India has never been much of a sporting nation, leaving aside the craze for cricket; maybe hockey in football in some regions. For decades, names of sports achievers were forgotten, though Milkha Singh, PT Usha and the Amritraj Brothers were on top of the mind recall if the subject of sports came up.
Then, in recent years, Indian sportspersons started winning medals, and also, a wave of nationalism swept India—the formula was being mixed for sports biopics, and there was a spate of them – from the early mover Paan Singh Tomar to Dangal, Bhaag Milkha, Mary Kom, Sania, Azhar, MS Dhoni, Shabaash Mithu. Still it was difficult, not to mention expensive, to shoot team sports.
Then Ashutosh Gowarikar made Lagaan (2001) and showed that it could be done, though it needed the star power of Aamir Khan. It was not based on a true event, but Chak De! India was a fictionalized version of the Indian women’s hockey team’s win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, under the guidance of coach Mir Ranjan Negi. The Shimit Amin film used the classic underdog to hero format, but also set the template for other sports films to follow. There was the team building of disparate plays from different parts of the country, that famously inspiring Sattar minute hain tumhare paas speech, and the strong criticism of communalism built in by casting Shah Rukh Khan as a Muslim coach, who has to wash the unfair ‘traitor’ taint and prove his patriotism—speaking for every alienated Muslim in the country. The real win did nothing for women’s sports in the country, neither did the film.
But that World Cup victory in 1983, which was made into a rousing film by Kabir Khan simply titled 83, did turn up the intensity on India’s cricket craze, though it took a few more years to turn the Indian cricket team into a fearsome squad. Still, that win against West Indies no less, showed that Indian players were capable of playing under pressure against a team considered superior.
Caption: 83 turned up the intensity on India’s cricket craze
It also lit the fire under the cauldron of nostalgia for past glory that resulted in Reema Kagti’s Akshay Kumar starrer Gold, which unearthed the true story of team manager Tapan Das, who steered the Indian hockey team to winning the gold medal in the 1948 Olympics — India’s first as an Independent nation. It marked the commencement of a golden period of Indian hockey, and four more Olympics golds.
It has to be the same nostalgia that led to the making of the recently-released Maidaan, directed by Amit Ravindernath Sharma and starring Ajay Devgn as the Syed Abdul Rahim, who stood up to an indifferent sports establishment and cynical media that had no faith in India’s ability to win a football match.
A barefoot Indian team had taken a 10-0 drubbing against Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. In the film, when Rahim is blamed for this defeat he demands that first of all the players be given shoes, and secondly that he gets to pick the team. A few members of the Kolkata-based All India Hockey Federation fear that he will replace Bengal players with those from his native Secunderabad. But Rahim travels across the country and picks football champs, from clubs, as well as one player from the street. Under his leadership, the team won several matches against better teams, and came to be known as the Brazil of Asia, but that gold medal eluded them till the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, where they beat South Korea.
Rahim built a team that comprised names that are known as football legends today—PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Peter Thangaraj, Jarnail Singh, Tulsidas Balaram, Nikhil Nandy, Amal Dutta. The team was almost dropped from the Olympics squad, and Rahim had to seek the intervention of then Finance Minister Morarji Desai, who claimed shortage of foreign exchange, to let them travel. It meant drastic curtailment of expenses – the team would get no pocket allowance, and would have to do their own laundry.
In the film, the drama is amped up by Rahim’s last stage lung cancer, and anti-India protests in Jakarta because of a thoughtless comment by an Indian sports official. Still the team wins against all odds – ignoring injury, hostility and that crushing lack of faith in the possibility of victory.
Caption: Football did not managed to reach the level of popularity cricket did, and money always follows fame
Rahim took football to great heights in the country; Maidaan is focused on a climactic gold medal win, but an end card also regretfully reveals that Indian footballer never qualified for the Olympics again, and, as football player Fortunato Franco is quoted as having said about Rahim, “With him, he took Indian football to the grave.” Football did not managed to reach the level of popularity cricket did, and money always follows fame.
Some of the issues that Maidaan brings up still remain. Indian players train and win despite lack of facilities and official apathy. The recent protest by Indian wrestlers against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for sexual harassment of female athletes during his tenure as president of the Wrestling Federation of India, was given so much media attention, because the protestors included wrestling stars like Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia, Sangeeta Phogat. (The story of the Phogat sisters was immortalized in Nitesh Tiwari’s 2016 film Dangal in which Aamir Khan played their father and coach.)
Cricketing stars earn in crores, get lucrative endorsement deals, and stay in five-star luxury. Players from other sports have to stay in school halls and manage with unpalatable food and filthy bathrooms. It has been pointed out that Indian squads that travel abroad are invariably accompanied by large contingents of bureaucrats and politicians. As Rahim tells Desai when he talks of lack of funds, drop all the officials who are going to Jakarta.
Despite the obvious hurdles, India’s medal tally at international tournaments is rising. Filmmakers have more material for biopics being served to them on a platter.
