EFI officials clutch at straws in desperation to remain in saddle

Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) officials, who are fighting to remain in the saddle, seem to have no qualms when pushing forward the argument that they manage a sport that needs two athletes, a human athlete and an equine athlete. They seem to ignore how they have consistently overlooked the horses, remembering them only as uncaring opportunists can.

If the horse is indeed is an athlete, as the EFI has claimed in the past couple of years to avoid being derecognised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, it has been grossly unfair in not naming a single horse to the Arjuna Award or the Dhyan Chand Award. Bear with me for just a moment longer.

After all, in the 1982 Asian Games, Shahzada helped Raghubir Singh (picture alongside) win two gold medals. It is not known why the EFI has not considered Shahzada worthy of even the Dhyan Chand Award now. Seigneur Medicott helped Fouaad Mirza win two silver medals in the 2018 Asian Games. Mirza and Shehzada, that have contributed to two Asian Games bronze medals each.

If the magnificent horses get to know how EFI officials are branding them athletes for their own convenience and to extend their own rein, they might actually petition a Court themselves. Okay, okay, that may seem extreme. And stretching a point.

But then, how can anyone explain the fact that the EFI’s wonderful coffee table book released to mark its Golden Jubilee makes no mention of any of the horses that have done India proud? If indeed the EFI officials believed that the horses are athletes, the least they would have done was identify the horses that helped the riders attain success.

Here, look at some pages that celebrate athletes. And see you for yourself that there is not even a passing mention of the beautiful equine athletes.

Can there be more damning evidence of EFI officials springing up the two-athlete theory to confuse the officials in the Ministry (and, for good measure, the Indian Olympic Association’s Secretary-General as well)? Does the Federation intend to perpetuate the name of the rider but not the horse?

Sadly, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has recently shown an inclination to buy the EFI argument that the sport needs two athletes and therefore it is a peculiar sport. It may now boil down to the petitioners convincing the Delhi High Court that this is a frivolous argument forwarded by EFI to stall change for years.

So, is the horse really an athlete?

For all other purposes, it is. But in the context of EFI official’s battle for survival, it cannot be seen as an athlete for two reasons.

First, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, which cobbled together a series of letters and directions issued from 1975 to 2010 and called them the National Sports Development Code of India 2011, makes one reference to horses and calls them ‘equipment’ and not athletes or equine athletes. There is no way the Ministry should buy the two-athlete argument to protect EFI officials.

The International Equestrian Federation’s (FEI) vision, as stated on its website is: To grow the unique and mutually beneficial bond between horse and human in sport globally. In fact, FEI says it fully stands by its mission to celebrate the unique bond between horse and human and to develop equestrian sport globally in a modern, sustainable and structured manner with guaranteed athlete welfare, equal opportunity and ethical partnership with the horse.

It does not speak of the horse, whose welfare is its top priority, as an athlete. What’s more, its website suggests that you could check out athlete biographies to find out all about the world’s best human athletes, their key moments, their results, their good luck charms etc. You can find more than 1500 Indian athletes, including 1200 endurance riders, a discipline that is not held in India.

The second argument against the two-athlete theory also stems from Government. It is significant that the Ministry of Finance levies GST on live horses. Can anything on which GST is levied when bought and sold be considered an athlete since it is not applicable to humans. So, logically far as sports is concerned, a horse can be no different to a motor vehicle, a hull, a canoe, a boat, a bicycle, a gun, a bow, a javelin etc. used in sports competition.

To return to the National Sports Code, it does not have any reference to ‘peculiar sport’, let alone grant the National Sports Federation of a ‘peculiar sport’ special privileges including violating the Code. And even if a new Code comes into force sometime in the future, the Ministry cannot use it with retrospective effect to let the EFI and some other National Federations get away.

It is imperative that rules are cast in stone and not open to interpretation that can change depending upon who is at the helm of the Ministry or which an EFI President visits Shastri Bhavan to sometimes tell the Ministry officials that a roadmap is being readied and at other times to pretend that a roadmap has been presented.

After all, EFI has been playing this game of hide and seek with the Ministry since 2013.

Back then, the Ministry notified EFI and 23 other National Sports Federations that they had to submit a copy of their respective amended constitutions, incorporating the Government guidelines. The Ministry followed that up a month later, setting the 24 Federations February 28, 2013 as the deadline for compliance.

January and June 2017, Ministry wrote to EFI, advising it to carry out amendments to its constitution to become fully compliant with the National Sports Development Code of India 2011. EFI managed to convince the Ministry that it was taking steps in that direction and secured provisional recognition for six months each till the end of 2017. It wrote to the Ministry in 2013, 2015 and 2017 that its elections were conducted as per the National Sports Code.

And in 2017, EFI wrote to the Ministry saying that a roadmap is being prepared for full compliance within four years. It is said to have presented a “compliance roadmap” to Ministry later that year. It never intended to act on that roadmap and continued to defy the Code with impunity. In February 2019, the Ministry had set August 3, 2019 as a deadline for Code-compliance.

Like earlier deadlines, this also passed without an automatic suspension of the Ministry’s recognition of EFI. Instead of such action as had been indicated in the letter, Ministry accepted EFI contention that equestrian is a peculiar sport and, in on December 3 last, granted it recognition after EFI sought exemption from the Code since equestrianism is a peculiar club-based sport.

The Ministry decided to grant EFI time till March 31, 2020 to present a roadmap for Code compliance. Nobody knows if this has been complied with. Meanwhile, EFI faced the ignominy of having been ordered by the Delhi High Court to stay the functioning of its newly-nominated President and Vice-President (Administration).

That has led to its website going under a long maintenance break, too. A federation that claims its work is being affected in the run-up to the Olympic year – one athlete has qualified so far, and he has done it without any worthwhile support from his Federation – has chosen to shut its website down in its worst hour of crisis.

It has rarely cared for its human athletes, let alone the horses.