Sports raj

The draft national sports development bill was rejected by the cabinet on Tuesday, with several ministers expressing strong concerns about its provisions. This is fortunate; the bill should unquestionably be seen as a naked power-grab. India’s sports federations hardly operate at peak efficiency, government control will not improve matters. Indeed, given the government’s track record in matters of sport, extending its authority into the nitty-gritty of administration will almost certainly make things worse.

The bill has various provisions that should worry us. Unless “recognition” is bestowed on an organisation, it will not be permitted to claim to send an “Indian team” abroad; nor can it consider itself part of an international federation. “Recognition”, of course, will serve essentially to ensure a sports federation does whatever the government wishes it to. Yet this bill is presented to us merely as a harmless reform to try and make sports bodies more open and transparent. Other provisions are also odd: why is the government prescribing a retirement age for the heads of independent societies, for example? With singular recklessness, the sports ministry went ahead even after the International Olympic Association wrote strongly worded letters, warning that interference with the independence of its Indian affiliate would lead to “appropriate measures and actions which might seriously affect the representation and participation of India at the Olympic Games and international sports events”.

Even more absurd than the old-line statist impulse of this draft is the decision to make it a priority at this time at all. The UPA is struggling to carry other political parties and state governments along on its pending legislative agenda. It is far from clear why it would choose to dip into its severely depleted reserves of goodwill and authority to get this particular bill passed. If human resources are a concern, where is the forward movement on skilling the working-age population? Energy wasted on fighting the sports bill battle could instead have been focused on the massive expansion of schools and colleges needed to meet the goal of quality education for all those who need it. Does the Central government have the slightest sense of what its priorities should be? Does it feel the slightest urgency to get India moving again? Judging by its choice to waste time and effort on an attempt to take over sports federations, the answer is not reassuring.