The Development Of Paralympic Movement In India
What followed over the next fortnight is a blur and holds a touch of the surreal for me. I walked, ran, commuted huge distances to be present at the events where our athletes were. When they began performing - and boy, did they perform! - I followed them back to the Village and recorded them on my phone. This resulted in videos which, albeit amateur, transmitted their unbelievable stories back home. On day two, medals came through the indomitable high jumpers Mariyappan Thangavelu and Varun Bhati. Suddenly, the Indian media descended on my team back home, clamouring for access to the medallists, queuing up for interviews. The other athletes obliged the rising expectations as well – Devendra Jhajharia broke his own 12-year-old world record and brought home a repeat gold. Deepa Malik, a first-time Paralympian at the age of 45, hurled the shotput to become the first ever Indian female Paralympic medallist. We had been prepared for the deluge. The team had created Wikipedia profiles of all the Paralympians before the Games began, so that curious fans looking them up would actually obtain meaningful information on these elite athletes. I do not believe that any of us slept more than 2-3 hours a night through the duration of the event. Medals would come in the dead of night back home in India, and by early morning, the team would prepare and disseminate press releases using the videos and photographs that I would hurriedly click and then send back from my accommodation. Precious memories of a very special time for all of us. The weeks that followed our return from Rio were rendered more special by the fact that people cared! Central and state governments and federations organised felicitations; announced equal prize money. Our remarkable partners organised warm, heartfelt celebrations and flew the champions down to meet with their staff and share with one and all what their support had enabled. Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his network of well-wishers wanted to do something special for the achievers. We suggested honouring not just the four Rio medallists, but all nine medallists India has ever had – after all, nobody had done this before.
They obliged, and entrusted us with the task of contacting the medallists, conducting the due diligence, and presenting them with sizeable cash awards. What a privilege for us! Thus began our task of locating Murlikant Petkar (swimming gold; 1972), Bhimrao Kesarkar (javelin silver, 1984), Joginder Singh Bedi (shotput silver, 1984; now, sadly, deceased) and his family, and the other more recent medallists and according them long overdue recognition. While all this was fantastic and unforeseen, this is not how a system is meant to grow. Granted, it has certainly provided a huge spark to the Paralympic movement. In the one year post Rio, turnout at the 2017 para athletics nationals rose from 800 odd to almost 1700. Differently abled people across the country were finally viewing para sport as aspirational! However, while this augurs well for India, we still need the system to come together for them, and not just in fits and spurts. There are many stories of courage, dedication and grit and they are around us, training, playing, now dreaming of representing our country. My tryst with ground reality at the Rio Paralympics was an eye-opener. There has been a significant improvement recently. The government and multiple private organisations are taking notice and providing Indian para athletes with platforms to voice their opinions, and stages to celebrate their achievements, which will allow them to inspire future generations. To cite a few examples, Suyash Jadhav, a para swimmer, and Suhas Yathiraj, a para badminton player, were both awarded and recognised by their respective state governments for their contribution to the sports field and society. Javelin legend Devendra Jhajharia became India’s first Paralympian to be awarded the Khel Ratna (India’s highest sporting honour) in early 2018. While multiple para athletes have been conferred with the Arjuna Award over the years, the Khel Ratna has finally proven to be within their grasp. At the same time, Murlikant Petkar was extracted from a quiet retirement and awarded the Padma Shri. His first national honour; coming close to half a century after his feat in Heidelberg, but well, better late than never.
