Games and Development

The first thing ever a baby does after he has learnt how to move his hands and feet is to play. When he moves them, he is the happiest soul on earth. As he grows, he likes to do only three things – suck milk, sleep and play. This spirit continues to grow as he grows. Childhood is the best time to play, and it is at this stage that he learns to play new games and learn their rules.

Playing is not an activity alone, it is much more than that. While a child plays, his body begins to build, his muscles and bones become stronger, and he is able to handle difficult situations through strength, agility and flexibility. At the same time, playing also cultivates in him several mental qualities as tolerance, team work, honesty, abidance by the rules, sympathy and fair play. A combination of these physical and mental qualities helps a person to become mature and competent in his life.

There is no other activity in human life that is more vitalising and exciting than playing. It remains the most favourite activity for entertainment. This is the reason that our sportsmen fall in the category of great entertainers and are termed heroes, winning a large number of followers.

There is little doubt that games do good to a player in his individual capacity; it also does good to the society and nation as a whole. If you look at the medal tallies of the international events, you will find that the countries that win more medals are also more developed. This gauge can never fail. Let us take the example of Germany. Prior to the Second World War, in 1936 Olympic Games, it captured the largest number of medals in different sports events. It was the same Germany that showed its brute force in bringing the world to its feet in the years following it. After it was severely battered in the war, its medal tally in games also went down drastically. And just make a conjecture which country played the most crucial role to defeat Germany; it was none other than America, the same country which was just second in the medal tally. If you look at the medal tally in the just concluded international events, you will find the developed nations winning the most medals. This proves that sports is not a mere means of entertainment, it also lays the foundation to build the nation.

In our country, playing has been part of the Indian tradition, from much before other civilizations came into being. There were played different contests, mainly wrestling, sword-fighting, mace-wielding and chariot-racing. Most of the Hindu gods have been depicted holding weapons, the bow being the most popular one. Rama held a bow, Hanumana a mace and Krishna a Chakra. We hear of the ancient most sports when Raja Janak called a competition and the winner was to have the hand of his daughter Seeta. The item to be performed was no easy one; it comprised lifting up a massive bow and shooting from it. Several kings and princes participated in the contest, but none could match the prowess and skill shown by Rama, who not only lifted the bow but also broke it into two while trying to thread it.

The next major ancient sports event is mentioned in the Mahabharata when the Pandava and the Kaurava princes showed their skills in different weapons. Later, in an open contest, Arjuna won the hand of Draupadi in one of the most difficult and skilled test of archery, in which he shot at the eye of a revolving fish by looking at its image in the pool of water below.

It will be amazing to note that Siddhartha, who later became the Buddha, had mastered great skills in archery, fencing, charioteering, wrestling and lance-throwing. In a fencing contest, he is said to have cut through a massive palm tree in one sweep of the sword, such that the tree did not fall down until it swayed in the wind some time later.

The traditions of sports continued in the ancient period as there is evidence of charioteering during the Harappan period and the Vedic Age. However, with the onset of the medieval period in the eighteenth century, Muslim invasions started to take place in waves after waves. These invaders were cruel barbarians, who chose to destroy whatever came their way; they adopted looting, arson and pillage as well as dishonouring women as the tactics to subdue people. Their only aim was to subjugate the minds of the native people through conversion, and massacre who did not agree to them. This put an end to the sporting events that were commonly held in different places. However, the tradition of games continued to a limited extent, especially in rural areas. Maharana Pratap was a great hunter, while Shivaji was a wrestler.

When the English ruled over us, some of the new games were also introduced, like badminton, cricket, hockey, boxing and others, and the traditional games like wrestling, kho-kho and rope-pulling went into oblivion, though they continued to be played in the rural areas.

After independence, India has not done well in the international sports arena. India possesses one-sixth of the world population, but when it comes to medals in international meets, we find ourselves in the company of some small poor nations. India and China were freed about the same time, but we lag far behind it in sports, so do we in development. The message is clear -- if we wished to be a developed nation, we would need to excel in sports too. The two are inextricably linked.

It is heartening to note that India is paying more attention to sports at present, and we can see its positive outcome in the number medals; and with this we can also see that we are taking longer strides in the field of development. We are already doing good in regional games, like SAARC Games, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, but we still stagger far behind in the sports events that encompass the developed nations, like the Olympics and World Championships.

There is a negative side to our increased participation in sports too. Most of our young people want to become professionals; they want to play the game for money; they want to emulate the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli who have grown multi-millionaires. Playing should cultivate the qualities of skill, speed, stamina and strength, and these qualities cannot be developed without taking part in amateur games, which ensures 'a sound mind in a sound body'. So, we need to look beyond to games other than a few money-yielding ones. This alone will help to build the nation and put us on the path to development.