Are Indian Sportpersons Second-Class Citizens?

The Times of India reports that veteran athlete P.T.Usha was reduced in tears. She was invited to Bhopal for an event but she claims that she was almost completely left to fend for herself in a city she claimed she did not know well. But look what she said.

“I never expected this kind of behaviour, but then things work like this only in our country and that is the reason we are far behind the rest of the world”, she said. 

This aptly describes the state of affairs in Indian sports. Read here if you need more proof of the apathy towards Indian sports and sportsmen. It is no surprise that while nations like China, US, Australia create world-class sportperson across various fields, we Indians get satisfied by a once-in-a-lifetime medal in international competitions or even the Commonwealth Games. But then of course, international athletes are given the infrastructure to hone their skills. As regards us, we seem to be content with being a nation obsessed with cricket. Chak De- a brilliant movie revolving around Hockey and one that ought to have woken up our authorities and sports ministry to the presence of sports other than cricket, could sadly do nothing. Instead, the theme title song Chak De (which literally means Go For It) was later used on several occasions as a victory tune for Indian cricket team! How ironic.