brothers in arms, start playing the game.

At dinner last night, Gen. V.K. Singh, the chief of the Indian Army, came up in conversation. Regrettably, but also inevitably, it wasn’t because of what he may or may not have accomplished in his four decades in uniform, but because of his date of birth. As is the norm in this great democracy of ours, the Armed Forces only find mention in the national dailies in one of two situations. The first, in times of war, when it is but natural to be swayed by the spirit of nationalism and populist fervour and report the heroics of the men and women who go into battle. The second, and this is the more frequent by far, is when there is some sort of “scam”. Whether it is isolated incidents of Army personnel selling fuel, generals being involved in loosely defined “land scams” or Chiefs trying to get their dates of birth changed, as far as most normal members of civil society are concerned, that is all there is to it.
So going back to this dinner time conversation last night, the general consensus was that Gen. Singh was bringing dishonour to himself and to the Army by going to court over his date of birth, whereby he would keep the job for another year and by extension, get to live in the beautiful Army House in New Delhi till that extended term was over.
My only question then, as it is now, is why the men and women in the Armed Forces should hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone else in this country has ever been asked or required to. And why every Indian considers it his right to hold these men and women to standards that he may not hold himself to. I was told that in India, the Army (when I say army, pls read armed forces. I mean no disrespect to the other services, it’s just easier to type) is the only institution in the governmental fold that has maintained a sense of discipline, efficiency and integrity and that civilians look at the army with respect and expect its members to conform to the high standards it has set in the years since 1947, blah, blah, blah. All of this is, of course, true. And the central point of my argument is that by consistently setting itself higher standards than the rest of the nation, the army has done itself the greatest disservice possible.
The “respect” for the army is the first point of contention. This so-called respect exists in the drawing rooms of a very limited set of individuals who have some sort of social or emotional connect with the armed forces. As a nation, there is anything but. That the armed forces have been systematically removed from the nation’s decision making matrix by a largely self-serving bureaucracy and intelligence establishment is neither new, nor remarkable. But having achieved the initial objective of keeping the upper echelons of the services out of this decision making process even in matters of national security, the civil establishment was not done demonstrating its “respect”. From the third pay commission onwards, the system has systematically screwed the army and skewed the balance heavily in favour of the civil administration. The army has now been reduced to fighting for one rank one pension, a battle that has been summarily ignored by the nation’s free media. As individuals, pensioners have been reduced to beggars, pleading an apathetic government to give them what is rightfully due after decades of service. We can go on and on about longevity of service, virtually guaranteed promotions, corruption… but the point of this little rant is not to criticise the way the civil administration functions, but to actually pat them on the back suggest to the upright men in olive green (or Air Force blue or Navy whites) that the way forward is not to consider themselves above the other organs of government and their political masters. The way forward—the only way forward—is for the armed forces to get into playing the same game.
How many cases have there been of MLAs, MPs, ministers or even members of opposition parties occupying accommodation in prime locations even when they are not entitled to? How many other cases have there been of civil servants holding on to government accommodation in New Delhi while on posting elsewhere? Does it even merit a story in a newspaper? Does it lead to esteemed national newspapers calling for their resignation? Probably not. It just isn’t a big enough deal. We know bureaucrats and politicians are corrupt. So then why bother talking about what they are doing wrong? We can’t expect any better from them. But the army? Now that’s a different ball game. Those guys should know better than to try and hold on to house for a year longer than they are allowed to. It is, after all, the only institution that has any respect in this country. The men and women who form its ranks are brought up in a different India—an India where there is safe drinking water, no poverty, education for all and the integrity of men in unimpeachable. What’s that? They aren’t? They go to the same schools and colleges as us and exist in the same socio-cultural milieu? Really? To use a borrowed phrase, “whodathunkit”?
Forget about MPs and MLAs. Let’s talk about common people. Let’s say a constable in the Delhi Police. How can he (even if he is a head constable), on his government salary of six kilos of peanuts and two dozen almonds a month, afford to drive around town in a brand new car, complete with four wheels and a CD player? At that rank in the army, you can barely afford a two-wheeled contraption propelled by said army man’s feet at the pedals. But where’s the story there? Cops are corrupt. Everyone knows they are. The guy joined the Army to serve the nation. So if he sold a few litres of military issue diesel in the black market to send his daughter a new dress for her birthday, I say we should lynch the bugger.
The point is that I don’t know what Gen. VK Singh’s motivation for getting his date of birth changed is. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet the man, and if I do I will ask him. Gen. Singh came in for more criticism when he said the government was treating him like the chief of the Pakistani Army. Would that he were so lucky. Had he been doing the same job on the other side of the border, god knows he would have to answer to anything as absurd as a civilian government.
I am by no means an expert, but I do hold the opinion that in this great democracy of ours, everyone has to fight for what he wants. Just like the bureaucracy has spent the last sixty or so years setting itself up for retirement in luxury, and politicians have been getting fat at the cost of everyone else, it is time for the army too to realise it owes allegiance only to itself. As long as the armed forces continue to complete the tasks they are mandated to with the unparralled efficiency that has become their norm, let other matters not be of their concern. As long as the officers have the respect of the men under their command (which is all you have anyway, don’t let anyone fool you into believing otherwise), why should they be bothered about earning the respect of the businessman who doesn’t know the difference between a subedar major and a major general? Or the babu who might pay 5 crore for a posting so that he can make 50 crore when he gets the job? Or the pot-bellied, fat-arsed journalist (that’s me) who claims to be free and fair, but in truth is only serving the same political master he goes to bed with?
I do not know what will happen of Gen. Singh, but I do hope his tryst with destiny and the date of his birth will open eyes and open doors. I do hope that every man and woman in uniform will fight (using democratic means, of course) to hang on to that house that they waited two years to get in the first place, and for every rupee of that pension that you or your brothers in arms shed their blood for. And if you can hold on to it for one day longer, get one rupee more, you will be a hero in my book. And you will have played the game—and won.

