Why Haryana is India's mine for medals-Oct 31, 2010,

Why Haryana is India's mine for medals

Bhupendra Yadav, Oct 31, 2010, 04.31am IST


All of us play but we are not athletes. We are homo ludens (Latin for play) and our playfulness is unproductive. But athletes play for profit and contest for prizes. It is the transformation of our play and games into athletics that leads to medals. What makes Haryana such a fine place for athletics in India? With barely 2% of India's population, people from Haryana won around 40% of the gold medals in the recently concluded CWG 2010.

People in Haryana tend to count the gold medals of the Hyderabadi shuttler, Saina Nehwal and the Delhi wrestler, Sushil Kumar, in their tally. This is because both of them are Jats. People of this dominant caste form more than 20% of Haryana's population and, therefore, in popular perception, Haryana is Jat-land. All sports are oriented towards the Olympic slogan 'higher, faster, stronger'. But the ones in which Haryana got medals stand for plain force and aggression like wrestling, boxing and shooting. Anthropologists call them contact sports because the opponents have bodily contact in them. Shooting is a combative sport because opponents use a combat weapon. Such sports are a substitute of war or training for it.

Haryana is India's pride in contact and combative games. I can think of three reasons for it, viz. historical geography, peasant culture of perseverance and a feeble government policy. Firstly, the province has a volatile history of continuous aggression due to its geographical location on the frontier. Secondly, the people of Haryana have valued physical strength and perseverance due to its peasant culture. Thirdly, the sports policy since 2006 has honed the killer athletic spirit in Haryana. The half-hearted policy does not create achievers but supports the successful ones among them. Punjab was divided on religious lines in 1947. The non-Sikh majority parts of this truncated Punjab were constituted as Haryana in 1966. Like a horseshoe, Haryana encircles Delhi from three sides and the culture of both is similar. At the popular level, people are rough and tough - meaning 'rough by tongue and tough in body'. In the medieval times, Haryana flourished when weak rulers ruled Delhi.

Most of the area remained under Delhi's tutelage but small principalities also dotted the arid landscape of Haryana. Mostly, people of the region joined the Mughals and Marathas in repulsing invaders. But the same locals did not mind plundering Delhi or looting the retreating armies sometimes. The British colonialists expanded from the east. They conquered most of India with the help of soldiers from western UP and Bihar. But, in the late 19th century, the colonial strategists honoured ordinary peasant castes by calling them 'martial races' in united Punjab. This was a clever way of taming the aggression in this frontier region.

This smart move was also to recruit Punjabi ruralites in the colonial army so that they could be used to thwart the southward expansion of Tsarist Russia. There is a family resemblance between military/hunting activities and wrestling, shooting, races, riding or archery. For the military serving population of Haryana, therefore, such sports come easily. Secondly, before the advent of machinery, agriculture was a backbreaking occupation. The size of agricultural income had a direct relation with the quantity of sweat produced during one's toil.

Even after the wide use of machines, peasants have to rough it out in the open and do a lot of physical labour for long hours. Haryana stands in the midst of India's Green Revolution belt. Its peasant culture values strength and perseverance. Being less than four hectares, 83.5% of the landholdings in Haryana are uneconomical. Unable to hire agricultural labour, such small farms are cultivated by family labour.

Family members slog on and on till their field has been sown, weeded or harvested. The stamina of ordinary people is thus built in their everyday routine. A liking for sports among such people is natural. Consequently, the physical training instructor is the pivot of rural life in Haryana. S/he has the same place in the normal school in Haryana that the dance, drama or music teacher has in Bengal. Finally, this love of aggression and liking for physical culture had to be channelized to competitive championships. This is the task of sports federations.

Sports federations have to enforce the rules of every sport and also keep the performance records of member athletes. The sports federations monopolize government support at other places. The government of Haryana, since 2006, has chosen to directly help its athletes, instead. The athletes who excel get cash rewards and government jobs in the sports quota. This is not the best policy because it does not help create champions or a sports culture. The policy only celebrates the famous and supports the successful.

The writer is a fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi


Read more: Why Haryana is India's mine for medals - The Times of India