Speaking out

Should Sports Minister M.S. Gill find some time in between brushing up on earthy folk tales,he may find it instructive to refer to his British counterparts website. In Britain,sport is included in the culture and media department,and the sport minister has listed his three top priorities: Support the bid to bring the 2018 World Cup to England,deliver a safe and successful Olympic Games in 2012,achieve a real and sustainable legacy for the 2012 Olympics. More than a year into his current tenure as sports minister in UPA-II,it may be that Gill has his own list of priorities in mind. If so,he is not letting anyone on to the secret.

Gills submission to the Lok Sabha on the preparations for the Commonwealth Games instead gave the impression of a reluctant minister,someone unconvinced of the biggest responsibility taken on by his ministry in decades. With all too frequent metaphors about getting the show together just before the wedding,the impression is that hes been handed down a responsibility that must now somehow be discharged. Gill is perhaps right,that like a big fat Indian wedding,everything will come together in the end. But hosting big sport events is not about holding your nose and getting the preparations done. It is about maximising the returns,through urban renewal in host cities and through building new platforms for ones sportspersons. Host nations get out of these events as much as they lay claim to,and those claims can only be made if governments take ownership. The recent film Invictus revisited how Nelson Mandela used a rather peripheral sport event to recast social relations in newly post-Apartheid South Africa.

India has much to claim for how it wants to underscore its global engagement and for the culture of competitiveness and opportunity it desires for its sportspersons. It needs the government to give voice to those aspirations.