India has hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010 with quite a lot of issues within the country that ultimately affected the conduction of the game and the athletes who came to participate. India has also conducted the Asian Games way back in 1951, just after independence where every other country expected India to flourish economically after the departure of the British, an expectation India is still trying to fulfill.
India has always been recognized as an economically backward nation with ‘not-the-best-quality’ of infrastructure, whether it is of the stadiums or the mere facilities for accompanying such a large amount of athletes, coaches, and staff. Hosting the Olympics comes with both merits and demerits. It comes with a lot of investments, tie-ups, recognition and can spike the nation’s economy and attract other sporting events if conducted successfully which has happened with many countries. The negative thing about it can significantly be observed in Brazil, Athens, and other countries where it resulted to be a financial disaster for them. After hosting FIFA World Cup in 2014 and Rio Olympics in 2016, Brazil went into a huge debt breaking down the backbone of the nation’s economy, from which it is still trying to recover.
In such a condition, where countries having higher economies than India are downgraded to this level instead of flourishing, can India conduct the 2048 Olympics for which we are enthusiastically bidding? Also, India bid for the 2032 Olympics but was eliminated as Brisbane became the lucky one to have the honor of hosting. Not forgetting the huge setback India received in this pandemic, it will really be difficult for India to host the biggest event in sports in the immediate future with the risk of going financially down.
It’s not that India hasn’t hosted any major tournament, it sure has. Who can forget the incredible last ball six by MS Dhoni to win the 2011 Cricket World Cup at Wankhede! We are even ready to host the next Cricket World Cup! But hosting the Olympics is different. It is undoubtedly the biggest sports event almost including every sport you have or haven’t heard of, with a huge number of athletes, where we have to take care of their health, accommodation and other facilities with require millions of dollars.
As a matter of fact, Ahmedabad is already developing its biggest sports facility- the Sardar Patel Sports Enclave which will contain the capability to conduct major sporting events. It is not that we can’t host the Olympics Games, but we need to weigh every aspect before taking such a decision which can either be fruitful and flourishing or prove to be a disaster and make our country go half a century behind.
