October 15, 2015, Thursday. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) administrators assembled for the 72nd meeting of their financial committee in the conference room of the National Drug Testing Laboratory near their headquarters on Lodhi Road in New Delhi. The 2016 Summer Olympics was exactly 297 days away.
Among the 30 items on the agenda was the opening of an athletic centre for Siddis at Dandeli in Karwar district of Karnataka.
Located in Haliyal taluk, Dandeli is close to Siddi villages that dot the area. Around 40,000 Siddis live in the villages in Uttara Kannada district.
The thought process was quite simple. The athletes in the East African nations such as Kenya and Ethiopia were known for their consistent performances, thanks to their genes.
In India, the only African ethnic community present was the Siddis. It was that gene factor in Siddis that talent scouts were looking at. In effect, the proposal to build an athletic centre for the community was not a welfare measure. It was supposed to be a step towards building a sporting country.
Portuguese flavour
According to various historical accounts, Siddis were brought to Goa by the Portuguese in the 15th century. They served as soldiers, slaves and traders. After the Portuguese exit, they made the forests along the Western Ghats their home. Today, they are mostly confined to the Gir region of Gujarat and Northern Karnataka.
“The Siddis have a genetic advantage that empowers them for excellence in sports such as athletics,” read the minutes of the SAI meeting. The estimated fund requirement was Rs. 1.39 crore and half of it would be borne by the Agricultural Insurance Company of India.
Five months later, on March 10, 2016, the SAI administrators met again for the 73rd meeting of the financial committee. It was noted that there was no response on the bearing of costs from the insurance company.
Months later, in August, India returned with two medals — a silver and bronze each — from Olympics. The conservative haul was four less than the previous outing in London. While some expressed displeasure at the country’s performance, the medallists were still hailed as the popular opinion was that the athletes won in spite of the system and not because of it.
Two years without a coach
Efforts to identify Siddi youth had begun much before an official proposal on opening the athletic centre was discussed by the SAI office-bearers. As a temporary move, as many as 14 children from the villages in Haliyal and Yellapur taluks were selected and lodged at the Loyola Vikas Kendra School in Mundgod some two years ago.
Mundgod, about 50 km from Hubballi, is more famous for its Tibetan camp, one of the largest in the country.
Samson Simow Belaunkar (16) is one of the potential athletes identified by the SAI. He was moved from his school in Haliyal to Mundgod and was to be trained as an 800m athlete before the SAI decided to withdraw support to him and 12 others. Their reasoning, their performance was not up to the mark. Fair enough, until we learn that the SAI never provided coaches to train the kids and stopped with just identifying them.
“Two years ago, they came up with the proposal. We took in 14 students supported by them,” Father Johnson Pinto, Principal of the school, told Express. The school already has Siddi students on its roll and tribal education was among the primary reasons why the school was set up, according to Fr Johnson.
This year, Fr Johnson said ‘no’ to the SAI officials. “What can I say, their intention died a natural death,” Fr Johnson rued. He had told them that he was ready to admit more students provided they assigned a sports coach to the school. But the officials have not responded yet.
According to the principal, they can accommodate students, but the school does not have the facility nor the personnel to train them. “Whatever special nutritious food they need as sportspersons, we don’t know anything about it. Each game in athletics requires specific training and follow-up. We don’t have such resources,” he said.
Of the 14 students admitted two years ago, the SAI did not consider any of them fit to continue except for one. “They (SAI) said the students should have won certificates in district level at the least,” he said. Of the 13, three left. Some completed Class X, while three had no other option as they could not pay the fees without the SAI help. The rest are still in the school.
This year, the school has a zonal individual champion in discus throw). Surprisingly, even Jeevan Siddi, the champion, is not under the SAI purview.
The Siddi kids, according to Fr Johnson, have a natural temperament for sports. A native of Udupi, he has been the principal of the school for 14 years and has seen many of the children grow up from close quarters. To reiterate his stand, he recalls an incident.
Four years ago, one of their students, Duming Salu Siddi, reached the national level in the high jump.
“We gave nil coaching,” Johnson said. When he went to Pre-University, the same boy failed to qualify for the district level. “Other boys, I am sure went for special training, while Dumingo had to depend on his innate ability,” he said.
African gene factor
The Siddi kids have a natural temperament for sports. They have African link and as athletics is their forte, the scouts look for this gene factor in Siddis.
As for Samson, he would complete his Class X next year and move out of the school. He has plans to pursue a course at an Industrial Training Institute in Mangaluru.
