Union Sports Minister Kiran Rijiju is the busiest minister in the Narendra Modi Government. He has been flitting around the country, addressing issues of sportspersons ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. He makes his promises with a caveat, champions are not made in one year, forgetting his party colleague, an Olympic medallist to boot, had been the sports minister before him and that his government is into its sixth year. In the last five decades, there have been three women sports ministers, too. Only one of them, Margaret Alva, seriously tried to make a fist of presiding over it.
Right from her days in mid-80s, every minister tried to get national sports policy, but none succeeded. Alva and then her party colleagues Mani Shankar Aiyar and Ajay Maken sincerely tried to cleanse Indian sport, but they tried to go too far by clashing with careerist sports officials and the mafias controlling it.Even with its brute majority, the NDA Government could not get the National Sports Code through the Parliament because the vested interests cut across party affiliations. Now Rijiju is confident he could get it through as he honestly believes most federations are controlled by genuine sports officials, even if they have political patronage.
Like the preamble to the Constitution, every draft sports policy paper or the code encompasses everything that needs to be said: Sport development is a national priority as it promotes active lifestyle, child and youth development, social inclusiveness, employment opportunities and above all a sense of belonging and national pride.
Every new Sports Code invariably begins by announcing that the latest policy draft is an improvement on the previous one and it has incorporated something that was followed as an administrative decision right from the Rajiv Gandhi time.The new code triumphantly states that ministers, MPs and legislative assemblies are barred from holding office in national sports federations and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).
As it is, the ministry and IOA do not see eye-to-eye on many issues. When an internecine war breaks out in a national sports federation, the government is invariably caught in a cleft stick since the officials of some national federations have the backing of powerful political forces. There are other contentious issues that the minister is confronted with, like the age restriction, the tenure of office and the cooling-off period officials. These are the issues that pushed the Code to the back- burner. Even without a sports policy, sport is run by the wily politicians with the help of the bureaucrats, some diligent and time-servers.
Like Alva used to say, Rijiju also insists the doors of his house and office are always open to the athletes. Again like some of his predecessors did, he also says the Indian athletes going to the Olympics will be served first-rate Indian food. All this sounds music to the sportsperson’s ears.
Sports is seen as a punishment for Rijiju, who had been in the glamorous Home ministry in the Modi team’s first term as PM, but he doesn’t think so. He feels since the PM himself takes so much interest in the achievements and welfare of the sportspersons, this cannot be a punishment for him.If Rijiju’s policy statements are taken at face value, no sportsperson can have a grouse. From getting a pat from the minister after every international outing to disbursing prize money to them within hours of their return there is nothing more a sportsperson can expect.
What must be a serious concern for the minister is the drastic fall in the contributions to the National Sports Development Fund, despite the corporate social responsibility schemes. It received barely `5 lakh this financial year. A report in this daily showed that a pittance of `7 crore came in 2018-19, a steep fall from `12.92 crore the previous financial year.For the buzz he has created in the last six months, can Rijiju armtwist the corporates to cough up money in a slow-down economy? *Views expressed here are personal