Competitive sport is perhaps the most baffling among all aspects of Indian life. For a country its size, population and West-derived institutions, India is a laggard in international sport. This is all the more puzzling because several sports have had their origins here, and many others took root early. Every four years, just before and after the Olympics, the same questions are asked over and over: what is the ingredient missing for national sporting success?
Fortunately, this year the Indian contingent returned with one gold and two bronze medals, sparing us the televised agony of news anchors. This was India's best-ever result at an Olympics, we were told, and that was some succour after decades of listening to the same old lamentations.
What has been missing in public discourse is a scholarly probe into the roots of Indian Olympism; to ferret out clues from history and employ them for contemporary use. Too often, the debate on India's poor sporting record has been emotional rather than objective. With Olympics: The India Story, Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta have set that anomaly right, and a work of immense depth has been presented. Not that they have provided answers to the enduring mystery of Indian sporting non-performance; but then, that is not their job; rather, the work provides excruciating details of the past and helps destroy some myths, so that those who seek those answers may at least look in the right direction.
The book can broadly be divided into two sections. The first deals with the history of India's encounter with the Olympic movement – on the field and off it. The second part brings into focus such diverse things as the Nehruvian worldview, the fascinating story of the 1951 and 1982 Asian Games, television and the subsequent rise of the consumerist middle class, the army, and the impact of cricket on other sports. These elements have seldom been connected to the global spectrum of the Olympics, but the authors skillfully weave these essays into the overall theme of the book. What seems, to begin with, an open-and-shut case on India's performance at the Olympics, evokes deeper questions as these elements are brought into perspective.
One of the most recognised features of Indian sport is its continuance of the feudal tradition. Office-bearers of federations remain in power for decades without showing the least inclination to conform to democratic standards; and often, power flows down a hereditary pipeline. The book offers insights into the beginnings of this practice: the early patrons of sport had to be maharajahs or other royalty, since that was the only way the sport could get funding or recognition from international bodies. After Independence, when the royal families lost their fiefdoms, sport offered the one territory they could still claim uncontested control over. The first few chapters of the book detail the early struggles of organised sport in India, and the challenge of establishing their legitimacy with international federations.
The scene then shifts to hockey, which becomes a metaphor for India's highest aspirations on the sporting field. The team's exhilarating success – strangely never replicated in any other sport – and its sudden decline after 1964 have been detailed. At times, the detailing even becomes tiresome with blow-by-blow accounts of the quarrels between Indian officials and their correspondence with international authorities – but the authors justify this: "It is part of the growing academic concern to locate sport within the broader socio-economic processes that have shaped colonial and post-colonial societies in South Asia. Throughout this history, hockey is used as the prism/metaphor to analyze the working of sports administrators in India. Studying this will help us understand the complexities of modern Indian society, while brining to light the role played by sport in creating and moulding such complexities. It will be evident from this study that hockey was, and remains, a cultural form adopted by Indians to fulfill social, political and economic aspirations and imperatives."
The book is wide-ranging in its ambit and the depth of its research. The Berlin Games of 1936 gets special attention as it featured, from the Indian point of view, the hockey team of Dhyan Chand showcasing its skills to a Nazi-orchestrated Olympic Games under the keen gaze of Hitler. A newspaper report of this time can probably be the epiphany for Indian Olympism: "There is the same old story to tell about Indian athletes and wrestlers at Olympic Games – failure and more failure. A wonderful country is ours, with a population of over 350 million and some of the finest specimens of manhood in the world. But our great country, with its vast resources, its princely patrons of sport and its wonderful climate, cannot produce a single winner in the greatest of athletic festivals. Running, Walking, Swimming, Wrestling, Boxing, Rowing – the manliest of sports and not an Indian to uphold the name of his country… Winning the hockey title isn't enough. Why should not India produce a winner in the marathon race in 1940?"
Olympics: The India Story will interest all followers of Indian sport, and the details it furnishes will be invaluable to researchers and sports writers. There are a few errors – Indonesian badminton legend Susi Susanti has been listed among Indian performers – but by and large, the book is a compelling read.
The cover design and choice of photographs, however, haven't matched the content. While some unremarkable photographs have been used inside, the best archival photographs – including one of Indian acrobats at the 1908 Olympics in London -- are printed in thumbnail size and placed inconspicuously by the cover jacket.
Dev S. Sukumar is a freelance journalist and has authored Touchplay, The Prakash Padukone Story
Book Reviews 
Competitive sport is perhaps the most baffling among all aspects of Indian life. For a country its size, population and West-derived institutions, India is a laggard in international sport. This is all the more puzzling because several sports have had their origins here, and many others took root early. Every four years, just before and after the Olympics, the same questions are asked over and over: what is the ingredient missing for national sporting success?
