Say Yes to Sports

By OP Singh

First Hand Accout of Play for India, the Initiative that Attracted Millions of Sports in Harayan Sports in developing countries is often hand-wrenching over losses in glitzy events, mostly occasions for rich countries to predictably and persistently prove their supremacy. They rarely value sports role in inculcating key personality differentiators among growing children, channeling youths energy in constructive pursuits and building fair, competitive and inclusive societies. They seldom pay heed to what Duke of Wellington is popularly believed to have said while revisiting Eton, the school that has given England nineteen Prime Ministers, including the present one: The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Lack of sports at the grassroots in developing countries, the author believes, is not as much about lack of facilities or opportunities. It is about lack of awareness and self-destructive affinity for physical inactivity. India, for example, may be the second most populous country in the world but its playing population-number of people spending couple of hours in playgrounds five days a week-may not be more than a hundred thousand. Say Yes to Sports explores sports role in Indias evolution as a country and argues for Right to Play as the way out of the present stalemate. It decodes Play for India, the performance-linked sports promotion program that attracts millions of children to playgrounds in Haryana every year. Most importantly, it asserts and assures that it is important and possible to build a popular sports culture. Say Yes to Sports seeks repositioning of sports as a service sector industry with income and employment opportunities around extra-scholastic skills for millions of enterprising youth. This way, the author believes, sports can help in engaging vulnerable and alienated youth productively and effectively. The book also has lessons in Indias business ecosystem for people navigating the treach

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wisdom Tree Publishers
• Release date: Nov 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9788183283526

OP Singh

OP Singh, an IPS officer with over two decades in public services delivery, has wide ranging work experience in area policing, vigilance, intelligence, security. counter-terrorism, and anti-money laundering. As the Haryana Sports Director from 2008-12, he contributed immensely in the state's transformation into a sporting giant with the iconic programme 'Play for India'. He was awarded the President's Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 2008. He lives in Chandigarh with his daughter Mallika, son Raj and wife Rani.

Book preview

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Sports promotion is Haryana government’s top agenda.

—Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Haryana Chief Minister in

The Tribune, 26 August 2012

SPAT is the thing to do. Here you will get the guys who would raise the bar few years down the line.

—Bruce Kidd, former Olympian and Commonwealth Sports

Policy Advisor in Dainik Jagran, 9 February 2011

The National Physical Fitness Program (NPFP), to be undertaken by the Union Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry, will be on the pattern of Haryana’s Sports & Physical Aptitude Test (SPAT). If all other states follow Haryana’s model in sports, India can easily rank among top five countries in the Olympics.

—Ajay Maken, the then Union Youth Affairs & Sports

Minister in Hindustan Times, 8 October 2012

Haryana’s sports initiative also proved highly successful, when there was an overwhelming response from youth for SPAT in schools, aimed at spotting and building up young sporting talent through the provision of scholarships.

—The Indian Express, 31 December 2011 in ‘2010: A year of

highs, lows and sporting glory for Haryana’

Other states should follow the Haryana Model. If other states can follow Haryana’s footsteps, I think we can win 25 to 30 medals at Rio in 2016.

—Saina Nehwal in The Times of India, 27 August 2012

Just like India has the Bihar or the Gujarat model of development, it may have hit upon a Haryana model for sports. If such merit-based instruments work in Haryana, there is no reason why they cannot work in other states too. If we want to make a mark at the acme of international sports, it’s time to scale up the Haryana model.

—The Times of India, 6 August 2012

A widely successful sports scholarship programme named as Sports & Physical Aptitude Test, SPAT is definitely a champion programme given its reach in the last three editions.

—The Economic Times in ‘Celebrity, Ceremonies, Corruption

Dominate Sports in India.’ 5 September 2012

The SPAT programme, introduced in schools to identify potential athletes to help them excel in sports through scholarships is a first-of-its-kind talent identification programme at the grassroots level that has all the ingredients to fulfil Haryana’s sporting potential and put India strongly on the Olympic map.

