Role of The Internet and Social Media in Indian Sport

The generation of athletes that grew into a post-liberalisation India were to set out to become the first of so many things – in the top 30 in singles rankings on the WTA Tour, on the Formula One grid, on the professional squash circuit, the PGA Tour, Asian medallists in gymnastics, multiple swimming medal winners. As their careers progressed into the 21st century it was the internet and social media which ensured that the wider public knew how to reach these pioneers directly and follow their careers.

The onset of online / digital journalism, whether through formal websites, blogs, epapers, had meant that Indian sport could now be covered through forms and language unrestricted by space or time, stereotype or bias. It was how the story of sprinter Dutee Chand, forced to undergo a ‘gender test’ and then banned from competing due to high testosterone levels in her body, could be told with rigour and sensitivity. Dutee’s career was not allowed to go the way of 2006 Doha Asian Games gold medallist Pinki Pramanik, or Santhi Soundarajan who was stripped of her Doha silver medal, over issues of gender identity. In 2006, Pinki and Santhi had been treated as outcasts. In 2014, after Dutee was dropped from the CWG contingent for Glasgow, there were several factors that ensured her career didn’t end abruptly like Pinki’s or Santhi’s did– there was support from the government, a Canadian team willing to fight her case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and a journalistic community who wanted to chase the case down to its most minute details. Dutee was given the oxygen she needed to continue her fight and the fight she needed to be able to run again. The regulations were frozen, Dutee competed at the Rio Olympics and under the revised athletics regulations, continues to be eligible to race. She was a girl from a family of weavers in Orissa. Not so long ago, she could have been another Pinki or Santhi.

The balance of power between Indian athletes and officials has not changed, but the athlete today can both be seen and heard. The prime agents of change in India across the last decade go beyond merely more proactive government intervention, Corporate Social Responsibility tax-breaks, the media or the growth of the internet. The catalysts in this decade of reinvention happen to be Indian sport’s new stakeholders, the unique non-profit intermediaries who have stepped in to do what the official sports federations had showed little interest in doing post-liberalisation. Organisations like Olympic Gold Quest (formed 2002), Mittal Champions Trust (2003, now defunct), GoSports Foundation (2008), Anglian Medal Hunt (2012), JSW Sport (2013) are bridge builders between the aspirational athlete, their federations and access to funding or expertise. These organisations have also been able to add more towards the media’s understanding of what it takes to be a champion. That it is not about vegetarianism, lack of killer instinct, genes, lack of ambition or too much love for government jobs. It is not as complicated as we were told earlier. Planning, Intention and Expertise – get that right and it’s as simple as pie.

The specialization of these organisations may be focused on talent identification, individual coaching, logistics and medical treatment / rehabilitation, but their role in bringing attention to their athletes’ unique abilities and achievements has added more richness to the narrative around Indian sport. With professional advice and Twitter and Instagram at hand, the athletes can now control their story. He said, she said, they said and things moved. While Twitter was founded in 2006, Indian sport and its stars and fans began to take to the news and social networking service starting around 2009-2010. Social media broke through the single line of communication between the athlete and conventional media and became an informal, direct, authentic space to chat, which both the athlete and the fan wanted. Twitter became an easy-to-use, no-cost news and PR agency for every athlete, setting up interaction with fans, where questions could be asked, announcements made and if required, controversies stirred – in audio, video or text.

Who needed the media? The stories put out by the athlete would now be their own – no mediator, coach, manager or official speaking for them. Tennis player Sania Mirza is the most followed Indian athlete (8. 39 million) outside cricketers on Twitter and was one of the most prominent early users of the network amongst Indian sportspersons, joining in November 2009. Mahesh Bhupathi (July 2009 / 1. 02m) and Narain Karthikeyan (September 2009 / 623k) had started earlier and Abhinav Bindra (December 2009 / 461k) joined up a month later. Sania has been visible and vocal on Twitter, dismissing trolls who attack her for marrying Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, and like the T-shirts that made her famous, speaking her mind. For journalists scrambling to keep pace, social media began to provide its own story lines, quotes and photos. Footballer C K Vineeth (July 2014 / 178k) brought a new level of activism to his social media presence. In January 2018 he posted a photograph of himself along with his friend and fellow footballer Rino Anto with arms locked to express solidarity with a young man who had sat outside the Kerala secretariat in protest over the death of his brother in police custody. In April 2018, following two cases of rapes against minor girls, one of whom was murdered, Vineeth addressed a letter on Twitter to: "the Prime Minister, Opposition leader, chief justice and every citizen of this country. ” In a country where athletes tend to be subservient towards politicians of all kinds, at a time where dissent or opposition to the government is being deemed ‘anti-national’, Vineeth found a way to lodge his protest.

