A Game Of Farce
Milkha Singh's refusal to accept the Arjuna Award has sparked off a heated debate over the country's highest sporting honour. This year's controversial list is being seen as the straw that broke the camel's back. Leading sports people believe the award has been devalued and compromised by political lobbying.

A Leader Reformed
A.K. Antony, a one-time Nehruvian socialist, is winning the support of industry as well as Central funds in his new avatar as the harbinger of reforms in the economically beleaguered state.

Family Bride
Poor sex ratio has forced the Gurjjars of Rajasthan to share their wives.

COVER STORY: ARJUNA AWARD

IF WALLS COULD TALK

The Arjuna Awards panel is supposed to be composed of eight people: the Union sports minister and the minister of state for sports, two departmental secretaries, the SAI's director-general and the executive director of its teams wing; the presidents of the IOA and the AAA. But according to an official, close to 20 people attend the meetings, the eight panellists supported by a platoon of junior staff. A SAI official witness to one of these august gatherings says, "Merit is absolutely no consideration in the discussions. Just as every railway minister starts a new service for his constituency, every sports minister first gives out Arjuna Awards to the athletes of his own region." The officials who worked with Bharati's predecessor Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa claim they have even heard him say, "Abhi Punjab se bahut log ho gaye, let's select some people from other states as well."

The case that has embarrassed the ministry-one bureaucrat called it "indefensible"-and enraged Milkha the most is that of Rachna Govil, a SAI deputy director who has been given the Arjuna Award for lifetime's contribution to athletics. Govil's sole athletic achievement is a victory in the Allahabad half-marathon where women competitors were supposed to have numbered three. She says she has competed in two international events in Hisar as well as in zonal shooting events. The recommendation for Govil came from within the ministry, with Bharati instructing the panel that there were to be no arguments. The pressure to give Govil the award came from a well-networked Thakur politician from Uttar Pradesh. When Govil stands before the President to receive her award and hears an account of her career being recited, there will be more than a few people wincing.

Similar is the case of another "lifetime" awardees-Kalpana Debnath, gymnast, coach and now warden of the National Institute of Sports (NIS) girls hostel in Patiala. On the NIS campus, there is no celebration for Debnath, only disbelief and embarrassment. Her name was recommended by NIS Executive Director Colonel B.S. Ahluwalia and she is a protege of national gymnastics coach G. S. Bawa. The Gymnastics Federation of India has repeatedly turned down appeals from Sarbir Singh, coach of an Arjuna awardee himself, to put up his name for any kind of national sporting award.

Not just the Arjuna but the national coaching award, the Dronacharya, is also riddled with inconsistencies. One of five Dronacharyas was awarded to Gurdial Singh Bhangu, national women's hockey coach, sacked by the Indian Women's Hockey Federation last year after his team finished at the bottom of the Olympic qualifiers. National shooting coach Sunny Thomas' name was recommended for the Dronacharya but was turned down. The shooting Arjuna Award for lifetime contribution went to Gurbir Singh Sandhu instead. "He has no individual achievement," says National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) Secretary General Baljit Sethi. "We recommended his son Manavjit for the award earlier, not him. He is a business partner of Randhir Singh." IOA Secretary-General Randhir Singh replies, "We used to do business earlier, not anymore. The NRAI has itself backed shooters who only have team medals." Manavjit is one of them, says his father. The lifetime achievement award instituted in 1995 to make up for lapses in the past has been turned into a lobby fest. The ministry has indicated that the lifetime awards may be stopped after 2000. This led the IOA to instruct federations to recommend as many names as they could muster. They filled so many onto the last departing boat that it has actually sunk.

In the ruckus created by the Milkha refusal, there is a furious finger-pointing on: the ministry pointing at rules that encourage people to leap through loopholes, sports officials at the government for not knowing sport from sea kelp, and the bureaucracy at sports officials for backing weak candidates. Given that sports officials are often people in the government and the bureaucracy, it is a far cosier club than it seems. Today, the faction fight in Indian sport is still split along familiar political lines: the BJP's Bharati versus Congress' Suresh Kalmadi, now the IOA president.

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