Effects of Caste on Modern India Series – Sports
I have, through my posts tried to show the existence of caste system in India. In most of them the focus has been on how it has affected the Untouchables (Dalits) and lower castes. And of course through the topic of arranged marriages and the topic on female foeticide and infanticide, I have shown how it affects all Indians. However that aspect of caste system affecting all Indians and not just the lower castes has not been a focus for me. So with these posts which will have the title ‘Effects of Caste on Modern India’ I will try to highlight the effect caste system has on modern India and all of its people and not just Untouchables and lower castes. And I will do that by taking a specific topic at a time. Since this has been the year of the Olympics I will start with the issue of sports in Indian context and share the observations I have made. Let me start with this chart and use this for further analyzing this topic.
For those of you who have seen me present you will know that I make it a little interactive by playing a quiz game here by not actually showing the country names upfront. And this is how it goes:
1. I give US, China, Ethiopia, India and Wild Card as the options and ask audience to match them with the medal tally that they see in the chart.
2. Once they share their options and we align the right name to the right medal tally I ask them for a unique difference between the medal tallies of US and China compared to Ethiopia and India and finally with the tallies of India and Ethiopia in comparison to medal haul by Phelps.
So if you guys are feeling cheated that I have not made this an interactive session for you then you can still keep thinking of the second question while reading through the next few lines and come up with what you think are the differences.
In most cases the audience identify US and China correctly, they pick India or Ethiopia for the columns with the least number of golds. Mostly India for the one with the least gold medals because by the time I get to this slide, they know the big picture I am sharing and know that the worst possible option is the right option for India. As for the wildcard entry, I did get one audience member correctly identify that it was Phelps with 17 golds, 3 Silver and 2 bronze medals. But that’s a rarity. So that discussion ends with some level of – Huh! good to know kind of expression.
But the answer to the second question the one that you are also thinking through is the one that gets the amazement factor hitting a high note! So without further ado let me explain the differe4nces between the medal hauls here.
1. Medal haul for US and China is for the 2012 Olympics held in London
2. Medal haul for Ethiopia and India is for all the Olympics they have ever attended. India had just 2 silver and 4 bronze for 2012 Olympics. But then that makes me go damn! ’cause I remember Olympics where we had none for decades on end and in one instance where we had just a bronze. Any who, moving on!
3. Difference between our wildcard entry Mr. Phelps when compared to India and Ethiopia should be self evident. He is A person, one person and the other two are countries. And for crying out loud he has more Gold medals than India, a country of billion people. And Ethiopia is a country you would think of when thinking poverty and malnutrition and unfortunately they too can snub India the “Super power” and claim to have more gold medals than Phelps and of course more than India.
I know, I know, some of you are crying foul that it is unfair to compare India to the developed countries, and with Phelps, what with the gifted genes he must have had and all that. But do remember that I threw a poverty stricken country, Ethiopia in the mix. As for the other issues like infrastructure, coaching, corruption and everything else including cricket that Indians give as reasons for our poor performance in Olympics, I will share my view as to why and what purpose they might be serving in the interests of the upper castes and are merely symptoms but not actually the root cause.
So lets get to Cricket first, the epitome of all things Indian and the crazy religion of India. By analyzing this sport first we will be able to analyze the main reason for the poor performance of Indians in all other sports.
So to begin with, Cricket is not the national game of India. It is actually field hockey, and not surprisingly, India has won 11 Olympic medals ( 8 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 bronze) in this event. So effectively of the 9 gold medals that India has, 8 are from Field Hockey, having won them from 1932 until 1956, and then in 1964 and 1980. And then Pakistan has three golds from Olympics held in 1960, 1968, and 1984.
Cricket on the other hand is is not even an Olympic sport. It has a world cup for its one day innings, a two or three country trophy for its test version that lasts up to 5 days, with tea breaks included. Then the latest version is the Twenty20, a condensed version, fast paced, that concludes in less than three hours. The world cup itself is played by all ten full time members of the International Cricket Council who are automatically qualified for the finals and some associate members. For the 2011 tournament this meant about 14 countries and most if not all of the countries have been former colonies of England, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Kenya and so on. And in this event India have been crowned champions twice once in 1983 and more recently on home turf in 2011. But do remember that the number of countries that participate is only 14 and that too 10 out of them are static members and in your mind compare it to 32 world cup teams (from 200) that make it to FIFA Soccer world cup finals and the only team that gets a sure berth in the 32 is the host country. So all in all not an Olympic sport, not a lot of competition, physically less exerting. I do realize there is skill involved and am sure there are finer aspects of batting, bowling, fielding etc that need some level of athleticism, but still a less challenging game than any other team sport (soccer, rugby, footy, hockey, basket ball, handball and so on). Just putting it all in perspective to show what a disservice it is to the country to focus on this one sport and ignore all others.
