News report: Two teenagers, a track and field athlete and kabaddi player, were found dead in a room in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) Training Centre (STC) hostel in Kollam on January 15. Police investigation into the two deaths in Kollam may take time to be completed, but there has been little reaction beyond the initial reports in media in Kerala.
The silence is deafening. We have not heard much from those whose hands manage the rudder of Indian sport. Some have suggested that the leaders believe that being quiet helps as the issue blows over. Public memory may indeed be short, but it should not be a reason for the powers that be to at least express grief and indignation, if not act.
To be fair, India’s first individual Olympic Gold medal winner Abhinav Bindra and Olympian sprinter Anil Kumar have been among the handful of former athletes who have been distraught and expressed their shaken emotions in public. But these have been voices in wilderness and have drowned by the stony silences pervading corridors that matter.
Notwithstanding the wait for the Kollam police to come up with its findings, it is imperative that Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports directs the Sports Authority of India to engage safeguarding officers to sensitise its workforce in ensuring safe environment for the trainees and everyone else, not just in each of its facilities dotting the country.
To begin with, counselling support must be provided to the inmates of the SAI STC hostel in Kollam. There was some mention of counsellors visiting the hostel but that may more be to assist the police investigation rather than support the trainees, who could be dealing with unimaginable trauma.
Since no amount of care is enough, India must ensure Safeguarding is well and truly ingrained in its entire sporting ecosystem, without exception. It must not be reduced to a philosophy that surfaces only in the wake of tragic developments. This process should have been started a long time ago, but it must begin at least today.
In the wake of a death by suicide in a SAI facility in Alappuzha, the then Minister of State of Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbananda Sonowal told Rajya Sabha in April 2016 that SAI had passed directions to have a lady warden in each hostel with girls and engage security personnel for SAI hostels.
While these may have been enforced, it is unsure if two other directions are being complied with in all SAI facilities. The Ministry understood the importance of having parent-coach-administrator meetings each quarter and empaneling counselling psychologists to visit SAI centres at least once or twice each month.
These points must be non-negotiable and there must be public records of such meetings for each centre. It was also pointed out to the Ministry that there is a lack of protection for athletes from abuse, harassment and other physical dangers. It was also highlighted that there was no provision for mental health support for the athletes.
As India moves forward to becoming a sporting nation, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports can form a National Safeguarding in Sports Board, tasking it with creating better SOPs and ensuring that the highest standards are met in each of its own and other sporting facilities. India’s sporting spaces must be fair, equitable and free from all forms of harassment and abuse.
For instance, the Sports Authority of India can consider evolving a system of profiling personnel who deal with the athletes on a daily basis in its own facilities across the country and frequently assess them for competencies. Setting up helplines can only be a part of the process but cannot be seen as an end it itself.
Also, in consultation with the right set of specialists, SAI may revise the process of gathering feedback at least to the extent to trying to involve different people. An oversight mechanism needs to be evolved to ensure that those who have access to the feedback are also held accountable. This will prevent harassers from flaunting protection by their superiors.
The Athletes’ Commissions in the Indian Olympic Association, the respective National Sports Federations and State Sports Associations should also get involved in such cases. They should not restrict themselves to serving the cause of elite high performance sportspersons and must actively engage in representing athletes in the lower rungs of the assembly line.
It may also be time for sports NGOs to consider investing time and effort in forming groups of sports psychologists and qualified counsellors to support the safeguarding effort at the grassroots level. This may incur some expenditure and there may not be much in terms of visibility, but the benefits of prevention of self-harm by athletes can be manifold.