The longer the wait, the sweeter the fruit. This could also be the title of Devendra Jhajharia’s autobiography, if indeed he ever decides to write his incredible life story. It all began for the 8-year-old boy from Churu district in Rajasthan when he lost an arm after touching a live wire while climbing a tree. He cowered at home in shame, hiding his amputation from the world, before his mother told him that he had absolutely no reason to do so. Self admittedly, the turning point of his life. Not only did the youngster throw off the shackles of embarrassment, emboldened by his parent’s supportive words, he trained and trained until he was spotted by a coach who honed his innate throwing talent. He may have had only domestic javelins of questionable quality to train with, but Devendra threw his heart out at every event, until one such throw at the 2004 Paralympics fetched him not just a gold medal, but the world record to boot. His story does not end there; not even close. The 23-year-old was not satisfied with having attained the pinnacle of his sport in his first Paralympics. He went right back and put his heart and soul into training again, waiting for his event to get included at the Paralympic Games. This did not happen at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008, nor at London 2012. Devendra waited for THREE Paralympic cycles, until he could take the field again in 2016, as a 35-year-old man, now with a family and two children he had not fully gotten to know yet, spending most of the year away from home. He had a promise to keep. On the phone from distant Finland, a couple of months before his Rio outing, he promised his daughter that he would bring back the gold medal. In fact, the family was united in their promises; in exchange for Devendra bringing home the highest accolade in the sporting world, his daughter had vowed to top her kindergarten class, and his wife had committed to losing 10 kilos. In the event commentator’s words, here’s what Devendra did in Rio. “He’s the world record holder… OH, HE’S THE WORLD RECORD BREAKER!! It stood for 12 years from his Athens gold, and Devendra sends it out to new horizons!!! It’s gone well beyond 62 metres, by a long way, look at that! Sensational throw!. . . ” And, just like that, his long wait and unflinching dedication had paid off, and Devendra was a Paralympic champion, twice over. Today, in 2018, there is still a naïveté to para sport in India. Look past the obvious state of disrepair, and a scent of distinct possibility and transformation is noticeable. At first glance, there are just nine medals (4 Gold, 3 Silver, 2 Bronze) to show over a long Paralympic history. Our largest contingent ever might have been out in full force at the Games in 2016, but it comprised all of 19 people. To put that in perspective: the Chinese contingent of 327 occupied two entire towers at the Athletes’ Village. The Indian contingent barely took up 2 floors of one building. Blink, and you would have missed our athletes at the opening ceremony – sandwiched somewhere between the Hungarian and Indonesian contingents. Change has taken long to seep into the ecosystem. The vicious cycle of apathy-demotivation-dropout has slowly begun to change. Slowly, the cycle of dearth of sponsorship, interest and insufficient funding is being eroded. Since 2016, Paralympians have an increased visibility on television shows and platforms that allow them to share their stories with millions of viewers. With corporates directing their social responsibility funding towards the support of many such athletes, the government working on promotional schemes, and a professional support system coming in, there is hope that societal barriers will eventually crumble, and absorb differently abled athletes into the mainstream.
The time is right to groom a contingent that is truly representative of the talent that is inherent in India. Multiple stakeholders involved in the process - the MYAS, federations, educational institutions, corporates, private organisations and individual well-wishers need to come together in scripting this change. A strengthened Paralympic movement would not only have self-affirming consequences for India in world sport, but also mainstream the differently abled and result in a better integrated society. The change in sporting infrastructure this would bring would inevitably lead to increased visibility and much deserved equal recognition for differently abled athletes. In 2017, the story of India’s indigenous hero Devendra was included as a chapter in 7th grade textbooks in Rajasthan. Twelve-year-olds in the state, at the peak of their formative years, are now learning about the boy whose mother refused to believe that he was weaker than any other child his age just because he had lost a limb. The boy whose parent taught him that playing sport was the appropriate way of proving that he was physically as “able” as they come. Post his Rio medal, Devendra’s mother revealed that an Olympic medal had never crept into her mind as the ultimate objective for him. She had simply wanted her son to establish social parity with his peers with intact limbs. Little did she know the revolution in belief systems that could be sparked off by her thought. There are already boys and girls out there who have been inspired to pick up sport because they read the story of the boy who refused to hide away and the man who refused to give up. For that is the power of sport. I can’t help feeling that India’s Paralympic story is just beginning.
