NEW DELHI: The outburst of Mercy Kutan, the national long jump record holder, against the Ministry of Human Resources Development for “ignoring her for Arjun Award” has set in motion a debate over the selection of awarders,
Is Arjuna Award a genuine recognition of one’s contribution to sports in the country?
If it were so, players like Sujit Singh, the great hockey player would not have died “award less.” Mercy Kuttan has raised a pertinent question by challenging the selection of a fellow athlete, Ashwini Nachappa, for the award for 1988.
Mercy Kuttan maintained that she was not only the national champion in long jump for eight long years, she won a silver medal for the country in the 1982 Asian Games and a bronze in the 1981 Asian Track and Field meet. In 1987 she switched to 400 metres sprint. During the 1988 Seoul Olympics, she qualified for the second round,
This year the case of Sunjit ‘Singh was also taken up for conferring upon him Arjuna Award posthumously. The proposal, however, fell through.
Surjit Singh, who almost carried India to the victory rostrum during the 1973 World Cup Hockey Tournament at Amsterdam by pelting home two penalty comer goals against the Netherlands in the final, was perhaps the last giant of Indian hockey. He played for the country with distinction for more than a decade. He led India in the Bombay World Cup where the home team narrowly failed to make the semifinal grade. He led India in Asia Cup at Karachi besides playing the 1974 and the 1978 Asian Games.
The only thing the Union Government and the THF held against him was that he walked out of the 1978 Buenos Aires World’ Cup camp along with Baldev Singh and Virinder Singh in protest against certain remarks made by the then Chairman of the Selection Committee,
A true sportsman and a disciplinarian, Sunit Singh played the game with sincerity and gusto. He played for World XI several times.
He was so great that he refused to leave the playfield by making a false excuse on being told that he would be dropped from the team for the 1982 Asian Games. Instead he announced his retirement. And that time he was still the best in the country as a deep defender, He continued to play for Punjab for a number of years afterwards.
It was his misfortune that Punjab, his own State, also failed to honour him with the State award during his life time. There may not be any other case of a sportsman of such a repute who died young, unrecognized and award less.
The grant of Arjuna Award to MP Singh (just a patch on Surjit Singh), Joe Carvalho and other was more of an “unwritten agreement” between them and the IHF at the far end of their careers that their announcements for retirement from international hockey would be rewarded with Arjuna Award.
Of late, the national sports federations had been using the policy of dangling carrot to lure outstanding sportsmen and women into retirement on the pretext that they were growing old. As such they are promised recognition in the shape of Arjuna Award.
Should the entire selection system be scrapped and a more rational system be adopted so that only the very best are nominated for awards like Arjuna Award and Padmashni so as to maintain the dignity and status of the awards?
Article extracted from this publication >> August 10, 1990
