The decision to rename the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna to Major Dhyan Chand is a good move, but still there are major challenges in India when it comes to recognizing sportsmen.
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The Khel Ratna award is the most prestigious sporting award in India. It is the highest honour that can be given to a sporting personality in the country. Initially, it was called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. Now, recently, it has been renamed as the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award. The Khel Ratna, instituted in 1991, was named in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in that year. The first recipient of the Khel Ratna was Major Dhyan Chand.
It has taken close to 30 years to institute this change. For far too long in India and in the sub-continent, there has been an obsession to honour politicians who have had minimal contributions to the growth of sport in the country. In the case of Rajiv Gandhi, supporters will want to argue that he played a part in organizing the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi.
If one goes to every state in India, there are sporting stadiums that bear the names of politicians. Most of them are on one family. The Nehru stadiums dominate the landscape.
Apart from the stadiums after Nehru, there is currently Atal Bihari Vajpayee Stadium in Lucknow, Arun Jaitley stadium in New Delhi, YS Rajasekhar Reddy Stadium in Vizag and the Narendra Modi stadium in Gujarat. Modi is only the second living person in political history to be alive and has a stadium named after him. The second being Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are no exceptions. They have stadiums that are named after politicians. In India, read this out aloud. Not a single stadium is named after a former cricket player. There are only stands named after them. There are stadiums named after sports players. KD Singh Babu in Lucknow, Captain Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior, Dhyan Chand stadiums and a football stadium after Bhaichung Bhutia. The shooting range in India has the name of former shooter Dr. Karni Singh.
Dhyan Chand is without a doubt one of the greatest sporting personalities that have ever been there. His exploits from 1928 to 1936 stunned the world, including world leaders. His hockey prowess is the blueprint for dominance in any era. The rechristening of the Khel Ratna is a major tribute. But, he has been short-changed slightly here.
For all the achievements of the wizard, he has never been bestowed with the Bharat Ratna. Naming the annual Sports Day after Dhyan Chand is one of the steps that the Narendra Modi government has taken. But, naming a stadium because it was a ‘pet project’ weakens the Prime Minister’s moves on Dhyan Chand’s legacy. If the Prime Minister had not named Motera stadium after himself, every move that he had made on Dhyan Chand would have been legitimate in many more ways.
But, the coronavirus times has seen some major changes. The Sports Budget in the 2021/22 session has been slashed. Khelo India has been impacted because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people are using this to target PM Modi’s ‘hollowness’. But, coronavirus did not spare many sectors. In sports, where cricket is doing well because of massive investments, other sports are still reliant on government support and they had to bear the brunt. But, Indian sports in Tokyo Olympics stumbled due to big-game pressure rather than lack of infrastructure or training facilities.
The performance of the Indian contingent in Tokyo Olympics 2020 has been praiseworthy. The India men’s and women’s hockey team, PV Sindhu, Table Tennis paddlers, Mirabai Chanu, Ravi Dahiya, 4×100 relay team and many others have put in superb performances.
With stress on more results for Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028, India will want to build a thorough sporting culture. The first could be the mindset of changing all sporting facility names so that our sporting culture gets its due tribute. But, will governments want to change? So far, the inclination has not been there. Only the hope remains that Dhyan Chand and all sports in India get their just recognition.
