Rethinking the Games — Does India need mega sports events to encourage sports?

One positive outcome of all the negative media that the
Commonwealth Games (CWG) in New Delhi has got could well be an honest
re-examination of the relevance of such mega events for the promotion of sports
talent in India. India’s record in athletics and other sports, barring cricket
and tennis, is by and large abysmal. The country needs a wider and deeper base
of talent, and much better infrastructure as well as better professional
recognition of sporting talent before it takes on further obligations to host
such mega events. As in so many other sectors, the focus in India even in sports
has been on infrastructure rather than people. More money is spent on buildings
than on the talent that must inhabit them. This is as true for universities and
educational institutions as it is for sports facilities. While thousands of
crores are spent on roads, buildings and security, the investment in human
resources is always the last thing on the mind of those who craft budgets for
such events. It is not at all clear why the taxpayer should have forked out so
much money for a Games village or a sporting arena, or indeed for a fancy media
centre, when the benefits of such expenditure may never reach his/her ? Why
couldn’t a large campus of an existing institution, with hostel and other
facilities, have been taken over as the Games village ?

More than the Games themselves, it is the entertainment part
that seems to be sucking in dollops of money. Rs.40 crore spent on a hot air
balloon ! Rs.5 crore paid out for a theme song ! India’s political leadership
appear like later-day Mughals, throwing money at fancy stuff, without paying
attention to the basics. A more economical but efficient way of handling such
events must be thought of before more commitments are made to host such events
in the future. It is also worth pondering over why India put up a much better
show hosting the World Military Games in 2007 in Hyderabad, in which 5,000
athletes from 101 countries participated. The event covered 14 sports over a
week. Part of the reason why that event did not attract the kind of flak that
the CWG has may have to do with the fact that it was the armed forces that did
most of the organisational work, and with the event being in Hyderabad, the
Delhi-based and Delhi-centric media may not have paid much attention to all the
glitches. The other part of the reason could well be that the Military Games did
not spend such money on infrastructure as Delhi did on CWG. So, there is an
alternative Indian model of hosting a mega global event of this sort in a more
acceptable way. The bottom line about the Delhi CWG is that if some part of this
extravaganza was about building ‘brand India’, then the event has already
failed. India will have to recoup its lost shine and start all over again to get
the world to take it seriously as a modern, efficient economy.