Should we celebrate Bindra’s win?

[‘Sports’ in this post excludes Cricket, ‘sportsmen’ excludes cricketers and ‘we’ includes yours truly]

I am a ‘proud’ Indian today, thanks to Abhinav Bindra. But then, am I?

India is the seventh largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. India has the world's twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates and the fourth largest in purchasing power. However, till now India did not have an individual Olympic gold medal to its credit.

But it all changed on August 11, 2008. India clinched its first ever individual Olympic gold medal in 108 years history of modern Olympic Games, when the 25-year-old, Abhinav Bindra, won the 10 meter air rifle event. A historic feat indeed! Probably facts changed, but did things really change?

Would this achievement, which has made a country of more than billion people proud, change India’s we-don’t-care-about-sports attitude? Does a country with so many claims to fame on other matters offer any support at all to sportsmen other than cricketers?

Do people who celebrate the incredible win and partied all night know the event for which Abhinav won the medal? A handful may know that it is shooting, but do they know that it was for the 10 meter air rifle?

More importantly, did they know about Abhinav before the Beijing Olympics? Did they consider him a medal prospect? Did they know that he almost won it in Athens Olympics four years ago? Did they know that he is also the first Indian to win a World Championship gold medal in Croatia in 2006? Did they know that he was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist in 2002?

Governments, sports authorities and private organizations have doled out prize monies and rewards to Bindra; including BCCI (shouldn’t they be funding Cricket or modernizing Cricket stadiums and Cricket training facilities?). But shouldn’t they have been funding him and other medal hopefuls earlier?

Bindra, whose family is well-off, has an MBA, runs his own company, and has extensive training facilities in his house at Chandigarh. Has he won all these events because he could manage his own training and expenses? Are other sportsmen who represent India able to afford good training? Are they able to ignore their means of livelihood for training?

How many stadiums in India can proudly host international events? If not many, do we have a roadmap to develop world class sporting facilities?

Do we have a policy for our sports in the country? Do we have a vision for India in terms of achievements in sporting events?

Do we have a professional mechanism of running sports in the country? Do we have a merit-based system of identifying sportsmen in the country?

Have people conducted protests outside the houses of people who run sports in the country after every dismal performance in Olympics, like the way they did when India lost in the Cricket World cup (a tournament for a sport played by some 10-12 countries and not followed by the World)? Do they burn effigies of sports minister, coaches and officials, like they do of Chappell, Ganguly and Dravid? Where does the Indian pride disappear during the Olympics?

Do children who know the strike rate of Sehwag to the second decimal, know when India won its last medal at Olympics? They know how often Formula 1 events are held and where but do they know how often, forget where, Olympics are held?

Lakshmi Mittal, one of the richest men in the world and the chairman of the world's largest steelmaker Arcelor Mittal, has set up a Mittal Champions Trust for $10 million to help support a few Indian athletes with an eye toward the 2012 Olympics since it is going to be held in London. Would he be willing to spend the money otherwise? Would any other corporate or wealthy individuals spend on the development of sports without any commercial interest?

How many of us know that the Commonwealth Games in 2010 is being hosted by India? India will be only the third developing nation to host the Commonwealth Games, after Jamaica in 1966 and Malaysia in 1998.

Questions remain and I am the first to admit that I am unaware of the answers myself. But I am courageous enough to admit it in a public forum. However is the Indian public, including you, willing to do so? Are we collectively willing to take the blame instead of pointing fingers at sports authorities, government officials, media, education system, etc? And then my friend, we will start finding answers to these questions.

So is there a need to celebrate Bindra’s win? Are we even entitled to do so? Have we, Indians, really achieved something or is it a ‘personal’ achievement of Bindra? More questions…