India's sporting champions deserve, and need, more than luxury cars and jobs

There is nothing wrong in rewarding success. And to be fair, the only stars of India’s mostly wretched Olympics campaign whole-heartedly deserve it. PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Dipa Karmakar were the solitary shining lights during a widespread black-out for India at Rio. Sindhu’s silver medal in the women’s singles badminton, Malik’s comeback bronze in wrestling and Karmakar’s outstanding fourth-place finish in gymnastics stood out.

So it is important that this be pointed out: these athletes completely deserve all the acclaim and praise they are receiving. Of course, this being India and things being the way they are, politicians of all hue and shades have stepped up to co-opt their success, trying to outdo each other in showering praise and announcing prizes for them, notwithstanding the fact that most of them had very little to say on any Indian sport before the Olympics.

Cause for celebration

It was at one such function on Sunday in Hyderabad that Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar handed over the keys of four BMW cars to Sindhu, Malik, Karmakar and the shuttler’s coach Pullela Gopichand. The cars were a gift from the Hyderabad District Badminton Association president V Chamundeshwarnath, who has been at the centre of controversy earlier.

Now, a simple question: in what way will owning a BMW help any these sportspersons achieve greater sporting glory? Could things have been a little different? Instead of handing out luxury cars, could the money not have been spent instead on smoothening the way for their sporting journey?

Apart from cricket, funding is an issue which affects almost every sport in India today. Would it not have made more sense to offer the money to the athletes to use in the way they consider most useful for their sporting career. Sindhu, for instance, might want to play in more tournaments; Malik may want to train abroad; Karmakar may need an actual world-class vault instead of using a makeshift one. The point is that each of the athletes would know best how to use the Rs 40 lakh or so that a BMW costs.

It might even have been possible to use the money to build more athletes. How about developing more badminton academies in the state of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, where many aspiring badminton players would easily be able to find a place to hone their skills? How about creating a full-fledged gymnastics centre in Tripura? How about funding more wrestlers in Haryana’s villages to try and discover other talents like Malik?

The tamasha of success

India’s rare sporting successes are often greeted with a sort of tamasha that is intrinsic to this country. There are feverish celebrations, parades on top of buses, countless felicitations and cash awards. But when the hullabaloo dies down, things go back to their same old ways. And the cycle is repeated over and again – there are brief celebrations bordering on hyperbole before all is forgotten and athletes are consigned to a non-existent system.

Before doling out the money, has anyone bothered to ask what Sindhu, Malik or Karmakar want? Do they really want the luxury cars, the plots of land or the government jobs? Take the notion that sportspersons should be given jobs to ensure financial security. A relic of the pre-liberalisation era, when India's sportspeople were largely amateurs – when even Sunil Gavaskar needed employment (first ACC and then Nirlon) – the job offer is redundant for professionals.

That all this is an opportunity for politicians and businesspeople to buy their way into visibility is obvious. But it was a bit unsettling to see Tendulkar, among the greatest sportspersons India has produced, being party to all this. As someone who has seen and done it all and is aware of the way sport runs in this country, Tendulkar is expected to be wary of publicity-seekers, no matter how deep-pocketed they are.

Try as one might, it's hard to see how riding a BMW to the practice arena will improve our best sportspeople's performance.