One positive outcome of all the negative media that the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in New Delhi has got could well be an honest re-examination of the relevance of such mega events for the promotion of sports talent in India. India’s record in athletics and other sports, barring cricket and tennis, is by and large abysmal. The country needs a wider and deeper base of talent, and much better infrastructure as well as better professional recognition of sporting talent before it takes on further obligations to host such mega events. As in so many other sectors, the focus in India even in sports has been on infrastructure rather than people. More money is spent on buildings than on the talent that must inhabit them. This is as true for universities and educational institutions as it is for sports facilities. While thousands of crores are spent on roads, buildings and security, the investment in human resources is always the last thing on the mind of those who craft budgets for such events. It is not at all clear why the taxpayer should have forked out so much money for a Games village or a sporting arena, or indeed for a fancy media centre, when the benefits of such expenditure may never reach her? Why couldn’t a large campus of an existing institution, with hostel and other facilities, have been taken over as the Games village?
More than the games themselves, it is the entertainment part that seems to be sucking in dollops of money. Rs 40 crore spent on a hot air balloon! Rs 5 crore paid out for a theme song! India’s political leadership appear like later-day Mughals, throwing money at fancy stuff, without paying attention to the basics. A more economical but efficient way of handling such events must be thought of before more commitments are made to host such events in the future. It is also worth pondering over why India put up a much better show hosting the World Military Games in 2007 in Hyderabad, in which 5,000 athletes from 101 countries participated. The event covered 14 sports over a week. Part of the reason why that event did not attract the kind of flak that the CWG has may have to do with the fact that it was the armed forces that did most of the organisational work, and with the event being in Hyderabad, the Delhi-based and Delhi-centric media may not have paid much attention to all the glitches. The other part of the reason could well be that the Military Games did not spend such money on infrastructure as Delhi did on CWG. So, there is an alternative Indian model of hosting a mega global event of this sort in a more acceptable way. The bottom line about the Delhi CWG is that if some part of this extravaganza was about building “brand India”, then the event has already failed. India will have to recoup its lost shine and start all over again to get the world to take it seriously as a modern, efficient economy.