When K.D. Jadhav won India’s last wrestling medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 the celebrations at home were extremely muted, restricted to the sports pages of newspapers unlike the megahype now around Sushil Kumar and the new phalanx of Indian boxers. To compound Jadhav’s agony, the political class gave the victorious hockey team of 1952 a tumultuous welcome in ceremonies across the country while he had to make do with a localised cavalcade of a hundred bullock carts from his native village. In 1952, hockey was a potent symbol of Indian nationalism and Jadhav, despite winning independent India’s first individual Olympic medal, was left to die in poverty. In sharp contrast, governmental coffers have already opened up for the Kumars from Beijing. Even more so, in a nation starved of sporting glory, the intense media focus has turned them into new nationalist heroes. Clearly the registers of iconicity have changed in the intervening years, with individual Olympic success becoming an important barometer of nationalist triumph.   

What explains the change? Let us be clear: this is not necessarily about some new-found love or understanding of sports. There is a marked disconnect between hype about the resurgent India that the Beijing boys supposedly represent and reality. On the morning that Sushil Kumar won his bronze medal most media outlets carried online stories saying he had “crashed out” of the Olympics. There was even an undertone that he had somehow wasted his first-round bye. Few remembered the repechage rule until the Jat from Najafgarh pleasantly shocked the nation with his marathon string of victories. As reporters struggled for epithets about a shining India, nothing characterised the madness better than the television scrum at Bhiwani. On the day of the two boxing quarterfinals, the squadron of OB vans from various channels stationed at Jitendra Kumar’s village of Devsar cut and run as soon as he lost. Their destination: Vijendra’s village of Kulawas, 10 kilometres away, in anticipation of his fight. This was partly understandable, but as one reporter on the spot pointed out: has Jitendra’s village suddenly ceased to be a symbol of the new resurgent India we are talking about simply because he lost? This after all, was a 20-year-old gallantly fighting the weight of history with 10 stitches below his chin but all that mattered it seems was the ruthless logic of victory. The hype was about nationalism, pure and simple, and that tells us something for the future as India hopes to build on the successes of Beijing.  

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