Why is Pakistan a sporting laggard?

When Arshad Nadeem and Talha Talib defied odds to battle for a medal at Tokyo 2020 Olympics, their lonesome journey to that point of exclusive recognition betrayed a moment of institutional decay which had spelt slow death of sports as an element of national identity. Pakistan appeared impoverished with decades of neglect and causal failure when only ten athletes marched to represent a nation of 220 million. Arshad of Mian Channu and Talha from Gujranwala had charted their own course, outside of state support, to reach that point of global eminence. For the two hours that Talha lifted and Arshad threw they shined bright the flag they proudly touched and tapped on their hearts as the two lads showed Pakistan in its best colours after being failed by the entire sports infrastructure of the country. It was redeeming though to know that for the forty-one sports at the Olympics Pakistan still had forty-one federations and sports bodies responsible for each.

To recall Pakistani sportsmen have excelled in Asia and the world in the past. Those too young to know, before Milkha Singh — the Flying Sikh; India’s 400 meters sprinter on whom Bollywood recently put a biopic together — there was an Abdul Khaliq, Pakistan’s 100 and 200 meters sprinter and an Asian record holder for the fastest man in Asia. And a hurdler by the name of Ghulam Raziq who represented Pakistan and won repeatedly at Asian and Commonwealth Games and carried the flag for Pakistan at the Olympics with Abdul Khaliq. What is poignantly illustrative is that now when I Google Raziq for his records the first Raziq gets shown as “one of the Pakistani detainees at Guantanamo Bay”. That tells you where priorities have shifted and where did we lose our intermediary generations and what did we replace the Javelins with.

We used to enter teams in Hockey and win Gold. We had Wrestlers and Boxers who put us on the medal table. We had Yachting and Sailing winners in our midst. We used to enter teams and compete and in most sports were formidable contenders. We were no lightweights. We ruled the game of Squash for decades and we produced Tennis stars who were known in Asia and frequented Wimbledon. And slowly and surely we lost the verve, the zeal, the love for sport and the spirit to win. It just left us melting away our beings into listless zombies who flirted with drugs and guns and murder and Guantanamo Bay.

There is a search on for a narrative to sell which can give the world a different view of us than how we get perceived. We think Indians have been mean to us, maligning us using fake news and swamping digital media with all kinds of negativities — that may have further amazed those that yet saw a couple of Pakistanis in their wondrous act to make Pakistan proud. And that is right, India has been nasty to us, very nasty, but we easily forget enemies are nasty, very nasty. Keep in mind India won a Gold with the most exuberant Javelin thrower of any recent Olympics at Tokyo, and their women’s and men’s hockey teams won medals and positions holding them prominent in the world. Someone at Fencing too from the deep South. A lot is happening within India, good and bad, but for those two weeks the world forgot about the bad and only focused on the good. There is a lesson for those who knock their heads around for an alchemy to overnight replace the negative with a more positive us.

My anecdotal deduction suggests that the Indian economy and Sachin Tendulkar’s iconic greatness both got established simultaneously. It was about the same time that Indians became their more confident self — bordering on arrogance — from their former meeker repose. We treat ‘soft image’ as a separate field. It isn’t. It is a sum total of how you appear to the world, not how you contrive and compose and present. Make the substance right and people will see the right in the substance. Only those narratives endure which get played out and are seen by the world, not only heard by them.

In 1965, what is now Pakistan had a population of 50 million. Today it stands at 220 million. That is a four-fold increase within the same dimensions of space. This massive increase of humanity has eaten up what used to be open fields and greener surfaces including sports grounds and athletics fields turned into either housing colonies or wedding marquees. Agricultural land is the next to go to house this enveloping mass of humans because the water which fed the crops to feed them is also diminishing as a finite resource. They may now die of droughts — men and animals — but are sure to have a roof on their heads and a wife to tend to them. Somewhere along this journey all the sports grounds and hockey fields and Cricket pitches were and will be gorged upon.

We anyway as people have already shifted away from sports which couldn’t bring the riches. Squash, Boxing, Wrestling and Weightlifting used to be but not anymore. Now the circus of Cricket is the money-spinner. We have learnt the art of wager and the bet, and of fixing, and munching a ball and made a name shamelessly. Sports stands commercialised. What is not can’t even sustain goodwill for those who are willing to try differently; a la Arshad of Mian Channu and Talha of Gujranwala.

I was lucky to join a school which had four hockey fields, four football grounds, four Basketball courts, two Athletics fields and a marvelous Cricket stadium, all belonging to a school that took charge of young boys turning them into young men. Sports were an essential part of our growing up and sine qua non to teaching success against odds in a joyful pursuit. Inter-School meets were a routine. Imran Khan, himself a product of those times and climes knows how narratives evolve and entrench. There is no alchemy. You prove it on the playgrounds and forever etch those in memories of the masses that watch. This is the only narrative that will last. IK just needs to give back what made him the man he is.

There are ways of taking us back to sports as a nation but the first step is to dissolve en masse all federations and boards and bodies controlling sports and free those from the clutches of the vultures who pose for officials and dons. They have been there for decades turning these positions into post-retirement parking slots where free money keeps up their perks and riches. Administration of Hockey was ruined by former hockey stalwarts and while former champions can be very worthy coaches, if trained for it, the sports authorities need professional corporate heads to make those productive and fruitful organisations. In Paris 2024 we should wash the scourge of Tokyo away.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2021.

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