Opinion | India's Neglect Of Its Athletes Is Also An Olympic-Time Story

So what if our team turned up in an eyesore of a formal kit at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics? Our shaadi ceremonies are way grander than the show France put up earlier this week. As we say in Delhi, "vibe is better here".

On a serious note, Team India's sartorial ignominy will, disproportionately, remain the defining moment for the country's most important sporting outing in four years. Unless, of course, the shine of medals makes us forget how we repeatedly let our athletes down. While shooter Manu Bhaker is being cheered for her bronze, Deepika Kumari has been turned into a villain online after India's archery team lost 0-6 to the Netherlands.

What The Olympics Represent

The modern Olympics are important, they have always been, for not just what they present during some weeks but also what they represent before and after the opening and the closing ceremonies. They are scrutinised, overanalysed, politicised, and sometimes even totemised. Terrorist threats emerging around each edition of the games underscore their geopolitical importance. Like their ancient version, the modern Olympics are overburdened with the task of building bridges between countries and cultures. They are a celebration of the indomitable spirit of humanity that burns bright even when countries and cultures stand on the brink of annihilation. The loudest cheers, therefore, are reserved for the contingents marching under the refugee flags, every four years. 

The Olympics have been serving as an antidote to strife and conflict since ancient times. The Greeks loved to fight. But they also halted their warring business for the games. Even in the middle of the fierceness of the Trojan War in The Iliad, Achilles organises funeral games to honour the memory of Patroclus. Many an observer of the games in both their ancient and modern avatars believe that the Olympics are all about winning. Surely, the hymns of glory in Homer's epic and other classical texts like the odes of Pindar reserved for the winning athletes may foster this idea. Nothing could be further than the truth. The spirit of games, especially the Olympics, was far higher than the podium. 

A Question Of Honour

In the ancient Greek culture, the desire for honour, philotimia, and the desire for victory, philonikia, run parallel. Heroes are heroes because they win, or lose, with their honour intact. Agamemnon, a great warrior, is no hero and meets a rather unheroic end by being killed in a bathtub in his home upon returning as a victor in the Trojan War. Achilles, had it not been for the funeral games, would not have emerged as the hero of The Iliad. His rage and retribution subside after immersion in the nobleness surrounding honourable competition. The Greeks did not have much respect for a man - women were not there in the game, they were often the prize - who could not bear to see another man win. Phthonos - the tendency to deprive another man of good and happiness - was acknowledged but not celebrated.

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It must be noted that codes of honour applied only to the mortals. The gods and goddesses could lie, cheat, quarrel, and be as base as they wished. Only those who could die could aspire to heroism; only they had to make a choice. Antilochus urging his horses mercilessly when competing against Menelaus makes a less-than-ideal choice. His zeal for victory ought not to be a burden for his beasts. He loses. Even if he'd won, Antilochus would have to swear that he didn't resort to unfair means. 

The modern Olympics aim to carry this legacy of honour. And it's not confined to the competition venues. It is now becoming a norm to use the Olympics platform to make political statements. The throwing of the red roses by the Algerian contingent in the river Seine near a protest site where allegedly 300 Algerians were killed in 1961 after a French police crackdown is a powerful gesture of memorialising the victims of colonialism. Being honourable and successful is rarely coterminous now.

Indian Athletes Are Already Winners

Coming back to the Indian contingent, their success lies in the fact of their very presence at the Olympics. They are a case study in honour and humility. Racing against time, crossing interminable systemic, societal, and logistical hurdles if they are able to don their country's colours-however non-aesthetically rendered-with pride and dignity on that barge cruising down the Seine, they are winners even before competing. India's neglect of its athletes is a story oft told. 

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This should bring us to the question: what should winning at the Olympics mean for Indians beyond the immediate photo ops? And what about the promised infrastructural and systemic reforms that would allow Indian children to even think of sports as a real choice? Why do we, the people, expect any glory and honour from our athletes at the Olympics when we do not fuel their fire with honourable conduct on our part? We are the quickest to throw them under the bus for their inability to handle the flash-in-a-pan moment of the limelight they get after any sporting victory. 

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? 

(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author