For India to take a leap into developing sport further, we need to treat it as a social culture, and not just a pursuit for medals, India's first individual gold medallist writes
Sport can play an important role in the health of this nation. We are a young society, but we are also an ageing society, and the role of sport to make India healthier is immense.
Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
India calls itself a sports-loving country—I’m not so sure about that. We, as a country and a society, are in love with winning, but I don’t know if we truly love sport just yet. There is a very big difference between embracing sport and making it truly part and parcel of the culture, and just being in love with winning.
I understand it’s a process, that it takes time to build a culture where traditionally sport remains embedded in our society. And that change is slowly starting to come by on a couple of counts—one, a demographic which is young, and that means the consumption of sport, both at a spectator level of watching as well as playing, is increasing. Which has also meant that sport is being prioritised much more by all stakeholders—be it the government at the central level, which has done a terrific job of supporting athletes and keeping sport at the top of the mind, investments at the state level (because sport is still a state subject), the interest in the media (and this column is a proof of that), mainstreaming sport beyond cricket as well as interest among corporates. So, that is all good.
But when you really talk about disruption—and I must add the caveat that I am no expert here—for us to make the next leap into developing sport, we must look at sport differently. So far, our relationship with sport has been transactional: In terms of support for winning. And don’t get me wrong here—that’s not a bad thing at all. But sport is much more than just that. As a society, we need to fall in love with sport.
Take for instance, 60 to 65 percent of the Olympic medals in Paris were won by 15 to 16 nations. And while one can argue that those nations support sport and invest more in it, one commonality which also exists is that each of these countries has a big culture for sport, where society plays sport not just to become champions but for the several benefits that it brings. The greater shift for India, too, will happen when we look at sport as a tool for nation-building, where policies will embed sport to catalyse growth. That is when we will start to really cause some degree of disruption.
(This story appears in the 30 May, 2025 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)