Cops & youth running side by side is a good way to break ice, says OP Singh, Special Officer to CM, Haryana

OP Singh, Special Officer to Chief Minister (SOCM), Haryana, is known for making Haryana run on their toes; well quite literally. A 1992-batch IPS officer, Singh was the Haryana Sports director from 2008-2012. It is then he decided to transform the state to a sporting powerhouse and to bridge socioeconomic divide and promote healthy lifestyle by proactively engaging youth through sports, mainly marathons. Singh is also the author of best-selling books HauslaNama & Say Yes to Sports.

In an interview with Sakshi Chand, Singh details why marathon is as an effective antidote to violent confrontation and a tool for proactive engagement. Excerpts:

You were the Haryana sports director from 2008-12. It is the time when the state earned the tag of sporting powerhouse. What makes its athletes so success-hungry?

There are many factors but the most striking is irreverential attitude of its people. There is a Haryanvi equivalent of 'so what' - 'Ke ho liya'. The moment one tries to act one up, you will find someone calling him out. This dismissive approach to something being propped as superior keeps its athletes unintimidated by opponents' reputation or occasion's grandeur. The state government has contributed by putting a premium on sporting successes. The incentive system is merit-based and promotes participation, inclusion and excellence in sports.

What is the reason behind the state's new-found interest in Marathon?

As per United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report 'Power of 1.8 billion' published in 2014, there are 180 crore people worldwide in 10-24 years of age group. 35.6 crore are in India alone. This youth bulge offers unprecedented opportunity of sustained growth and prosperity. But for this to happen, there has to be a consensus across political and ideological spectrum on how to harvest country's demographic dividend.

Besides, it is for the government to make a decisive move to be 'on the same page' as youth. Marathon is turning out to be quite helpful in that.

How you plan to go about?

It has to be appreciated that situation changes with population's age profile and popular technology. With an overwhelming number, almost seven in ten, in our country young, Internet-connected and restless, it is time for the government to shift its focus from 'government-people' to 'government-youth' engagement. It needs to change its approach from 'public relation' to 'relationship building'. For this to happen, government needs to rework its strategy, build new competencies and realign itself to the unique needs of its youthful demography. It needs to collaborate and co-create value-generating human resources with them.

The first step in this direction is to reset the dialogue and seek a change in the narrative from dependence to that of initiative. It needs to tell youth in time that the expectation of speedy home-delivery of secured government jobs to all is unrealistic.

We in Haryana have discovered that police and youth running alongside is a good way to break the ice. It is transformative and we are very keen to promote it as hobby sports among growing children and youth. One, it's low-cost. Two, it gets practitioners a healthy source of dopamine and a natural 'high' that they otherwise seek in drugs and violence. Three, it sublimates their youthful energy, satiates their spirit of exploration and inculcates in them key personality differentiators like commitment, competitiveness and perseverance. These traits we need in good measures to promote entrepreneurship syndrome among youth that classrooms in our schools and colleges are not designed to do.

Which government department should be doing it? Youth Affairs and sports?

It is a common knowledge that sports and youth affairs departments in the state governments are low on glamour quotient. They generally do not attract best of administrative talent. They lack institutional strength and outreach to undertake such a gigantic exercise.

It brings the task to the police's doorstep. August Vollmer, famous as 'father of modern law enforcement' and a leading figure in the development of the field of criminal justice in the United States in the early 20th century, had said that influence of family, religion and educational institutions on youth was waning and police should step in to fill the vacuum. Over the decades, the process has aggravated only. Millennials riding ongoing revolution in Information and Communication Technology have disrupted traditional authority structure completely.

Police, in any case, has to face misdirected youth as violent crowds. The space for reactive counter-violence as deterrence is shrinking fast in a camera-saturated, Internet-connected world. It is high time for police to be proactive, build additional capabilities around communication, networking and event management skills and lead this much-needed dialogue with youth through sports. It is sports that brought North & South Korea together and got Trump-Kim talking. We should have no doubt in sports' potential to usher in peace and order at a distinctly lower cost.

What is the basic problem that we are trying to look into/solve with this initiative?

We need to appreciate that 'The People' we serve have changed. Ongoing revolution in information and communication technology has ironically divided people further by giving traditional atavistic identities a fresh lease of life. The chances of these identities becoming a corrosive are greater than ever as people are more inter-connected than ever and demography more youthful and volatile than ever. 106 of 130 people in India use mobile phones, 46 crore use Internet and 26 crore are on social media. 36 crore of them are in 10-24 years age group. Government needs to help them find common grounds across identities caste, class, creed, region, religion, language and ethnicity and prod them to rally around shared territorial identity. Raahgiri and Marathon are process innovations in governance that bring people and government together and make collaboration, instead of confrontation, the key driver of interpersonal, inter-group and government-people relationship.

Is it targeted at creating engagement for politician, government or the police?

As I told you earlier, these government initiatives are aimed at achieving collaboration with the people. Government needs to shed its garb of benefactor or service provider and don the hat of a collaborator and co-creator of solutions to people's problem. First thing to do is to get the two sides together in a friendly-setting and allow spirit of doing-things-together to incubate.

How does the society benefit from such an exercise?

In many ways. First, it helps in humanizing administrative machinery as people meet officials in a friendly and informal setting and work with them for a common goal that is to make the event a success. Two, it rallies them around a shared territorial identity transcending caste, class, creed, language, region, religion and ethnicity. Three, it helps in popularizing among people running as hobby sports, an anti-dote to lifestyle diseases and an effective counter to disruptive behavior that youth are vulnerable to.

A society that runs together stays together!

What has been the experience so far in Haryana?

Quite encouraging!

Marathon is a community sports. It goes well with people's desire to be participating players and not mere spectators. It has succeeded in rallying youth around their shared territorial identity transcending divisions like caste, class, creed, language, region and religion. It has helped police in identifying key influencers of youth at the cutting edge, meet youth in a pleasant and friendly setting and acquire 'strategic relational assets' ever helpful in preventing and diffusing disorderly situations. Inter-village runs have cumulatively attracted lakhs. Every district Marathons organized so far has attracted over 50,000 people, most of them youth. A good percentage of them have taken to running as a hobby sports, a change that will have significant impact on the extent of lifestyle diseases in times to come if they persevere.

Making Marathon an annual fare for every district in the state is under government's active consideration. It means a month of festivity, togetherness and bonding. It will help in battling 'negativity and passivity' biases that come so naturally to us because we are Indians, only seventy years away from debilitating colonial subjugation.

What lies beyond it or how you foresee the future?

A robust police-youth relationship will help in creating a 'majority defender of law' situation and thereby make law-enforcement low-cost and more effective. It, however, needs to be further complemented with employment-led equitable growth. We desperately need an 'augmented mainstream', having additional opportunities around skill sets other than reading, writing, debating and accounting. The aim should be to enable youth to express themselves in line with their signature potential, if we have to thrive as a country. Everything else can wait.