At one point that month, along with Vineeth and Anto again, Sania Mirza, Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Chhetri, Jeev Milkha Singh, Mithali Raj, R Ashwin, MC Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal also expressed their anger on their Twitter handles about the crimes against the minor girls. A decade ago, this would have been impossible to do without holding a press conference. In June 2018, India football captain Sunil Chhetri (October 2012/ 1. 46m followers) did the work of an entire Indian football marketing department through a video on his Twitter handle. Disappointed that India had beaten Chinese Taipei 5-0 at the Intercontinental Cup before a measly crowd, on June 3 Chhetri asked the audience, both fans and non-fans - “everyone who is not a football fan” “you who have lost hope or do not have any hope in Indian football” to come watch the team live, rather than "criticising them on the internet. " Chhetri's video posted on June 3 said, “Come to the stadium, scream at us, shout at us, abuse us – who knows one day we might change you guys, you might start cheering for us… this is a very important time in Indian football. ” The video got more than a million views. The following day, when India played Kenya, the Mumbai Football Arena, small though it may be, was packed out. It was Chhetri’s 100th game for India and he scored two goals in the 3-0 win. Circumventing himself past many mediums, the athlete had reached out to the fans and fans had responded with their feet in Mumbai, and around the country, with heartfelt appreciation of Chhetri and his ability to move thousands. During this decade Indian sports fans have also reached out in other ways.

At the other end of the scale, a website called the ‘Nation of Sport’ (https: //www. nationofsport. com/) was launched in July 2016 to promote long-form writing around Indian sport. It is self-funded by a sports professional and an ad film director, both men in their 30s, and covers the entire gamut of Indian sport – basketball, cricket, football, hockey, ultimate Frisbee, kabaddi, taekwondo, even fantasy leagues. Nothing is profane so as not to be written about, nothing is too sacred to be inspected closely. This is an environment so far removed from what Indian sport was like when I began my career, that tales from the 1990s sound like the retelling of a spooky past life. Like when Dr. Vece Paes of Calcutta, father of teenage tennis player Leander, printed out a brochure talking about his son’s exploits, talents and promise. The brochure, he said, was to go out to companies asking for sponsorship to somehow finance his son’s mission of playing on the professional tennis tour.

This is my boy, this is what he has done, this is what he can do, would you like to support him? With some cash? Please? To my twentysomething mind, the entire exercise was, in a single breath, both heart-breaking and hard-nosed. What the doctor’s 16-year-old son did, unashamedly, which made him quite singular, was take pride in waving and owning the Indian flag like it were his second skin. This was at a time when most Indians were a bit abashed about flaunting their national identity so brazenly. Besides, it wasn’t too easy to either buy or fly national flags in the first place. It was like the 16-year-old from Calcutta had tapped into a sound track that belonged to the future. Three decades on, every Indian athlete will always be draped in the flag. There is one pasted onto most athletes’ Twitter handles, with the descriptor “proud Indian”. The flag finds its way into their speech, post victory or defeat. The Indian athlete has now emerged as the uber-patriot, the quasi-soldier. And soldiers cannot be doubted or questioned. Which of course more than ever, requires that they must always be. It is a heady time to be listening to or telling stories about Indian sport because of its tumult and volume of activity. There are so many on their search for excellence, wanting to own their slice of history. As Indian sport grows and changes, this is a moment in its sporting history that calls for a more measured recounting. As witnesses and story tellers, we must once again recalibrate our lenses and re-examine our notions.