When contacted, the SAI officials said there would be a fresh round of identification of potential athletes. However, no clear answer was given for their failure to provide coaches to the initially selected students. Former international athlete Kamala Babu Siddi was of the opinion that the children were handed the wrong end of the stick. “If you keep them in a hostel for two years and don’t give them training, it is not their fault,” Kamala said.
The lack of conviction with which the SAI officials were working towards the proposal would remind one of history, certainly not a pleasant one.
SAG’s sad story
The idea to induce indigenous tribes into sports is not novel. It was part of a grand plan in the late 1980s under the Special Area Games (SAG) programme. “Talent scouts are engaged in the biggest and most ambitious exercise ever undertaken in Indian sports,” read a 1988 report in a national magazine.
Siddis were among the talent group under the radar of the scouts. Some of them created national records in their very first athletic meets and represented the country in international events. Kamala Babu Siddi was the most prolific of them, having represented the country in the 1993 South Asian Federation (SAF) Games in Dhaka to win a bronze medal in 100 m hurdles and the World Police and Fire Games in Melbourne the same year to win three golds.
The 41-year-old, now serving as a Chief Superintendent with the South Western Railway, was part of the second batch of the SAG scheme. Kamala is among the lucky few whose life transformed for the better following the scheme.
“I probably would not have got past Class V, if not for sports,” Kamala said. Her village, Manchgiri in Yellapur taluk, had facilities only for a primary school, for which she had to undertake a 5 km journey every day.
She was in a hostel for Siddis when scouts from Delhi came looking for children as part of the SAG Scheme. Just 12 years old, she got selected to the second batch (1988-89) of Siddi athletes who would receive training. A year later, in her first national athletics meet, she broke the existing record in the pentathlon. “I had no idea about sports. I did what my coaches said. Run, they said. I ran,” she reminisced.
Another national record in heptathlon followed. She landed a job as a constable with the Karnataka Police later and represented the force in the World Police and Fire Games in Melbourne.
Just as things were going well, the scheme was scrapped in 1995 and the athletes were told to leave the centre. “No one knows why ” Kamala said.
In an hour-long conversation at her railway quarters in Hubbali, Kamala spoke highly of her coaches — late Ravanan from Tamil Nadu and Purushotham Rai from Karnataka — who were instrumental in identifying and developing the innate skills of the Siddi athletes. “Purushotham (sir) used to take care of us like our parents did. The coaches were good,” she added.
Nothing remains in the house — photographs or trophies — to show her athletic past. Kamala felt that a respectable life, which she led now, was the greatest trophy that she had earned.
Racism doing rounds The official stand of the SAI was that the merger of SAG Scheme with the SAI training in Bengaluru led to the dilution of the scheme. What they failed to realise was that the dreams of many aspiring athletes were shattered. But under the vague terminology of “dilution of scheme”, there is also the issue of racism that the Siddis faced after their inclusion into sports.
According to Kamala, Siddi athletes have got used to hushed whispers and contempt over the years. Some would spare the subtlety and just let it out, “Where have you got these guys from?”
“It does not matter which level — school, zonal, district or national.
The initial expression is the same,” Kamala said.
“But when they hear us speak Kannada or Hindi, the expression changes to that of shock,” she laughed.
That the Siddis are Indian citizens remains largely unknown to the majority of the population, even in Karnataka.
When Kamala visits the local market in Hubbali, the vendors would speak to her in English. “Accha hai, I am an expat then,” she laughs it off, pointing to the lack of awareness. But, she was quick to point out the discrimination that she and many other siddis had to face while growing up. Nowadays, armed with education and awareness about rights, people retort.
“For instance, they (Upper castes) never allowed us seats in government buses. Then people started questioning if it was their private property. Her daughters, Pratiksha and Nimiksha, now learn Bharatanatyam apart from training to be athletes. Where I grew up, classical dance was taught only to the upper caste children,” Kamala said, adding that she wanted to learn singing, but teachers were not ready to take a Siddi child under their tutelage.
Kamala is part of a workers union now and has learnt to voice her concerns. The lack of awareness about their rights and inability to raise their voices were also the reasons why the Siddis could not do a thing when the powers to be decided to scrap the SAG Scheme.
As for the new plan to build an athletic centre in Dandeli, the work is on, but not at a likeable pace, said Kamala. A year has passed since the panel meeting, in which the proposal to set up a sports hostel for the Siddis came up. “Only the plot has been identified. Not a single piece of brick has been erected so far,” observed a panel member.
Whatever special
Nutritious food they need as sportspersons, we don’t know anything about it. Each game in athletics requires specific training and follow-up. We don’t have such resources- Fr Johnson Pinto.