—FICCI in ‘Sports Performance Assessment of Indian States’

Put in place to increase the physical activity level of the youth and to create a larger ‘playing population’, SPAT, the iconic grassroots sports scholarship programme and Participation, Inclusion & Excellence (PIE) model of sports promotion have not only transformed the outlook of schools, parents, and children but have also made various sports other than cricket a viable career option for many in the state.

—Innowin, innovation-documenting quarterly in its

November 2013 edition

OP Singh

© OP Singh, 2014

First published 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author and the publisher.

ISBN 978-81-8328-352-6

Published by

Wisdom Tree

4779/23, Ansari Road

Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002

Ph.: 23247966/67/68

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Printed in India

Contents

Foreword ix

Prologue 1

Was It Al-Qaeda? 7

A Rich Past 13

Medieval Morass 21

Modern Muddle 25

Virtual Kingdom 31

It’s the Playing Population, Stupid! 35

So Far, No Good 39

The Beijing Effect 45

It is Not the Critic Who Counts 49

A Journey of a Thousand Miles 55

Way to Go 59

Play for India 65

SPAT 71

Going Great Guns 77

The Magic Bullet 83

The Right Choice 89

Sports in the Conflict Zone 95

DARE to Change 101

Power to the People 107

Foreword

This remarkable book Say Yes to Sports chronicles the efforts of the equally remarkable ‘Play for India’ campaign which was started in the state of Haryana by its author OP Singh, an IPS officer. This campaign has helped the state create a pool of athletes across a range of sporting events who have been garnering medals and laurels at all levels of national and international competitions on a regular basis. Over the last few years, this state, one that accounts for a mere 2% of India’s land and population, has been successful in claiming about one-third of the total medals won by India in various international events across the entire spectrum of sporting disciplines. The success of this effort has put the spotlight on sporting effort and achievements in an unprecedented manner.

Developing societies, plagued as they are with daunting social, political and economic challenges, often overlook the significance of sports as an instrument of preventive health

x • SAY YES TO SPORTS

care, personality development, youth engagement, community building and inclusive governance. India, a country with a burgeoning population of a billion, holds perhaps an active sports oriented population of only a few million. This does not stop our society from being medal hungry. While we nurture ambitions of winning the elite prizes on offer at the highest levels of international competition, our collective disappointment at the losses of our own sportspersons at the hands of better trained athletes from developed nations in international events is palpable. Yet we do not recognise an essential fact which fails our sporting endeavours time and again—a country that flourishes in sports is a more competitive nation in all arenas than the one which is not.

While challenges remain in societies like India, creating a sporting culture in affluent societies in developed nations has been a tall order as well. The United States of America, known for its painstakingly created rich sporting heritage, has realised that its new generation needs the extra push that sports provide. This prompted the First Lady, Michele Obama to lead the Let’s Move campaign which spreads the message that kids must get involved in different sports and eat right. The USA is not alone in this endeavour. The London Olympics cost £10 billion to organise. The simple objective behind the entire exercise was to ‘bring children to the playground’ as described by Sebastian Coe, the Chairman of the organising committee.

These instances highlight the importance of campaigns like ‘Play for India’. While successfully drawing parallels with the Bolsa Familia programme from Brazil, the campaign put into place innovative mechanisms like conditional cash

FORWARD • xi

transfer and direct outreach to the end-users. This helped athletes reach the potential they are meant to, hone their skills in local competitions, represent the nation at international events, compete at the highest level with the best and be in a prime position to win medals. As the worst affected from lack of sporting avenues at the grassroots level are children, the programme successfully identified parents as the most important stakeholders when implementing its agenda. It contends that they will have to speak up for the ‘Right to Play’ if they want their children to rise to their potential and live a fulfilling life.

The book highlights the lack of awareness towards sports as the chief contributor to India’s meagre progress in sporting arenas across the world. To counter this, the author prescribes establishing schools which comply with the mantra—Y2S ie., Yes to Sports. These schools will create mechanisms which will allow children, their parents and teachers to make