Olympic heroes, herculean challenges

India’s champions are coming from the villages; hopefully, they will help focus attention on their development needs

A few months ago, we celebrated the wins of a handful of young Indian men and women at the Tokyo Olympics. What was extraordinary about these young men and women was that they all came from humble backgrounds and small villages across the country with poor infrastructure and they had to battle significant odds to achieve success.

When Ravi Dahiya won his Olympic medal, his father said that finally “development might come to our village”. Ravi Dahiya is from Nahri village, Sonepat, Haryana. He is the third Olympian from this village after Mahavir Singh (1980 Moscow, 1984 Los Angeles) and Amit Dahiya (London 2012). And yet, this village of 15,000 people has no potable drinking water, has two-hours of electricity, no sewage lines, and one veterinary hospital (Mahavir Singh fought for it). To catch Ravi’s matches live, the local administration made special arrangements for uninterrupted power supply to the village.

Similarly, the Baro Mukhia village in upper Assam’s Golaghat district had its 3.5-km muddy access road made motorable by the state government only after Lovlina Borgohain won her medal for boxing and returned home. Lovlina’s village has no piped water supply, runs entirely on water from tubewells and nearby ponds, has a small primary healthcare facility and the nearest hospital is 45 km away on poor roads.

The Indian hockey team captain Manpreet Singh and players Mandeep Singh and Varun Kumar are from Mithapur, Jalandhar, Punjab. Javelinist Neeraj Chopra lives in village Khandra in Haryana’s Panipat district; weightlifter Mirabai Chanu in Nongpok Kakching village at the foothills of Imphal East district in Manipur, with the Khuman Lampak Sports Complex training centre 25 km away; wrestler Bajrang Punia is from Khuddan village in Jhajjar, Sonepat; hockey player Vandana Katariya belongs to Roshnabad, Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Deep Grace Ekka is from Lulkidhi in Odisha’s Sundergarh district, and Lalremsiami is from Kolasib, a small town 80 km from Aizawl, Mizoram. None of these top athletes have had access to decent sports infrastructure, but their families supported them whilst dealing with the lack of potable water, sewage and sanitation, electricity, motorable roads, hospitals and schools.

With almost 70% of India’s population still living in villages, providing them basic infrastructure would make such a difference to the lives of so many. The reverse migration caused by Covid-19 has shown the need for substantial development in many rural and potential secondary cities so that new centres of economic growth are established. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The future of India lies in its villages”. Maybe it is truly time to embrace this idea of India, not merely to produce better athletes but to improve the lives of millions without them having to wait for an Olympic medallist to rise among them to be able to ask for electricity to watch the Olympics.

Spending on rural infrastructure has increased tremendously since 2000–01, particularly after 2005. Village-level connectivity has improved, especially roads, electricity and telecommunications. Yet, the results are not commensurate with government expenditure. Household-level access is poor, especially for the most vulnerable, and infrastructure assets are often of poor quality, incomplete, unusable or badly maintained. Almost all villages are connected to the grid, but 45% of rural households lack power connections. Power supply is often unreliable, water supply unavailable or polluted. Almost 70% rural households lack sanitation facilities. Also, in education, nutrition and health, service delivery is marred by widespread absenteeism among government healthcare providers and teachers, leading to poor outcomes.

Technically, the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution mandates that all rural communities should have powers to govern themselves through elected Panchayats, to identify the basic needs of the village (housing, water, sanitation, electricity, education, safety, roads, transportation, communication, livelihoods, and health) and to plan for social and economic justice by the community. However, much of the decision-making power lies not in the hands of the locals/villagers themselves but in the local administration, which is dependent on schemes that the central and state governments dole out. Villagers are often ignorant of the opportunities available to them and have neither the political access nor financial clout to define the infrastructure requirements for their villagers. Caste equations and cultural hegemonies also play a huge role in disallowing Gram Sabhas to perform their mandated functions. Graft is also a large issue.

Perhaps with the Olympics bringing focus to the villages of India, the government will pay more attention to the needs of the 70% and strengthen the 73rd Amendment (especially the capacity building and funding components) and villagers will demand better public services from their government and elected officials and hold them accountable. Change in rural India is not happening fast enough. It is essential to develop rural infrastructure and basic amenities to improve their quality of life.

(The writer is an urban planner based in Bengaluru)