The IOA has drawn a lot of flak for adhering to a March 2015 letter from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports which specifies that only teams ranked in the top eight in the concerned tournament (Asian Championship in this instances) would be cleared for participation in the multi-discipline Games.
Add the fact that they named a 524-member contingent for the Asian Games that features representatives from 8 new sports like kurash, pencak silat, sambo and sepaktakraw and there are a few obvious questions that need to be asked.
Specifically; what could be the thinking behind IOA’s decision to clear some mostly unheard of martial arts teams and not the football squad for the Asian Games?
How come all the talk of Indian football developing in the right direction, with the hosting of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup and the national team’s rise in FIFA rankings to 97, has not led to an Asian Games berth?
AIFF Needs to Take Some Blame
To be very clear, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has only itself to blame for being unable to raise an under-23 that did not make the automatic qualification mark. Had they qualified for the 16-team Asian U-23 Championship 2017-18, things would not have come to this juncture.
With the Ministry of Youth Affairs laying down the criteria that only teams that finish in the top eight in the concerned tournaments would be eligible to be sent to the Asian Games, AIFF had no case at all.
No Football, So Why Handball?
If there is anything that sticks out as blatant partisanship in IOA’s decisions, it has to be the selection of the women’s handball team.
The Indian Olympic Association’s Performance Analysis team has completely overlooked the fact that the women’s team has a dismal 0-13 win-loss record in the last three Asian Games and a 4-27 record at the continental level in the past 12 years.
It is a sign of the times that we are caught unaware that athletes from many martial arts disciplines have been part of the Indian contingents in multi-discipline games before and won medals for the country as well. Indeed, it is a reflection of our society at large that we do not pay much attention to some sports that are in their nascent stage as far as international competitions go.
A Conscious Decision to Focus on Martial Arts
There is a simple logic that has worked among the Indian think-tank – it is better to invest in sport where there are more medals than just one. And it should not surprise anyone that such thinking was articulated by no less a person than the then Director General of the Sports Authority of India, Injeti Srinivas after he returned from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro two years ago.
He observed how Japan, sixth placed in the medals chart, won most of its medals from Wrestling, Judo and Swimming and South Korea (Number 8) from Archery and Taekwondo. He also cited Uzbekistan winning from Boxing, Wrestling and Judo and Iran from Wrestling and Weightlifting. He proposed that India focus its energies on such disciplines.
Besides Judo, Karate and Taekwondo, there are five martial arts disciplines – Jiujitsu, Kurash, Pencak Silat, Sambo and Wushu – in the 2018 Games programme, offering a total of 54 gold medals. India is not sending a squad for either Jiujitsu or Kursash which account for 17 gold medals.
Just for the record, India won a bronze medal in Kurash in 2014 and 2016 Asian Beach Games and a silver and two bronze medals in the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games 2017.
As far as Pencak Silat goes, Indians have won a clutch of medals in the last Asian Championship, meeting the top-six parameters laid down by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
Wushu has been part of the Asian Games programme since 1990. India has returned with a bronze medal in 2006, doubling it to two the next time and improving that to a silver and a bronze in 2014. It is therefore clear that the teams from these three martials arts are expected to do well in the Asia Games, winning some medals for India – and offering great return on investment.
With India choosing to send 41 athletes to contest the 37 gold medals in the three martial arts disciplines of Pencak Silat, Sambo and Wushu, there is a good chance that some of the athletes will return home with medals. Even if there are only two medals in these disciplines, it can be safely said that those medals would be two more than the football squad would be expected to win.
After all, there was a time when women’s weightlifting was new in world sport and India embraced it quickly to produce world champions and medallists at all competitions, including the Olympic Games. Now, winning a medal at that level is a great deal tougher since athletes from more nations have started eyeing these medals.
Similarly, India would do well in women’s boxing and wrestling in the early stages of their presence on the international landscape. It can therefore be deduced that these martial arts disciplines, aspiring to become Olympic disciplines, have replaced women’s weightlifting for the moment.
Surely, you will agree that, just sometimes, it helps to hold oneself back before letting the love for one game become a reason to deride another.
(G Rajaraman is a Delhi-based student of sport who has been writing and commenting for 35 years. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)