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COVER STORY: ARJUNA AWARD
INTERVIEW: UMA BHARATI
"Even Oscars And Nobel Prizes Are Controversial"
Union Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Uma
Bharati has her plate full of controversy but she told Associate Editor
Sharda Ugra that all the Arjuna Awards needed was a rewriting of rules.
Q. Are the Arjuna Awards still relevant or
should they be scrapped?
A.
The awards should not be scrapped. Sportspersons must have their own awards.
But I admit there has to be some rethinking. I have asked my office to
formulate a report on how things can be improved. Next year's awards will
be different.
Q. Will your changes include more sportspersons
on the awards panel?
A. Even
if we fill the committee with athletes, can you guarantee a fair selection?
There is politics in federations and among athletes. I have seen them
indulge in politics that will shame even the politicians.
 Q.
What changes do you think are needed?
A.
We want to scrap all the clauses for relaxation of rules and use performance
as the only criterion. While the rules say some performances are more
valid than others, there is a clause saying that the awards committee
can relax the stipulations as it thinks fit. The athletes know this and
exploit the clause.
Q. What about political pressure being used
to hand out the awards?
A. There
is a difference between pressure and recommendations. The committee does
not take decisions based on pressure. To say that the PMO puts pressure
on us is foolish and wrong.
Q. Do you think Milkha Singh's sentiments
are justified?
A. These
awards are not based or given on fame but on contribution. VJs are famous
but we don't give them awards. Milkha's contribution is the same as others,
but he is more famous. For him to say that he will not take the award
because of who the other Arjuna awardees are is an insult to sportspersons.
Q. Are Rachna Govil and Milkha's contributions
to Indian sport the same?
A. That
was a decision of the committee. I am the chairperson and own up to the
decision. Nothing unfair has happened.
Q. Why do athletes need to go to court over
these awards?
A. Sometimes
athletes are so undisciplined that the committee finds it difficult to
have regard for them. I admit we may have been unfair and some deserving
candidate has not been rewarded.
This will always happen. It is difficult to separate awards and controversy-whether
it is the Padmas, the Nobel Prize or the Oscars. So where do the Arjuna
Awards stand?
Q. Is it true that federation officials have
been asking the athletes to pay for recommending their names for the awards?
A.
No athlete has come to me. The people making these claims are frustrated
and are being provoked to play a political game. Do you think any Arjuna
winner will stoop so low as to give an official a bribe of Rs 50,000?
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