Having set this stage lets look at the volume of money available for this game. Humungous, will be an under statement, especially when compared to the peanuts available for the development of other sports. More so because its governing body, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), is a ‘private club consortium’ and it seems to have more money to pump into this one sport than what the Indian government can spend on its entire sports budget. And that will soon be even more alarming when we see the group of people this sport benefits. So what are the numbers.
Indian Sports budget for 2010-2011: 230 million US Dollars
BCCI Revenue for year 2012-2011: 170 million dollars – via playing engagements, Media, Sponsorship among others. All this while cricket at local and state level continues receiving of a chunk funds from the overall Indian and state sports budget!
So hopefully you see that when I say humungous, I do mean it. Now lets look into who make up the Indian cricket team. I have an excellent report here from ‘The Sydney Morning Herald‘ that gives this break up for the Indian Test team that visited Australia in 2008. Of the starting 11 players, the composition was:
7 brahmins: Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, R.P. Singh, Ishant Sharma
1 Jat: Yuvraj Singh, an upper caste community from North India
1 Rajput: Mahendra Dhoni, an upper caste community from Western India
2 non Hindus: Wasim Jaffer a Muslim and Harbhajan Singh a Sikh.
Now let me put this in perspective, percentage of Brahmins in India is at 3% and their percentage in cricket teams is greater than 60%. Rest upper castes are about 12% and with the two members seem to have about 20% and the 13% Muslims have 10% share and the 2% Sikhs have the last 10%. Contrast this with the rest 85% of Hindus the Backward castes, Scheduled castes and tribes.
And those who manage BCCI are all also from upper castes. So effectively, fame, money and glamor stay within upper castes with the Brahmins holding the reigns.
A comment that I will receive at this point, mostly from Indian readers is: These players have solely been selected to the Indian team out of merit and had nothing to do with caste – case in point Tendulkar is considered the greatest batsman and revered by all cricketers not just Indian players.
And my response would be as follows:
No one is questioning the inclusion of these these players or their skill and merit, what I am questioning here is the group of players that are missing! I am questioning the lack of diversity. Lets say if we were to go back to the pre-civil-rights era of the Americas and claim that all the sports teams back then consisted of only White people because they were the best in sport and it was not because of discrimination based on race, Would you believe it? I won’t, and neither should you. And it has been abundantly proven by the excellent African American sports men of today on whom different sports franchises depend on for being successful. To maintain that sports team prior to Civil Rights era were white because only whites had the talent won’t fly and would be outright ridiculous to say the least. Now did these all-white teams go about and win world trophies, yes they did. Do these all white era teams, boast of producing the best player of the century or in the history of the sport, Yes they do. But to say that there were no players of other races, who were talented enough to be part of the team, that would be wrong.
So in a similar vein to claim that all of the cricket talent pool in India is to be found only within the 3% Brahmins would be simply outrageous. And that they have won the world cup twice and have a few time honored sportsmen from this pool doesn’t negate the discrimination either. I am sure Tendulkar would still be the greatest but what I am hinting at is that the team, if there was level playing field would be far more diverse than what it is now.
And when there is lack of diversity in a team and its composition is not in close proportion to the composition of the actual population it represents that there is something amiss and definitely something fishy going on.
And every great sportsman has always claimed that they have achieved their pinnacle not in spite of their opponents but because of them, and if that be true, I want to bet that in their budding years, these top notch players also played against such excellent opponents who helped them develop their skills better. But somehow those kids, the opponents (because of their caste) were somehow left behind. So that’s the story of Cricket, fully owned and operated by the Brahmins, teams, boards and everything in between.
So how do we tie it to the poor performance of India in Olympics.
India like all other countries is also a sports crazy nation, however the only sport that benefits the ruling caste (Brahmins) is Cricket hence that is the only sport propagated, supported and respected. And to say that India has no money for Infrastructure would also be wrong because infrastructure for Cricket is being developed at an astonishing rate.
