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COVER STORY: ARJUNA AWARD
DEATH OF DREAMS
All the form-filling,
recommendation-seeking and string-pulling is done for a bronze statuette,
Rs 1.5 lakh, a railway pass entitling the winner to a lifetime's free
air-conditioned II class rail travel, and an out-of-turn allotment of
a government flat. Officials are quick to puff out their chests and deem
the "perks" as the toxins that have poisoned the awards system.
But elsewhere, reality bites differently. Athlete Makhan Singh, the only
man to have beaten Milkha in the 400 m, at the 1962 National Games, received
his award with no cash attached. Today, he is ready to sell his trophy.
It lies in a polythene bag in his home at a village near Hoshiarpur in
Punjab. "To me it is as good as junk. It fills me with pain rather
than pride," says Makhan in a country liquor-induced stupor.
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| HOLLOW
GRANDEUR: The 1996 Arjuna Award winners at Rashtrapati Bhavan |
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He is a man so bitter and broken it seems improbable
he once ran like the wind and won gold and silver at the 1962 Asian Games.
After his sporting career was over, he drove trucks for a living until
he lost a leg in an accident and now moves around on crutches. "I
am a gold medallist and a soldier-and I've been reduced to a beggar."
A few weeks ago, his wife found the best use for his award. She took it
to the local Telephone Department and slammed it on a table, demanding
a connection. Moved and ashamed, an official had a telephone installed
within a fortnight.
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LEFT OUT: Kanwaljit Sandhu was the first
Indian woman to win an athletics gold at the international level
but was never deemed worthy of the Arjuna Award
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Athletes today live in more cynical times and
their means of persuasion are more subtle than the wife of Makhan Singh.
Kanwaljit Sandhu, the first Indian woman athlete to win a gold medal in
international competition (at the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games), was not awarded
the Arjuna. She applied for the lifetime award last year-"a mistake"-but
didn't get it. "Today's sportspersons are getting smarter and shrewder,
and it is the coaches who teach them the tricks of getting awards through
links and lobbying."
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LIGHTWEIGHT
CANDIDATES
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 WEIGHTLIFTING
produced a double whammy when this year's Arjuna Awards were announced.
One of the awards went to Sanamacha Chanu, a lifter who had served
a two-year ban for testing positive for steroid use, and the first
ever Dronacharya award for coaching to a woman went to Hansa Sharma.
The Arjuna Awards panel is particularly proud of
its choice of Sharma in a male-dominated category, but tokenism
apart it is difficult to see why. Sharma coached the women's team
in the 1999 World Championships and poor tactics and weight settings
meant two lifters failed to score points, one finished fourth
and the team finished 16th. It meant India could only field two
instead of four lifters for the Sydney Olympics.
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ODD COUPLE: Coach Sharma (above)
and lifter Chanu
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Chanu's positive test is explained by IOA Secretary
General Randhir Singh as having come from an Indian laboratory
not recognised by the international federation. But according
to lifting coach Wing Commander P.K. Mahanand, Chanu was also
also suspended for two months for providing a false age certificate
which helped her compete in the 1997 World Junior Championships
in Warsaw, Poland.
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But for every athlete who has bucked and exploited
the system, there is another whose story reflects all that was worthy
about the Arjuna Award. To whom the award was not about the cash or the
railway pass or even the trophy. It is their lives that have been undermined
by the current scandal.
This is what happened to wrestler Kashaba Jadhav.
He was India's first-ever individual Olympic medal winner in Helsinki,
1952: before Malleswari, before Leander Paes. Maharashtra's highest sports
award, the Shiv Chhatrapati, was given to him in 1994, 10 years after
his death in a road accident, only because his son Ranjit would not rest
till his father's name was recognised. Dhindsa refused Ranjit's application
for a posthumous Arjuna for his father. Finally, this year, the wrestler
has been named in the list for lifetime contribution. Now that Milkha
has refused, the individual Olympic medallist will be in the company of
Kalpana Debnath, Rachna Govil, Gurbir Sandhu, Vijaymala Bhanot and G.S.
Bhangu.
Every year, at the village of Goleshwar, they
observe Jadhav's death anniversary. They put up a stage, bring out his
picture, garland it and remember the day he came home from Helsinki in
a procession of 150 bullock carts, raising dust all the way to the village
temple. That is true honour. What happens at the Ashoka Hall in Rashtrapati
Bhavan on National Sports Day now is only cheap impersonation. The fall
of Arjuna is complete.
—With Sandeep Unnithan, Subhash Mishra,
Neeraj Mishra and
Stephen David
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