India Wins Kabaddi World Cup
India has beaten Pakistan in a tightly knit match in the final of the 4th men’s Kabaddi World Cup by 48-39 at Guru Nanak Stadium, Ludhiana on December4. India entered in the final by beating Kenya, Argentina, USA and Spain in its pool matches and England in semi-finals whereas Pakistan defeated USA to enter the finals. Unfortunately, there is no celebration, no declaration of prizes and no media coverage to this achievement. This is another sign that, in this cricket frenzy nation, Indian sports like kabaddi and Kushti (wrestling) are neglected and negated despite of positive results.
Indian men’s kabbadi team needs to be congratulated as they retained their world title by defeating Pakistan in the finals of 4th men’s Kabaddi World cup. Kabaddi has been played in India for centuries and still a popular game in the rural India. Kabaddi, hockey and wrestling has been our forte and we have been performing well in these games on regular basis but still these games are not able to find respect in the heart of people as media foreign funded media ignores and Indian Government neglects them. The country has won eight Olympic gold medals in hockey, many in kabaddi and displayed remarkable performance in wrestling in the recent past. But the bitter fact is that cricket is overshadowing other games in India. Hockey “so called our national game” is almost at dying stage in India. At one time India has its supremacy in hockey but because of lack of encouragement and sponsorship, have internal politics of the sports association, changing style of the game and new rules affected other sports badly. Indian hockey player had been habitual of playing on grass and it is true that till 1970, hockey globally was played on grass but after that International Hockey Federation (IHF) changed the rules to make synthetic Astroturf for international Hockey tournaments. Astroturf suits the physicality of European and Australian hockey players based on raw power rather than technical skill. Consequently, European countries and Australia have dominated world hockey. Similarly, wrestling is shifted from sand to mat and we lost the supremacy. One of the best examples of losing supremacy in our own game is India’s disastrous performance in the Junior World Cup hockey 2013 by finishing a disappointing 10th position after losing to its old rival Pakistan.
Rakesh Kumar Goswami, Secretary, Kreeda Bharati, while talking to Organiser congratulated to all players of men’s kabaddi team for winning the World Cup and making us feel proud. We have to promote every game. Kabaddi is a game which always motivates us to live with unity. “Kreeda Bharati” has always promoted kabaddi and it will continue in future also. He thanked the BJP+Akali Dal and PTC channel for organising the tournament successfully. He said that there was no role of Central Government in this tournament, and further requested Central government to come forward and promote kabaddi at different levels.
He said that Kabaddi does not need big Stadiums what we needed is support and proper promotion. The craze of kabaddi has increased 10times in previous years and the day is not far when this will be more popular than cricket in India. He added that youth of Punjab becomes habitual of drugs and kabaddi can be the best medium to divert their mind from these things. He also mentioned that if we treat all games equally we will get more medals in Olympic and on International level and requested to the media to promote and treat other games equally with cricket.
Sports ministry should treat all the sports equally before our own games dies of lack of support and shell out more money for the infrastructure and development of other sports and athletes in order to increase participation in international events.
We need to recognise that winning in sports is another way of showcasing national power. For the purpose, while gaining supremacy in the foreign sports and influencing their policies, like BCCI does, all the countries try to strengthen their national games, whether chess in Russia or Basket Ball in the US. If we do not envisage and execute the policies to promote and popularise games like Kabaddi, our last forte will also collapse and then perhaps we will have to play it as per the rules defined by other countries. —Nishant Kumar Azad
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