SO, Manohar Singh Gill has retained the portfolio of sports minister. Not just that, he has been elevated to the rank of a Cabinet minister. And that is good news to more than most people who have anything to do with sports in India. Anyway, whether or not people like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision to retain/promote him, it should augur well for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games — and hopefully for sports in India in general.
In his previous 14-month tenure as Minister of State for Youth Affairs (Independent Charge), Gill had come to know the intricacies involved in organising an event as big as Commonwealth Games. Now is the time to build on the knowledge that he has acquired while interacting with the bureaucrats, sports officials, engineers and architects etc. One hopes he will.
That Gill is a former bureaucrat is a huge advantage as he knows exactly how his fraternity works and knows how to make his way through the maze of files and innumerable roadblocks. He apparently takes quick decisions and that helps. Now, in the next two-year period, during which India hosts several top notch tournaments, including the hockey World Cup in Delhi in March 2010 and the cricket World Cup in 2011, Gill will get assistance from minister of state Arun Yadav to share the excess workload, though it’s widely believed that the 72-year-old Sikh’s imprint will be there in most decisions. After a long time sports has got a Cabinet minister and that should augur well for the neglected but important area of activity for society.
Apart from ensuring that the infrastructure is complete well before the Commonwealth Games and the teams for the 71-nation event are selected in a transparent and objective manner, Gill’s biggest challenge will be to help constitute ‘Hockey India’, a joint body of men’s and women’s game as instructed by the International Hockey Federation (FIH). And this should be done before the World Cup starts in March otherwise the FIH has warned, the tournament would be struck off Delhi’s map. Lots of big egos are involved in the merger of the two bodies and it will need all of Gill’s persuasive skills and diplomacy to make them come to the table leaving their egos outside the door.
Hockey affairs are currently being run by the Indian Olympic Association-formed ad hoc committee and it is not good for the sport that there is no formal federation in existence. The game in the country has hit the bottom and is languishing there for some time due to lack of direction at the top. It is reflected in the results in tournaments that matter. Remember last year eight-time gold medallists India, for the first time in its glorious Olympic history, failed to qualify for the Beijing Games.
And this will be another challenge for Gill. After restoring hockey to the ‘priority’ category from the ‘others’, the former Chief Election Commissioner will have to ensure that in an effort to organise the Commonwealth Games smoothly, the focus is equally maintained on the men’s hockey team’s preparations for the Olympics. And there are only two ways for the team to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics: Win the 2010 Asian Games title and or wait agonisingly for the lone qualifying tournament that they will get to play. If India fails at the Asian Games, they will have to win the qualifying tournament title too, nothing less, to ensure the ticket to London. There is no escape from reality now.
Unfortunately for the Indian hockey, the focus of the nation and its sports administrators is fixed on the Commonwealth Games and no one is even talking about the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. The sports administrators/bureaucrats and Gill would do well to shift their attention to the Asian Games too, all the more because only 28 days separate the end of the Commonwealth Games and the start of the Asiad. So, will someone, please, keep reminding Gill and the babus in the sports ministry about his every Monday?
While it is commendable that the ad hoc committee has prepared a detailed schedule for the men’s team that will keep the players busy till the Asian Games, it is only the results that will count at the end of the day. If despite all the planning and hard work India fails to win the hockey gold in Guangzhou, it will be as good as missing a second successive Olympic Games. For, winning the qualifying tournament will then become a kind of lottery as we found out in Chile last time when India lost the crucial final to England and missed the Beijing Games. Let’s see how much of a help the newly recruited foreign coach, Jose Brasa of Spain, proves in this regard.
Besides these, Gill has many more challenges ahead of him. And although he has only one year left as a Rajya Sabha member – he completes his six-year term next April — there is every likelihood that he would be re-elected to the Upper House of Parliament, especially keeping in view the Commonwealth Games.
