A whole nation wakes up to realise its new status!
Let us reform our education belief system, so that we can create millions of aspiring young minds!
Yes, the 24-year young man’s win is India’s great moment of triumph!
The Beijing Olympic Games was held for the first time outside Europe, the West. So, the whole of the world, including the West, UK, in particular saw the Beijing Olympic as a test for the East vs. the West.
In a way, the entire world press too saw the Games from nationalist points of view only. The UK tested the Chinese capacity to stage the greatest show on the earth. How the Chinese organised 15,000 strong people to conduct the opening ceremony in a military drill fashion.
The Indian people, if not the press, didn’t fail to notice that we couldn’t even organise our 57-strong contingent in time, it was said. Even the costumes for the marchers were found to be not in style. Our contingent, led by Rathore, the Athens Silver medalist, a bit tiresome and everyone was commenting why the DD only dewed Sonia Gandhi cheering the Indian rallists. Why didn’t the Indian government send our own stars like P.T.Usha and others at least for the sake of giving aboost to our rally?
So, from day one India looked despondent and utterly crushed for lack of past track record.
So, when Bindra, the young man won the gold here was India emerging from the shadow of a non-entity to a nation to be watched from now onwards.
What is the message? In fact, this win sends out many messages.
One, our education system as it is a mass of mindless crushing of young minds, young spirits into a mindless mass of mere labour!
We need mass education. But this is at another level.
What we need now is a sort of class education. An education that reaches out to identify talent and nurture the talents in whatever fields it blossoms.
Now, sports are India was all about the highly commercialised and also politicised cricket. This pretension to class in cricket to golf hadn’t taken the country anywhere. This is clear from what India failed to do in the truly heroic and even sacred and noble game of Olympics.
Olympics has so many games and sports, this is the first time Indians would take note of the many beautiful games the Olympics honours and rewards. Even simple looking wrestling, pole vaults and the very sprinters have created history and the greatness of the Olympics is that it had brought to the attention of the world, even the poorest countries threw up gold winners, Ethiopians, Kenyans and the Jamicans.
So, our education system must make room for sports in a systematic way.
We have to identify schools, say in every district, with Olympic level infrastructure. Concentrate on particular sports in each of these schools. If it is wrestling or boxing, then, it must be Bhiwandi in Haryana. Our Haryana youngmen have done India proud. Wrestling will no longer be the same.
So too our runners, our Anju Bobby Georges and P.T.Ushas now will get international level coaching and training.
Bindra got the best equipment, his rifles cost Rs.2 crores. He had four coaches, one for coaching, a Swiss coach, herself a world champion. He also got a physiotherapist, a psychologist to give him calmness of mind and other such coaches.
Yes, says Raja Randhir Singh, secretary general of the Indian Olympic Association: When Bindra became world junior champion the Centre should have put him on the elite training programme.
Yes, there are some private efforts. The Olympic Gold Quest Foundation, the Steel magnate Laxmi Mittal 10 million dollar Champion Trust all have taken up training promising young talents. P.T.Usha is training the runner, Tintu Luka, there are dedicated coaches, physiotherapists and others.
All this involves funding.
It is only right that Indian government must create some levels of spotting talents, training them upto one more level, then, senior levels where the winners will get ideally everything free.
This is real education goal. Nurture the best talents to reach the Olympic gold!
Why not?
India is a fine country, a great democracy.
We are much better than China, we are a democracy.
So, instead of talking about skills development for the IT industry, we talk about nurturing talents in Olympic Games.
Winning the Olympic Gold, as Bindra did ,was a bigger achievement than winning the Nobel Prize!
Now, Indian education must look at itself as a changed conception.
It is a pity no one of any significance, neither the PM nor the intellectuals or the elite, leaders or thinkers have come forward to explain the full significance of the Olympic Gold for making India a confident nation.
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