India's Female Olympic Team's Success Inhibited by Society

While men have the luxury of using cricket as fig leaf to hide their sordid performance in Olympics, our women stand exposed as a breed of non-performers. When Karnam Malleshwari claimed the bronze in 2000 Olympics, she became the first female Indian Olympian, since the modern Olympics started in 1896. In a country where women have been traditionally venerated as Shakti it took us 100 years to produce a woman Olympian.

To succeed in international sporting events a high degree of dedication is needed from the participants. Indian sportswomen are found lacking in that kind of dedication because of various sociological reasons. Our society has time and again failed to give our women athletes the recognition that they deserve. We would rather spend our spare time watching Ashwirya Rai dancing around the trees than Karnam Malleshwari hefting her ton. Also Indian parents don't want their girl children to take up sports. Our male dominated society expects women to play only inside the kitchen.

The corrupt and shoddily maintained sporting infrastructure contributes its own mite in keeping women away from sports. Hardly any facilities exist that can be called tailor made for women sportspersons. Then there is also the case of lack of support from the government if things go wrong. When Sunita Rani was falsely accused of doping at Seoul games and stripped of her medal, our sports bureaucracy failed to come to her rescue. She had to run from pillar to post in order to get herself acquitted.

But winning is also a state of mind. Maybe that is the foremost reason why we lag behind in sports- we don't have the right state of mind? The Brahminic culture that continues to dominate our way of life holds any work involving physical exertion as demeaning and spiritually undignified- moksha can only be attained through chanting of hymns and not by tilling the soil, cattle grazing, working at construction sites or participating in sports. No wonder India has traditionally failed to produce great sportsmen and women. If you hold physical activity in contempt how can you sprint, swim or throw a javelin. The socialist governments that have ruled this country since independence have failed to reform our culture. But no excellence in sports is possible until we have a culture that extols physical work. Our society has to work towards a massive cultural reform where we have a healthy work ethic. Until that is done Indian women will be only chasing a mirage, not medals, in international sporting events.