Can India host the Olympic Games?

India can host in 2024
I feel India can and should host the Olympics. We are in 2009 right now and a country needs something around eight years to host the Games successfully. So even if we give ourselves a time period of 11 years — if we are targeting 2020 — I think it should not be a problem.

But ideally, we can host the Games in 2024 successfully. It’s not that we don’t have the experience of hosting big events. We have hosted Asian Games, though it was many years ago, and we will be hosting the Commonwealth Games. Having said that, I feel we should realise that hosting Olympics is completely a different ball game.

It requires a lot of planning, in terms of infrastructure and also other administrative things. In this area we are not yet advanced. There are conflicts within various sports bodies and the ministry over petty issues. In the end, it all hampers the quality of the event. We have experienced that during the CWG preparations and I hope we have learnt from it. One thing which I would disagree with our sports minister MS Gill is that poverty cannot be an issue for us to not conduct the Games. We can very well afford to host the Games. With all due respect, I don’t think the sports minister has been able to envision what hosting the Olympics can do for a country like us. More than anything else, it provides us with great employment opportunities. So I am not ready to buy that argument.

But to host the Olympics successfully, we need a chief who has the ability (financial knowledge, administrative skills and forward thinking) and the right kind of support to get all the necessary things together. We need someone like Peter Uberrothtyi under whose leadership and management, the first privately financed Olympic Games in 1984 resulted in a surplus of nearly $250 million against all odds.

We need a young and dynamic man who has the experience to work under pressure to conduct big events. May be a Kumar Mangalam Birla, a Lalit Modi or ideally a young Ratan Tata would be my pick to be the chief officer to oversee the Games.
( Michael Ferreira is a former world billiards champion. He spoke to Mihir Vasavda)

We can ill afford Games
India should not host the Olympic Games. For a country which has millions and millions of poor, it is an extravaganza that it can’t afford.

I am not against sports. We should be rediscovering sports, but not with such huge costs. In fact, I feel our participation in the Olympics too should be limited. We should only be sending potential medal winners rather than huge contingent.

What I am against is sports spectacles, because that is what it will eventually turn out to be. When your own athletes are not doing too well, it is more about business and like being part of the entertainment industry.

We are not a sporting nation and people around the world know that. If we think we will gain respect in the sporting world by hosting big events, we are sadly mistaken. Because, in the end you are known for your sporting might, not your organisational ability. One Commonwealth Games are enough for the country.

If a country like China spent something like $50 billion on the Olympic Games last year, it had a plan in place and recovered that money directly or indirectly. See how the Chinese used the event to promote tourism. I don’t think we will be able to do the same. In fact, I worry that if we get the Olympic Games, we will end up spending 150 billion dollars and still not gain anything. The ones gaining will be certain individuals in the system, who will be able to pocket part of the money.

I would much rather spend that kind of money in elevating our own downtrodden. Poverty is a huge problem. Why poverty, we should be talking about the destitute, people who are unable to even fill their stomachs. Poverty is not as bad as destitution. All poor people are not unhappy. Monks, Sadhus and Fakirs too don’t have worldly possessions but they are happy. The idea is to be able to lend a meaningful life to all. Seeing our economic position and keeping in mind the fact that half the country is so poor, we should be worried about them rather than holding sporting spectacles.
(Ashis Nandy is a social theorist. He spoke to C Rajshekhar Rao)