of sports. As we look back in the last one decade or so, the positive thing for India is that it has moved on although at a slow pace. During the last Beijing Olympics, India finally broke its jinx by getting a gold medal courtesy shooting star Abhinav Bindra. Although with over a billion Indian to count from, this gold was seen as a big achievement of sorts. India was definitely moving forward. In the meantime, the country has been putting up a good enough show at the lesser known games such as the Commonwealth or Asian Games. India’s performance at the just concluded Delhi Commonwealth Games (CGW) must surely be one of its best so far. But then we are not yet there in terms of being a sporting powerhouse. For one we should not forget that we are yet to compete with the best of the world. Many top athletes could not participate in the Delhi CWG for whatever reasons. We have miles to go but no doubt the country is moving in the right track. We still need to do more in terms of promoting sports at the grass root levels. Our school system needs to give more emphasis to sports and related activities. Other than cricket, India is yet to get its sporting culture right.
As far as the hosting of the CWG is concerned, here too, India has passed a landmark of sorts. Remember that this is only the second such big games it has organized, the first one being the 1982 Asian Games. The Delhi CWG was no doubt bigger and better. But India should not be so ambitious of hosting the Olympics as some of its sports officials have been harping upon. A day will come when India will be able to host a mega global event like the Olympics. But there is still some time for that to happen. India needs to do several things before it can host an event like the Olympics. For one, it should raise its standard in almost every aspect of life whether it is the quality of life itself, greater access to education and healthcare, fighting the ills of corruption and ensuring good governance, improving the quality of infrastructure etc. As to the quality of its human resources, no doubt India is a powerhouse of immense skill and talent. It has the best of doctors, engineers, scientists, teachers, technocrats, wealth creators etc. However this rich pool of our human resource is too little too few for a country as large as India. Equal opportunities must be given to the vast section of India which has yet to benefit from this socio-economic gain. If India has to march forward and become a global power in its own rights, the fruits of development must reach the grass root. At the moment we have this wide divide between the haves and the have-nots. This socio-economic inequality has to be bridged.
