After PV Sindhu received a fantastic welcome in her hometown of Hyderabad, it was the turn of India’s other Olympic medalist from Rio 2016 – Sakshi Malik – to get an equally rousing reception on her arrival at Bahadurgarh on Wednesday.
Speaking at the felicitation ceremony, the Chief Minister of Haryana Mr. Manohar Lal Khattar praised the wrestler for her bronze medal-winning exploit at the Games, but made a big error in the line, getting the name of the state that Sindhu belongs to wrong.
“Humare liye bohot hi garv ki baat hai ki raksha bandhan ke din humari do betiyon ne desh ka naam ucha kiya hai...Ek Haryana se Sakshi Malik aur dusri Karnataka se…Sindhu…(asks his team: kya naam hai)..PV Sindhu, jo rajat padak jeeti hai..(it’s a proud moment for us that two of our daughters won medals on Raksha Bandhan. Sakshi Malik from Haryana and Sindhu from Karnataka),” Mr Khattar said.
This isn’t the first instance when an Indian minister has made such an error. Following her historic quarterfinal finish at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the then Sports Minister MS Gill failed to recognise Pullela Gopichand, who had gone to meet him along with Saina Nehwal.
The error on the past of the Minister is something that reflects the present situation that Indian sport finds itself in . A lot of athletes in the past have said that despite relative success for other sportspersons on the world stage, India continues to remain a nation that is crazy about just one sport – cricket.
It was just a couple of days back that Sindhu had been felicitated in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (AP), and the scenes of her atop an open bus, heading to the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad and then a day later, playing a game of badminton with the Chief Minister of AP Mr Chandrababu Naidu on the stage in Vijayawada – suggested things might be on the mend. But now the Haryana CM has taken us a couple of steps backwards.
In the last three editions of the Olympics, India has won a combined tally of 11 medals, but unless we keep the core aspect – the athlete – in focus, we will continue to struggle to produce champions on the world stage consistently.
