Bindra fulfilled India’s ultimate sporting fantasy

India’s shooters have begun charting the path that India’s chess players did ten years ago. But the chess players were luckier for all they needed was a cardboard box, some chess pieces and a handy laptop. Even that was beyond India at times. But the shooters have overcome more and now we must give them, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Anjali Bhagwat and Gagan Narang and Avneet Kaur and everyone else, a standing ovation for they have won at different places on the world stage.

As we must young Saina Nehwal. Just 18 and looking it, which is rare in many sports, she showed the kind of determination that tugged at the heart and made you want to reach out to her. Cruelly, a television channel said she flattered to deceive. She didn’t. She was tired for she had played her heart out. It is easy to write captions but remember, she has gone where no Indian girl has gone before in her sport. This is a time for generosity, of acknowledgement and crucially, of investment. It is not much for corporate Hyderabad, or indeed for corporate India. We cannot leave her to the mercy of the bureaucracy.

And then I saw men full of spirit play their heart out for India on a football field. Rugged Manipuris played alongside a Kashmiri and a Sikkimese. Goans stood tall alongside Bengalis. And a hardened Englishman, face carved out of granite, was hoisted up for he had shown what can be done in an atmosphere where many thought nothing would ever move.

And have we given Bhaichung Bhutia his due? You could see that second goal a hundred times and ask for more. As you could see little, bubbly Sunil Chhetri and Gourmangi Singh and Surkumar Singh and Steven Dias and Climax Lawrence and Subroto Paul and Mehrajuddin Wadoo.

This was India finding its feet and only just becoming aware of what it could do. I must confess I see football as one of India’s strongest forces of integration and our pathway to the north-east, of which we know so pitifully little. These players were brave and they wore national colours, unlike other diabolical young men who are taught to throw bombs and tear India apart.

So is Indian sport giving glimpses of what is possible? Is this the India of the early nineties, full of possibility but submerged by governments who stifled growth and entrepreneurship? Or is this a maddeningly brief fling, a tempting little affair with hope? There is a ray of sunlight away in the east but it is having to fight its way through bureaucracy, like Indian industry had to. This is a voice that is crying for freedom and expression and we must suppress it no more. Ministries and associations cannot produce sportsmen. Other than through coercion they never have and never will. They can, at best, nurture. Bureaucratic bodies don’t just smother sport, they strangle it. What we have seen in the last three days is a voice dying to be heard.

More money is not the solution, for more money attracts men of dubious worth. Autonomy is. There could be another Bindra punching holes into black paper, another Saina caressing a shuttle and then briefly summoning enough rage to smash it down and there must be many Bhutias in the hills of the north and north-east. Ministries of sport and Olympic associations cannot find them because they are not driven by the dream of finding them. Autonomy and reward will find them; find men and women with passion. Once you have passion the rest is not difficult to find!