We're going to London!

Devendro Singh is just 19. Last month the young Army boxer saw-off experienced opponents like fellow-Armyman Nanao Singh to clinch a spot on the Indian team for the AIBA World Boxing Championships, the first qualifying event for next summer's London Olympics.

Today he justified that performance and the faith of the selectors, booking a spot in the last eight of the competition, and a ticket to London. The light flyweight (49kg) boxer beat seventh-seed Carlos Quipo of Ecuador 18-12 in the round of 16 to make it to the last eight and secure Olympic qualification. The top 10 boxers in each weight at the Worlds will qualify for the London Games.

Devendro was making his debut at the senior international level at these Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan and was particularly emphatic in the previous round with a massive 40-19 win over Joselito Velazquez of Mexico.

The Indian team management said they expected two or three boxers to make the grade for London at this event, but the favourites were the more experienced boxers in the squad--the likes of 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh, light heavy Dinesh Kumar and Navyman Suranjoy Singh. That Devendro would be among the best performers on his first outing at the senior level, will undoubtedly make his coaches happy.

Manoj Kumar joined Devendro in the last eight of the light welterweight (64kg) class with a hard-fought 17-15 win over China's Qing Hu, an Asian Games and World Cup silver medallist. Manoj was down 10-13 after round two, but came back superbly to take the bout. The Commonwealth Games gold medallist is now one win away from an assured World Championships bronze medal.

The attention will now shift to another 19-year-old, Vikas Krishan. Krishan is the reigning World Youth and Asain Games champion and will go up against Turkey's Onder Sipal later in the day. He had a tough previous round against Nurudzinov Mahamed of Belarus, with the judges scoring it an even 10-10 at the end of the bout. It took an individual recount to get a result and Krishan narrowly made it through, 32-31. If his run continues, he will become the third Olympic qualifier. Lightweight Commonwealth Games gold medallist Jai Bhagwan will also be in action this evening in Baku hoping to make it a very decent four qualifiers out of a possible ten for India.

Boxing has emerged as one of India's brightest medal prospects at the London Olympics. After Vijender bagged the nation's first medal in Beinjing in 2008, money has been pumped into the sport and the current quad has considerable strength in depth. Indian boxers came home with plenty of silverware at both the Commonwealth and Asian games in 2010, but the real target has always been the Olympics. Now that these young boxers are getting set for the pinnacle of amateur boxing, it is time for all the hard work to start paying off.

In defense of the indefensible

On July 8, the B samples of Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose, Juana Murmu and Tiana Mary tested positive for steroids. They were among eight elite athletes who failed dope tests prior to the Asian Athletics Championships. Three of this bunch were members of the women’s relay squad that won gold at the Commonwealth and Asian Games in 2010. With these revelations, the heady feeling of optimism that had been building as preparations for the London Olympics in 2012 continued was swept away, and how.

“[Ashwini] Akkunji [who also tested positive] was the poster girl of Indian athletics, a double gold medallist at the Asian Games, and expected to go on to even greater things. There were genuine hopes of a medal at the London Olympics, but that dream now seems shattered,” wrote Gordon Farquar on the BBC website. They now face automatic two-year bans that will effectively end their careers.

Hopes shattered, dreams dashed, nations humiliated, medals confiscated—that’s how most dope stories usually pan out. But this doping saga is not new. We have heard this story through and through. The athletes get caught, they plead innocence, coaches get sacked and then we start all over again. We decided to take a look at where it all stems from.

