On December 21, the Wrestling Federation of India lastly had its elections for a new government council. It ought to have marked a brand new starting for a sports activities physique that for many of 2023 had been below hearth due to allegations that girls wrestlers had been sexually harassed and intimidated by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the Bharatiya Janta Celebration MP who had headed the organisation.
However although Sanjay Singh was voted into the president’s place final week, it was Brij Bhushan who was garlanded and paraded in triumph. Sanjay Singh, in any case, was his aide.
Amidst the uproar, the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports activities suspended the newly elected physique three days later. Nevertheless it raised the query, but once more, about why so many Indian sports activities organisations are managed by politicians.
Of the eight sports activities wherein India has received Olympic medals, 4 – hockey, taking pictures, badminton and tennis – are headed by politicians. Sanjay Singh, who was voted in to move the Wrestling Federation of India, is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the father or mother organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Celebration.
Ajay Singh, the president of the Boxing Federation of India, although not a politician, has labored on the Bharatiya Janta Celebration’s media technique and is usually credited with coining the occasion’s election slogan “Ab ki baar Modi sarkar”, this time a Modi authorities.
The All India Soccer Federation is headed by Kalyan Chaubey, a former participant who’s a member of the BJP. The president of the Indian Olympic Affiliation, athletics legend PT Usha, is a Rajya Sabha MP nominated by the BJP.
The omnipotent secretary basic of the Board of Management for Cricket in India, which governs the nation’s hottest and profitable sport, is Jay Shah – the son of House Minister Amit Shah.
Additionally learn: Tennis star Somdev Devvarman on wrestlers’ protest – ‘Athletes are being silenced for talking up’
Sports activities offers politicians a further lever to wield affect. The success of an athlete is used to advertise the concept that the system – and the politician on the helm – is doing an excellent job. It offers the politician an opportunity to stay within the highlight below the gaze of thousands and thousands of sports activities watchers.
As an illustration, on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, when the Indian contingent marched into the stadium, the tv broadcast confirmed a split-screen to beam pictures of sports activities minister Anurag Thakur relatively than simply deal with the athletes.
Adille Sumariwala, president of the Athletics Federation of India, mentioned that sports activities and politics can’t be separated. “They must co-exist,” he mentioned.
Sumariwala is among the few chiefs of a nationwide Indian sports activities federation who is just not a politician. He’s a former nationwide 100m dash report holder and competed on the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and has been president of the athletics physique since 2012.
In a resource-starved nation like India, politicians have the entry to energy that may swing selections mandatory for sports activities to thrive,. “They go and persuade increased authorities, they sit in cupboard conferences as a result of they’re ministers,” Sumariwala mentioned. “And that’s the reason we profit. They’ve the attain.”
He defined, “It begins on the prime. If the prime minister says that he’ll put money into sports activities, the ministers will say we’d like a bigger funds for sport.”
Diana Edulji, former captain of the Indian girls’s cricket staff, agreed that politicians have a task to play in sport. She was additionally part of the Committee of Directors appointed by the Supreme Courtroom of India to take care of the BCCI’s affairs from 2017 to 2019. “On this nation, politicians are required as a result of in any other case there may be an excessive amount of purple tape-ism,” she mentioned. “With out their assist, it is extremely tough.”
In a latest submit on X, previously Twitter, former Indian males’s hockey captain Viren Rasquinha provided ideas for Indian sports activities federations to turn into simpler. They included following the Nationwide Sports activities Code, a functioning web site with audited accounts posted together with the choice coverage for tournaments posted prematurely. He additionally advised a correct teaching pathway with a sound home competitors construction, a transparent anti-doping coverage and Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee.
However for these ideas to be carried out, sports activities organisations want the fitting folks – “individuals who have the center, soul and keenness of being in sports activities”, he mentioned.
He emphasised that it was mandatory for paid professionals to be concerned in sports activities administration. “You simply have to have the fitting stability – a mix of directors for administrative issues and sportspeople to information on the sports activities issues,” he mentioned.
Sumariwala famous that it’s the politicians relatively than athletes who’re more proficient at administrative work. “There may be lots of planning that goes into operating a federation,” he mentioned. He likened the president of a sports activities federation to the chairperson or chief working officer of an organization. He defined, “In the event you don’t have the executive capacity, or the expertise, you can’t run a federation.”
The executive work, Edulji added, additionally doesn’t attraction to many retired athletes. She defined how most former gamers are inclined to get into teaching or commentary work relatively than getting concerned in honorary positions in federations.
Rasquinha, nonetheless, famous that operating a federation entails duties reminiscent of elevating the profile of the game and fundraising along with organising tournaments and occasions.
“Each federation ought to have a high-performance director, who understands the technical facet of the game, who guides on competitors construction, the choice course of,” he mentioned. “You can not have individuals who have by no means performed the game determine what ought to be the choice course of.”
The hazard of getting politicians in cost is that processes can get mired in purple tape, as was evident throughout Brij Bhushan’s reign on the wrestling federation.
“These buildings are typically over bureaucratic, to the detriment of athletes,” wrote Somdev Devvarman in his column for Scroll. “The system ought to be nourishing and defending its athletes. The second forms enters sport, then the winner is just not sport. It’s forms.”
Within the final evaluation, Sumariwala famous, it’s essential to acknowledge that sports activities and politics are interlinked.
“You can not separate politics from sports activities,” he mentioned. “Whether or not it’s the [International Olympic Council] taking a choice about Russia collaborating due to the Ukraine battle, or one thing to do with the Israel battle, the IOC can also be taking political selections. Proper now they’re pondering of letting Russian athletes take part with out utilizing the title Russia. That is all politics.”
