Can we fulfil Milkha's last wish?

The legendary athlete Milkha Singh left the world without fulfilling his long-nurtured dream and last wish: witnessing India winning a gold in track and field at the Olympics and the tri-colour flying high. Milkha and his wife, Nirmal Saini, another sportsperson, within a short span of five days, succumbed to the dreaded Covid-19 that put the latest edition of the Summer Olympics in limbo.

About 100 Indian players in 12 sporting categories are all set to take part in Tokyo 2020 from July 23 to August 8 but, alas, none of the athletes qualified for the short distance sprinting event. It means, The Flying Sikh's olympic gold quest will remain a mirage at least till 2024 Olympics to be held in Paris.

Each and every player,Tokyo-bound, must take a pledge to fulfill the last wish of the iconic sports star the country ever produced. He is still the first Indian male to reach the final of an Olympic athletics event and the only athlete to have won gold in 400 metres at the Asian Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. As many as 38 years after Milkha set it (45.74 seconds) in the Rome Olympics for a fourth-place finish in 400 m, Paramjit Singh bettered by running 45.70 seconds in 1998 National Championships in Kolkata.

The current 400 m national record is in the name of Muhammed Anas Yahiya clocking 45.24 in 2018. The world record for 400 m is 43.03 set by Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa, the current Olympic Champion. Given this huge margin, can we even think of a gold at Olympics as dreamt by Milkhaji? Who knows, sports always springs surprises.

Winner of 70 odd international medals out of 80 competitions, including the most coveted 1958 Commonwealth Games gold medal, Milkha long ago busted a myth that track and field is not our cup of tea. From the moment his beloved father, with blood oozing from the wounds caused by rioters, asked him 'Bhag Milkha…Bhag' (Run Milkha…Run) to escape from being butchered by a group of religious zealots in Pakistan, Milkha lived through the horrors of partition and endured the rough and tumble of life.

The most satisfying moment for him was when the country that made him an orphan bestowed "The Flying Sikh" decoration on him as a salutation. An eternal symbol for hard-work, discipline, dedication, humility and patriotism, Milkha's legacy will keep on inspiring Indian sports for generations to come.

Milkha had an emotional bond with the historic city of Hyderabad. In his fourth attempt to join the Army, in 1951, he was recruited and stationed at the Electrical Mechanical Engineering Artillery Centre in Secunderabad where he was introduced to Athletics. Being the Brand Ambassador of the Hyderabad 10K run, Milkha visited the EME Centre on November 29, 2014 and kissed the hallowed turf as soon as he entered the venue named after him.

"How can I forget this place! Thanks to my coach Havaldar Gurudev Singh, I took up athletics. Yeh to mujhe Gurudwara Samaan hai (this EME Stadium is equivalent to a Gurdwara to me)," he said during his visit, the last one to Hyderabad.

Milkha always suggested the governments and sports bodies to focus on result-oriented coaches to ensure international medals. "It is time we stopped hiring permanent coaches without setting goals. We should recruit coaches on contract basis and their contact should demand medals," he suggested and sought to know why other coaches are not producing champions as the national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand did.

True to Milkha's observation, the Hyderabad-based Gopichand's dedicated efforts and the results his trainees achieved have instilled confidence to the Indian sports world that China wall can be breached.

However, it is sad to know that both the Olympic medalists nurtured by Gopichand parted ways with the coach for some obscure reasons. The Gold prospect at Tokyo, the 25-year-old PV Sindhu is getting trained by a South Korean coach in Hyderabad. We can look at Sindhu to fulfil Milkha's gold ambition as she mastered the art of reining in the top-class opponents from China. Moreover, Sindhu's arch-rival Carolina Marin of Spain opted out of the Olympics owing to a nagging injury.

Even as the Olympic preparation has gone haywire due to the pandemic, the Indian athletes' training suffered a jolt with the resignation of the Athletic Federation of India's high-performance Director Volker Herrmann from his post in November 2020. The German was appointed to the post in June 2019 to take care of Indian athletes till Tokyo Olympics but the sports ministry extended his contract till the end of 2024 Olympics. Without signing the new contract, he rushed home leaving Indian athletes in lurch. Herrmann's predecessor, a British Olympian Derek Boosey had resigned after serving the athletes for a brief period ahead of the Rio Olympics.

In Milkha's career, a foreign coach Dr Arthur W Howard played a key role though three Indian coaches helped him improve his timings in the National and Army camps. The US coach's technical tips helped Milkha win the gold medal in the then British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Cardiff in 1958. Milkha outsmarted South African Malcolm Spence to create history thanks to a tiny point made by Dr Howard.

It doesn't mean that we are in dire need of foreign coaches to excel in sports. A former sprint queen PT Usha and the son-of-the-soil Nagapuri Ramesh are among those who are working relentlessly to produce world-class athletes in India. The sports bodies should consider the China's policy of making use of former players to train the budding players.

The government of India, which supports players under its ambitious 'Khelo India' scheme, should find out the ways to nurture rural talent to produce a crop of athletes to reach the standards set by Milkha. Mind you, athletics is one area that helps improve the overall medals tally.

Back home, the sports scenario is highly discouraging. Players pinned a lot of hopes on the newest State of Telangana but the lackadaisical attitude of the government has demotivated them. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti Government didn't bother to formulate a sports policy, a guiding document for all practical purposes, in its first term. The cabinet sub-committee (KT Rama Rao, P Sabitha Indra Reddy, E Dayakar Rao and V Srinivas Goud), appointed for this purpose in the second term, is going at a snail's pace.

In the absence of government support, parents are spending from their savings to meet the expenses of their wards training needs and sporting gear. Impressive achievements of the players are not getting due recognition. Most of the sports associations, filled with incompetent sycophants and media-savvy veterans, are failing to come to the rescue of players.

Our players are losing out to the players from money-spinning states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. These governments are providing financial resources for international visits of payers to improve their world ranking.

The Telangana government should build a sports culture in a meticulous manner as part of the overall development strategy. Handsome cash incentives for the national and international medal winners; financial support for international tournaments and training, and more importantly government jobs for international players are the key steps in this direction. Parents are withdrawing their wards from sports because there is no job guarantee despite the best performance.

The TRS government announced two per cent horizontal reservation in government jobs to meritorious sportspersons in May 2018 but there is no sign of implementing it. The government should explore the possibility of roping in IT giants to sponsor at least 20 national and international players in the next five years under their Corporate Social Responsibility funds keeping the 2024 and 2028 Olympics in mind.

Players, coaches, sports officials and administrators must always remember Milkha ji's oft-repeated couplet: Haat ki Lakeeron se zindagee nahin banti. Azm hamara bhi kuch hissa hai zindagi banaane mein (Life is not made by the lines on the palm. We need to toil hard to make our life).

(The author, a PhD in Communication and Journalism, is a senior journalist, journalism educator and communication consultant)