“It has to be appreciated that at the time the menace of doping for the health of athletes... had yet to enter the morals because, after this marathon, the official race report said: The marathon has shown, from a medical point of view, how drugs can be very useful to athletes in long-distance races.”
This was said by Dr. Jean-Pierre de Modernard, a scholar in the history of doping in sport.

Dr Modernard was referring to the marathon at the 1904 Olympic Games. The race was won by Thomas Hicks, an American competitor. Hicks actually finished the race second, but the runner finishing first was disqualified because it was found he “ran” half the race in a car. But Hicks too had outside help. When trainer Charles Lucas found his runner flagging, he decided to inject him with a milligramme of sulphate of strychnine and make him drink a large glass of brandy. With four miles of the race to go, Lucas administered another injection. Far from being illegal at the time, the use of medical drugs was considered beneficial and even essential to an athlete.

Let’s put things in perspective. Today, strychnine is used as a pesticide to kill small birds and rodents. After ingestion, the body starts to spasm, which turns into violent convulsions before death by either asphyxiation or sheer exhaustion.
Fred Lorz finished first in 1904 after his 11-mile car ride. “It was just a joke,” he told his interrogators after being found out. “It seemed like a funny idea at the time. I was going to tell you before you gave me the medal. Honest.” They believed his story, but still took away his medal and banned him for a year and gave the gold to the dope-addled, and probably drunk, Hicks.

Times have changed, though, and so has technology. Along with changing times, our morals have gone through a transformation as well. At some stage in the history of sport, the effects of drugs on athletes were considered inhumane. That was when the era of doping control began. But why did athletes start taking performance-enhancing substances in the first place?

It may be an oversimplification but the idea that an army marches on its stomach is not a new one. Nor is it obsolete. Wars throughout history have been won or lost based on the ability of an army to feed and supply itself.

In North Korea today, while the masses starve, the army is always kept well fed. The idea that nutrition corresponds to improved physical performance is pure logic. And the expansion of the definition of nutrition to include a variety of other substances is merely an extension of that chain of thought. Across continents and cultures, naturally occurring drugs like mescaline, opium and cocaine have been used to reduce pain, tiredness, hunger and thirst and result in better performance, whether on the battlefield, while harvesting fields, or in the bedroom. And what is sport if not toil, labour, performance, even war?

So if we were to extend the logic just a little further, the most natural thing for an athlete to do would be to find any way to get an edge over an opponent. It is even more natural for a coach as hungry for success as his ward, to look for other avenues when he finds that the young man or woman he is training will never be good enough to win anything without some help.

Although this may sound like it, it is not an attempt to defend the indefensible. Our 21st-century morals tell us, in no uncertain terms, that sport should be pure. There should be no fixing, no doping, no rigging and no cheating.

But if we were to examine the Indian context, the standard of our sporting achievements is constantly ridiculed when compared with the rest of the world.
Yet, these men and women compete with athletes on whom millions of dollars are spent every year to ensure that they train under the right conditions, travel and live in comfort, have access to the best in terms of sport science, training techniques, medicine and nutrition. Our elite lot get something to the tune of Rs 600 a day when they are part of a national training camp.

The Sports Authority of India is an organisation with limited means. It has political bosses who demand results. It also has to deal with pressure from the media, which is constantly critical of the way it functions and the performance of the athletes under its care. There is pressure from the public, too, which demand medals. The weight of these demands can get too much. If performance targets are not met, funding will be withdrawn, leaving athletes, officials, trainers and administrators to suffer.

For the good of the majority, a few have to make the sacrifice.
Federations fiercely protect these athletes. Tests are engineered or fixed and samples are swapped. This continues until there is a change in the regime. When a new boss comes in, he wants a new coach or athletes from his state. So, the federation stops protecting its doped-up golden geese and the cycle begins again.
Dr. P.S.M. Chandran, a former director of medicine with SAI, has said repeatedly that doping has been a part of the system for over two decades.

But the problem is as much a system that allows doping as it is a system that doesn’t really exist. After the latest story broke, every media outlet went out and demonstrated just how easy it was to get your hands on banned performance enhancers.
It was too hot in New Delhi, so we decided to check if we could just have the dope delivered. Turns out you can. And you don’t even need a credit card. After shooting off e-mails, we received lists of the available drugs, delivery charges and even friendly advice on what to take, depending on how serious we were and what results we wanted. Steroids at the touch of a trackpad—that’s how easy it is.

The trouble, though, is that the systemic failure extends beyond ease of access and “overlooking”. While in countries with more money there are dedicated labs to create masking agents good enough to hide the drugs in an athlete’s urine sample, here, the guinea pig is also the lamb that goes to slaughter.