Earning just six medals
(none gold), India largely ignored the Games. Therein lies its wisdom and glory
Interviewed last week for a British radio
program on childhood obesity—British children are on track for the gold medal
for fatness—I happened to hear a Nigerian sports journalist who said that his
fellow countrymen were furious that no Nigerian competitor won a medal at the
Olympic Games. After all, he continued, Nigeria is the most populous country in
Africa, with the largest financial resources; the government ought to spend
more on sports facilities.
The interviewer very
properly asked him whether the government might not have other priorities. It
is certainly true that the first thought of any visitor to Nigeria wouldn't be:
"This country desperately needs more world-class discus throwers."
The Nigerian journalist replied that there are
always other priorities, for any activity at all. It depended on the importance
you accorded to sports.
Precisely. And in this matter there is one
shining beacon in the world: India. Its low tally of medals in the Olympic
Games puts practically all other countries to shame. With a sixth of the
world's population, it won only six medals, none of them gold—that is to say,
it won fewer, pro rata, than half a percent of the medals won by Britain and
1.25% of those won by the U.S.
It is not that India tried and failed. It did
not try, and therein lies its peculiar wisdom and glory. Almost alone of the
nations of the world, it more or less ignored the Games. But it is India, whose
government does nothing to encourage (or deter) its athletes, that is right,
not the rest of the world.
There is a bimodal distribution of countries
that are enthusiastic about winning Olympic medals: They are either populist or
ideological. Britain, for example, falls into the former category. Woe betide
the British person who dares to suggest that his country's excellent
performance at the Games wasn't a sign of national regeneration but of national
frivolity and meretriciousness, to which its population and its leaders now
turn as naturally as some flowers turn to the sun.
There are no prizes for guessing into which category falls North
Korea, which did about a hundred times better at the Games than India. There is
nothing a totalitarian regime likes more than devoting its citizens to
pointless activities, such as throwing the javelin, and then claiming, when one
of them does it better than anyone else in the world, that it proves the
brilliance of the dictator and the beneficent efficiency of his rule. How else
could such excellence result?
No typology of complex social realities can be perfect, though,
and so it must be admitted that there are intermediate forms between the two
types of countries. The U.S. and Britain could be said to be intermediate,
insofar as some politicians used the Games as a photo opportunity. Other public
figures pointed to the prowess of their country's athletes as evidence that
success comes with effort and determination. But was there ever a time when we
did not know that?
India alone values the Games at their true
worth—which is to say, approaching nil. It is not that Indians are completely
indifferent to sports. They are crazy about cricket, a game whose considerable
subtleties are lost on all who did not grow up with it but which teaches mental
flexibility as well as specific skills.
But no official encouragement is necessary to promote this
enthusiasm. On every field of every Indian city, ragged children can be seen
playing with improvised equipment, as richer children play with the latest
kits. It is no coincidence that, economically, India now dominates this most
English of games. India has taken over cricket as its companies have taken over
British companies.
For reasons that I am unable to fathom, for no
person is less interested in sports than I, the United Nations Development
Program regularly sends me updates on its efforts to promote economic and
social progress through athletics. India, I am glad to say, does not believe in
this nonsense.
Last Wednesday, India celebrated the 65th
anniversary of its independence, and officials announced that it would send a
space probe to Mars. This is something quite beyond the technical powers or
prowess of its former colonial masters—though they, of course, did far better
at the Olympics. I hope India will maintain its ability to discriminate between
the worthwhile and the worthless.
A