“In 2006 BCCI announced that it will spend $347 Million (Rs. 16 Billion) over the subsequent one year to upgrade the cricket stadiums around the country.”
However no measures are taken in to improve the quality of the other games. In fact, if India was serious about improving its medal chances at Olympics, then they would actually have to rely on ‘Field Hockey’ for inspiration (in which India as mentioned has 8 gold medals) and then based on that success move into other disciplines. However the question which Indian ruling caste (Brahmins) will ask is ‘what is in it for me’ and unfortunately the answer is nothing or at least not as much as Cricket! Hockey was dominated by Sikhs, Christians and Muslims, and even among those from its lower castes. So it won’t benefit Brahmins as much as Cricket would, or they will have to settle for a level playing field and make their way into the team like players from all of the other castes. Also if other sports are developed Cricket which is a less exerting game and also has much more opportunity to be played on laurels and goodwill will lose the public following and will not distract Indians from real issues, and also will not be the money maker that it is now and that benefits the upper castes.
So let me tie this all off with an analogy … lets say we have an inner city school and the school is surprisingly good at a non-Olympic sport. And somehow all of the team members are from the families of the school board, trustees and administration officials, and none of the actual inner city kids feature in the team. Let’s also say that none of the universities recognize this sport for scholarships and there is no path to a professional career in this game because it is a very localized sport. ON top of this all funding from this school is spent on this one non-Olympic sport and it takes up huge acres of land, maintenance of facilities and kits that the inner city students can’t afford, and events and meets are organized in such a way that though a coach never rejects an inner city kid from being part of the team, it is always beyond the means of inner city kids to attend them so they just drop of on their own. But somehow everyone is made to believe that those kids (the privileged ones) who did make it into the team were the best. Would you go with the whole story and support it. If you were a parent of such an inner city kid would you not question the motive? Would you not question why instead of building 10 basket ball courts for 1/10th of the cost, the school board is maintaining just one perfectly manicured lawn the size of two football fields, for a game that is not accessible for your kids and has no representation from kids whom your own kids would associate with. Wouldn’t you not see a moral and ethical breach in this whole dealing, if not a legal one? I bet you would!
That in a nut shell is the state of sports in India, Lower castes are the inner city kids and they are made to believe that cricket is the game of the masses, while the representative team for the country doesn’t even have one player from amongst them. All the while taking the focus, resources and funding away from the other games where these lower castes could excel at and make a name for India at the Olympics and other international venues. So when Indians hang their head in shame and avoid speaking of Olympics what they are missing is the underlying issue of caste discrimination that is the major reason for every issue in India.
Note: I am in no way recommending a reservation(affirmative) system in Indian cricket team. I would rather the masses grow an aversion to Cricket and only indulge themselves in the Olympic recognized sports. But overall I am highlighting a need for a level playing field which will only come by the ‘Annihilation of the Caste System’.
Some people think the reason why india doesnt do well in olympics is because most of them are vegetarians.They have low protein intake in their diet.The brahmins and sadhus always oppose animal slaughter and meat consumption.Whats your thoughts on this editor ?.
Some people think the reason why india doesnt do well in olympics is because most of them are vegetarians.They have low protein intake in their diet.The brahmins and sadhus always oppose animal slaughter and meat consumption.Whats your thoughts on this editor ?.
It is doubtful if you claim that BCCI is geared to benefit Brahmins only. BCCI can spend money on cricket, because it earns it. And BCCI earns only because the team is wining and hence has sponsors. BCCI is the only one that does seek clearance of its teams.
All I am asking is how can the team be 90% Brahmins when they are only 3% of the Indian population.
Wouldn’t you suspect some foul play, if British India (prior to Independence) claimed that it was the cricket team for the country of India but only had Whites ..?
It is doubtful if you claim that BCCI is geared to benefit Brahmins only. BCCI can spend money on cricket, because it earns it. And BCCI earns only because the team is wining and hence has sponsors. BCCI is the only one that does seek clearance of its teams.
All I am asking is how can the team be 90% Brahmins when they are only 3% of the Indian population.
Wouldn’t you suspect some foul play, if British India (prior to Independence) claimed that it was the cricket team for the country of India but only had Whites ..?