The just-concluded Olympics unfolded like an experimental novel with a happy ending in a Neymar-led victory of Brazil’s soccer team over Germany’s. Just think if Neymar had not  homed in the magical free kick as if God had a hand in the ball bouncing off the underside of the cross bar and into the upper left corner at the 27th minute and then the penalty kick as the finale. It seemed the whole of Brazil would have had a massive heart attack. My solo viewing (soccer still does not draw mainstream American sports fans except when an American team is involved) at a noisy Buffalo Wild Wings would also have been a heart-breaking waste of an afternoon.

Happy ending

Yet, like a novel, the two-week-long Games were more than the gathering of fit young men and women winning (or not winning) a gold, silver or bronze medal. The two-week jamboree represented the narrative of the cotemporary world in which some athletes became heroes and others saw their hopes dashed. The games proved that the US remains the leader not just of the free world but of the Olympics as well with more medals than any other country. China seems to be catching up though.  

In geopolitical terms, the ability to host the Games demonstrates a country’s arrival in the big league. So before the Games were held in Beijing in 2008, all eyes were on China and how the rising dragon would handle the event. And by staging a spectacular show, China told the world, “Whether you like it or not, here I come.” When Rio won the bid over Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo, the world wondered if it would be able to hold the Games with shaky infrastructure and large cases of poverty. Brazil’s politics is characterised by dysfunctions that mar the polity of many emerging countries. As the Games neared, the world wondered if they would pass off successfully.

Ultimately, Brazil emerged unscathed and smooth. And the US, despite its overall triumph in medal counts and spectacular display of multicultural talent from track and field to swimming and gymnastics, revealed the unsavoury side of the ugly American myth in Ryan Lochte, who lied about his own drunken acts of vandalism and presented the gas station security guards as armed thieves in uniform.  

Nawab or kharab

But what made me think the most was the abysmal performance of the South Asian countries. India, with a billion-plus people, won a silver and a bronze, whereas even the Bahamas, with a population of less than 400,000, won a gold and a bronze. Why is that? Of course, many cultural

commentators in and out of India laid the blame on the country’s poverty and mismanagement. But is that the whole truth?  

To be sure, the fault lies in all the traditional scapegoats—poverty, mismanagement, corruption, nepotism—but there is more to it than just these. A grassroots culture of sporting, where parents would emphasise sports and school work equally, does not exist in these countries. For example, my primary school in a Morang village held khel-kud pratiyogita (a sporting competition) once a year on the day of the annual exam results in December before the min-pachas (for me harvest) holidays. I was pretty good at many things. I ran instead of walking even in my daily life. So, in my fourth and fifth grade annual events, I took a bucketful of prizes in frog race, sack race, orange race and cockfight, besides the prizes for academic excellence. I was quite keen on learning swimming, sneaking away from home during the wet months to the swollen Bakraha river a mile away ever since I had nearly drowned in a pond in Sungha, where I had taken our buffalo for a bath after a day’s grazing in the harvested fields.  

But at home all year round, whenever he saw me playing, my father would say, “Padhega-likhega hoga nawab; khelega-kudega, hoga kharab” (reading and writing will make you a nawab; sports and games will make you bad).  

I am sure this mindset pervades the South Asian culture at large, corrected only a little nowadays by the monetisation of cricket in India, which has become like the monetisation of writing novels in English—either to win big prizes in dollars and pounds or make millions through sales and advances or sponsorship. On the other hand, I have friends and colleagues here in the US whose family life revolves around their prepubescent sons’ and daughters’ involvement in sports, such as baseball, soccer, gymnastics and such, so much so that there is now a designation for such parents—soccer moms—that the culture bestows upon them for good or bad. I do not think these moms or dads have the eventual monetary value in mind when they and their neighbours spend so much time transporting and cheering for their children in sporting events. To be sure, South Asian countries are poor, but India alone now boasts of a 300 million strong middle class, almost equal to the entire US population. Obviously, poverty is not solely to blame.   

The mantra

Japan’s success can easily be attributed to its Gross Domestic Product and per capita income, but the way China has become second only to the US deserves some analysis. Giovanni Arrighi, the Italian scholar and writer of the landmark book The Long Twentieth Century, propounded the thesis that despite China’s advanced trade, gun powder, ship building, and all the other conditions for the rise of capitalism in a far more advanced stage than the Italian city states in the 14th and 15th centuries, it did not develop capitalism whereas the Italian city states did. The reason? Positive state intervention in multifarious ways in Italy and its absence in China. No wonder China has taken this mantra to heart in the 21st century as did Japan in the late 19th century.  

The only way emerging countries can develop a grassroots sporting culture is through positive state intervention and support. After that, corporations will always sponsor sports events and hire sports celebrities to advertise their products.