Controversy over the highest sports honour in the country, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, was protracted and unsavoury but not without some pathos too. Finally, the petitions of both discuss thrower Krishna Poonia and paralympian H.N. Girisha were rejected.
This, all told, is fair, as it subscribes to the guidelines provided by the sports ministry and upholds the dignity of the panel that decided on shooter Ronjan Sodhi as the winner.
However, it also spotlights the genuine heartburn and anguish of sportspersons who live on the margins of either honours and/or financial rewards. Consider Poonia’s case. At the London Olympics in 2012 she could not finish on the podium but she has been a worthy competitor at the international level, having won bronze medals at the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games and a gold at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010.
That is one half of an inspiring story, the other being the heavy odds that women in India have to overcome even so much as to participate in sports. True, women are in the forefront of the (even if nascent) sports revolution in the country as far as winning medals and other honours is concerned, but that does not diminish the hardships they still face, gender bias and socio-cultural prejudices being the strongest.
Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal — the toast of India for their exploits — will testify to this even now. The measure of this hardship cannot be gauged from records and statistics. Where Girisha is concerned, his is a profile in courage for the manner in which he has fought his disability to win laurels including a silver at London last year. The Paralympics, as one learned during the 2012 Olympics last year, enjoy an exalted status in the developed world which sees the effort of people so handicapped with a mix of great compassion and even greater admiration.
In India, as is evident from the utter disregard for handicapped people in everyday living, such sentiments are virtually absent.
It must also be understood that for most sportspersons, an award of this ranking adds considerably to their CV, future promotions and prospects. Sports in India is still not completely or desirably professionalised and most sportspersons remain extremely worried about their life after their playing days are over. Too many hard-luck stories abound for anybody who is not a fairly established cricketer and a few others to not be concerned about self-preservation.
Why then do I believe that the sports ministry was right in overruling the claims made by Poonia and later by Girisha? Essentially, because it challenged the decision of a high-powered panel appointed by the ministry, with former world billiards champion and Padma Bhushan Michael Ferreira at the helm.
This cast aspersions on the intelligence, understanding and integrity of the panel. Ferreira, more than any other perhaps, understands the travails of being an Indian sportsperson and has fought for justice for several decades. In an obverse sort of way to not accept the decision of Ferreira (and Co.) undermines the Indian sportsperson itself, which is surely not what either Poonia or Girisha want.
Frenetic lobbying by both Poonia and Girisha made the episode even more unseemly. Neither of them, it must be mentioned, grudged Sodhi winning the Khel Ratna; rather they wanted to be honoured too. The fact that this award, which began as being only for one sportsperson every year had multiple winners (like the Arjuna) at times would have prompted them to take their case further. This in itself was a process that needed to be set right for it opens up avenues for manipulation.
It may be a fact of life that nothing is got without making the effort to get it, but where sports awards are concerned, it politicises the issue and draws in all kinds of elements you would want to keep out of sport. Hopefully, the sports ministry’s tough stand this year is a recognition of past mistakes.
The great thing, of course, is that a sportsperson’s stature is hardly diminished even if such awards — either by oversight or advertently — are not given. Some get them in due course of time: as indeed Poonia and Girisha hopefully might the Khel Ratna in the future.