core sector communique

Why we are not a sporting nation

Now that the Olympics are done and dusted for another four years, the question must be asked: Why aren’t Indians winning more medals?

The question is not as ridiculous or far-fetched as it seems. After all, whenever the question of how to improve India’s inglorious standing in the world sporting arena has been asked before, the answer has usually been money.

Indian athletes and sportsmen suffer for want of funds, the argument went. Without access to world-class facilities, infrastructure and training, it is simply not possible to be, well, world class.

Not a great record

Besides, if money was the answer, Lakshmi Mittal would not be a disappointed man. The world’s richest Indian has so far spent a staggering $12 million (Rs 66 crore) from his funds through the Mittal Champions Trust to train Indian athletes for the Olympics.

Mittal is a hard-headed businessman and his goal was both modest and realistic. For starters, he admitted to The Australian newspaper in an interview just before the Olympics, he would have been happy to see India double its Beijing gold medal tally in London — to two.

In the event, India did not win a single gold, despite returning with its largest-ever aggregate tally of six medals. Although this has been the best performance by India in an Olympics so far, to put things in perspective, countries such as Mexico, Ethiopia, Serbia, Latvia and even Uganda won more gold medals than India. India finished 55 in the overall medals tally, five places lower than its Beijing achievement.

Not a great record for a wannabe superpower. And it’s not for want of trying either. Forget the massive expenditure on the Commonwealth Games, which was justified as a necessary investment to create the infrastructure necessary for grooming future world beaters. Between the government and private sector initiatives like Mittal’s trust, considerable money has been spent on not just supporting sports and athletes, but specifically on potential medal hopes at the London Olympics.

Spending on sports

The Sports Ministry alone spent a considerable sum of Rs 142.3 crore on the ‘Operation Excellence for London Olympics 2012’ or OPEX 2012 for short. This is quite apart from the Rs 750 crore a year the Ministry spends out of its budget on sports, including running several national level permanent, semi-permanent and temporary training centres and camps, besides paying for coaches, support staff and equipment.

Quite apart from this, there are the private players. Mittals Champions Trust is the biggest, but the Sahara Group has been spending substantial sums of money — around Rs 25 crore a year — on sports apart from cricket (of which it is the national team sponsor).

Then, there is the Olympics Gold Quest initiative, spearheaded by former world billiards and snooker champion Geet Sethi, and supported, among others, by Leander Paes, which has attracted considerable corporate support. OGQ has spent upwards of Rs 8 crore already in training promising sportsmen in several fields.

So, if money is not really the problem, what is? Cricket, the one sport in which India has been at the top level on the world arena in a consistent fashion over several years, has often been cited as the example which other sports should follow, if they want to attract the best talent.

Sops galore

Because cricket is so well organised and supported in this country, the argument goes, and because making it to the national team heaps such monetary rewards on the player, there is a tremendous incentive for youngsters to try and succeed in cricket, which is why we win at cricket.But incentives are not missing for other disciplines. Every medal winner in the London Olympics is going to end up a crorepati, after all the State and central awards are paid out.

In addition, the Sports Minister has already promised government jobs as coaches to all 81 members of the London Olympics squad, not a bad incentive in a country with millions of unemployed youth.Those already in a government job can expect three out-of-turn promotions, a special resolution to which effect was adopted by the Union Cabinet recently.

Even the Army, which was the target of some unsubtle pressure from shooter Vijay Kumar, who griped about the fact that his employer was only handing out two promotions, while everybody else was getting three, made him a non-commissioned officer and gave him a rousing army-style reception.

So, our aspiring Olympians can no longer justifiably complain about lack of money, or incentive or even post-achievement recognition. Which, however, still doesn’t explain the medal drought. In a fascinating paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2008 (Why Do Some Countries Win More Olympic Medals? Lessons for Social Mobility and Poverty Reduction), Anirudh Krishna and Eric Haglund talked of the concept of ‘effective participation.’

Effective participation

Effective participation is the percentage of population which actually has access to, and participates in sporting activity. So, despite India’s giant population, its effective participation level is abysmally low. And sports is cruelly pyramidic, with a very small percentage of participants winning through to the top. If our base is small, the peak will naturally be short.

The authors argued that the key differentiator was public information and access. “Individuals who are better informed and better connected to opportunities tend to perform comparatively better than other equally capable and equally educated individuals. At the country level, information and connectedness also make an important difference.

Countries in which information and access are more widespread — where the potential for effective participation is comparatively high — tend to win a higher share of Olympic medals,” they argued.That argument, of course, is valid for a number of other areas of activity as well, not just sports. Whether it is political empowerment or economic advancement, one could use the same set of parameters to determine how well a population will do in a particular area.

Which, as it turns out, is a more depressing conclusion for Indians than the meagre medals tally at the Olympics

- Umesh Shanmugam