As we celebrate 76 years of independence, the question I asked of myself is what does freedom really stand for as far as each of us is concerned? In one sentence, it stands for a society that is sensitive and has a conscience. A society that is empathetic and cares. And in my case, with my investment in sport, I would want to judge society through the prism of sport. Let’s take the Tokyo Olympics as a case study. For the first time, India sent a contingent of 126 athletes. By Indian standards, this was a pretty big squad and showed progress in sport. Each one of these athletes had qualified for the Olympics and that in itself was no mean feat. However, of the 126 men and women who went to Tokyo, six individuals won medals as also the hockey team, which consisted of another 16 players. Add to this list Aditi Ashok and the hockey women, 16 of them, who were celebrated across the country for their heroics. This meant that of the 126 athletes, some 40 were in the news and were lauded and honoured.
The same held true for the Commonwealth Games. Out of a contingent of 200-plus, a fourth of them won medals as India finished with a haul of 61, including 22 golds. While this was India’s best performance in the absence of shooting and archery, we saw comments across social media trying to devalue the effort saying the CWG was not a competition of much relevance.
Going back to Tokyo, what about the other 86 athletes who did not win medals? Where are they and how did they cope with failure? What about their mental health, and how they dealt with depression? While we celebrated Simone Biles for speaking out on issues of mental health, what about our own athletes?
Take the case current case of Dipa Karmakar. She won the trials for the Asian Games, and all of us reported in the media that she was back. Now she has been dropped from the Asian Games squad. Clearly the Federation was unaware that Dipa, despite topping the trials, wasn’t meeting the qualification criteria set by the ministry. As a result, Dipa, for some days at least, was under the impression that she was representing India in Hangzhou. Her coaches spoke on her behalf and suggested that, for a sport like Gymnastics, the trial results should be followed.
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Now when she will not be traveling, what will be her state of mind? No question Dipa would be the most distraught. Have we tried to find out what she is going through? Is she coping well? Is she depressed? Today’s vanquished are tomorrow’s victors, and make no mistake, Dipa is a rare talent.
May I also bring to light the cases of Amit Panghal and Deepak Punia. A bronze medal, we now know, fetches the winner close to 10 crore rupees in our country. The money, with the many other honours that come your way, sets you up for life. This is an amount of money that no more than 1 percent of us in India earn in a lifetime. Punia, for the record, was within 10 seconds of winning the medal in Tokyo. Ten seconds. Yes, that’s how close he was, and he was just 22 years old. Where was Deepak and what was he doing soon after Tokyo? Yes, we now know where he is because he has won the CWG gold. A close look at his fight at the Olympics reveals other things as well. Deepak, it can be said, was justifiably unlucky. There was an occasion in the fight where he was almost there to get two valuable points. With wrestling and boxing being really subjective sports where much depends on the judges, Deepak was denied the points. Then, in the last few seconds, the tide turned against him. In sum, it was the most unfortunate way to lose a medal. Hardly anyone spoke of Deepak until his CWG win when all of a sudden the talk was about his resilience and mental strength. When the women’s hockey team was being celebrated the country over for a fourth place finish and Aditi Ashok was being said to have ushered a revolution in golf, make no mistake Deepak must have felt a sense of helplessness. He was so close, yet so far.
Now to Panghal. Ahead of the Olympics, he was one of our best medal hopes. Asian Games champion and World Championship medal winner, Amit is a boxer of pedigree and someone the entire country was banking on. In Tokyo, Amit was stellar in the first round of his pre-quarter final winning it 4-1, only to completely lose it in the next two rounds. Why is the question? While we heard his coach say he was tired, it doesn’t really sound plausible, does it? Why would your best boxer get tired in three minutes on the world’s greatest stage? What really happened with Panghal? Is there a story that we don’t really know, and will he ever open up and tell us what really happened? The grapevine has it that his diet was all messed up. The question is why? Why would he not have his diet all worked out based on sports science? Are we missing something here?
The point I wish to make is we as a society needed to know about all of the 86 men and women who weren’t talked about in the country. They were as important as the medal winners, and this habit of honouring only the victors and overlooking the vanquished has to stop once and for all. Only if we are able to shun this habit can we aspire to be a multi-sporting nation that loves its sport. Respect, that’s what we need to inculcate, for our athletes, and it can’t be respect only for the winners and scorn for the rest. This is what explains why many of our past athletes have had to live lives of penury and poverty seeking out favours and doles. No one who has represented the country deserves this. That’s what we need to acknowledge on Independence Day, and promise ourselves not to repeat the mistakes in the future. We as a society need to turn more respectful and gracious. We need to celebrate people for the effort they put in, and not simply celebrate those who are successful. That’s what will make us a better country.
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