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Writer's pictureYouth Policy Review
Jul 28, 20204 min read

Analyzing the Sports Policy in India

"We discussed the challenges the global pandemic has brought to areas such as sports", said Prime minister Narendra Modi in a tweet referring to his conversation with Google CEO Mr. Sundar Pichai. This is something that few people would focus on in the tweet, but being a sportsperson, it had me intrigued. Something felt different. This ‘something’ was that someone from the administration was talking about sports on a public platform, which, I realize, is a rare event.


India has progressed poorly when it comes to sports. Small countries like South Korea, with hardly 1/20th of India's population, have more gold medals in various sports than the total number of India’s gold, silver, and bronze medals put together. The current fiscal year’s budget allocated a mere 0.073% of the total Union Budget to sports, as compared to 13% in Cuba, a country with a population comparable to that of Delhi NCR. The fact that the name ‘Abhinav Bindra’ is so deeply imprinted in our memories is a testimony of our average performance in international competitions over the years. As we so passionately stand for and more often criticize the many policies of the government, I put a magnifying glass on the policies that govern sports conduct in India, and analyze where has India gone wrong in its attempt to produce its very own Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant or Roger Federer.


SPORTS AND INDIAN POLICY


Have we heard of a sports policy? No. Have sports policies even existed? Aplenty. When in 1982, India hosted the IXth Asian Games, a separate Department of Sports was formed. Then the need for a policy was reiterated, and by 1984, the National Sports Policy was born. The policy emphasized the need to develop sports infrastructure and make sports an integral part of the school curriculum. However, it soon came into light that the objectives of the policy were far from being realized. This called for the formulation of the National Sports Policy 2001, which had the following features :


1. Broad Basing of Sports to be rigorously pursued by the state governments. This will include tapping all the nooks and corners of the country to promote sports - from schools and colleges in urban areas to panchayats and secluded regions,


2. Achieving Excellence in Sports at the national and international levels is a responsibility of the union government. This would involve backing certain sports with opportunities and promoting sportspersons through Centres of Excellence (COE),


3. Integration of Physical Education, training of PETs, ensuring proper infrastructure and equipment, using sports sciences for nutrition and medicine, constant skill upgradation of referees, increased role of corporates for finances and creation of a National Sports Development Fund, etc. are some other measures.


It cannot be the case that 19 years have gone by and there have been no developments. A Draft Comprehensive Sports Policy came up in 2007, in the form of a 56-page document. In 2011, the Ministry put forward the Draft National Sports Development Bill. All this was rejected due to feuds and power politics. The National Sports Development Bill of 2013 and the Draft National Code for Good Governance in Sports are still hanging by a thread and awaiting their fate.


BARRIERS AND WAY FORWARD


With so many documents and policy papers, what has held India back from coming up with a plan that guarantees growth? Entry 33 in the State List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution reads: “Theatre and dramatic performances; cinemas subject to the provisions of entry 60 of List 1; sports, entertainment, and amusements”. You can see where Sports stands. A call to make this responsibility a concurrent subject was made, and it should be agreed with immediate effect, as the Centre only has the required resources to legislate it well. Power politics and nepotism are other problems, as the common man is left out of opportunities. The top officials have been resisting a transparent and public friendly code of conduct in sports. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), under N.Srinivasan allegedly promoting home state players, is another example.


Talking about education - I studied Physical Education for 2 days in 2 years and scored 99, which highlights the need for revamping the means of imparting the curriculum and testing it. Fitness in schools remains underground, and many students take their game slots as periods to waste. A strategy eradicating these dynamics needs to be developed, and strict enforcement must be ensured. Further, there has been absolutely no outlay of cash for developing the requisite infrastructure and facilities in institutions. 14 states received zero funds for sports, during 2014-16. In my 3-day trip for the coveted CBSE Clusters tournament, there was no basic hygiene for defecating, let alone for food or residence. How are sportspersons expected to perform? We regularly pay a good amount of money to play in upkeep fields/courts. Think of the misery of the poor kids who only manage with a ball on the street.


The state of the COEs is not up-to-the-mark. A greater percentage of the GDP needs to be allocated to sports, as highlighted above. Initiatives like Khelo India need to be bolstered. There is little mention of women, which again reflects the patriarchal nature of the nation and of the field itself. Lastly, the required sports culture is just not there. As a 6th grader, you can only dream, and not be. Books and academics have to be your best friends if you want to be successful, and the lush green grass of the playing field has to be forgotten. This should be a ‘yojana’ that deserves equal media and government attention, so as to bring about a mindset change within India about sports, and to encourage kids to be the sportspersons of tomorrow.


Information secured from the University Grants Commission indicates that only 30 million out of a total of about 210 million school and college-going Indians are provisioned with facilities for sports and games. As a very young country that will reach a ‘youth peak’ around 2030, now is the time to build the right model, empower the youth and tread on the path to being a sports superpower, before the doors close on such an opportunity.


References-




By -

Sarthak Agarwal

(sarthakagarwal097@gmail.com)



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