The eminent lawmaker and jurist that he was, the passing away of V.R. Krishna Iyer is certain to leave a void in the field of sports in Kerala much as in the other spheres of human endeavour.
A true sports enthusiast, the former Supreme Court judge was a keen follower of many disciplines and had a clear vision on the path that Kerala sport had to take in order to gain greater glory.
In fact, among his major contribution to this field are the recommendations that mostly he himself wrote as chairman of the first-ever expert committee on sports constituted by the Kerala Government in 1970.
Sports divisionsIt was based on these recommendations submitted in 1971 that the G.V. Raja Sports School in Thiruvananthapuram and the sports divisions in Kannur and other places were established by the government a few years later.
Though much of the sheen of these institutions has now been lost due to the lackadaisical approach of the General Education Department in its day-to-day running, the initiative, fair and square, was what helped Kerala establish itself as a powerhouse in the field of Indian athletics .
In the same report, he did also call upon the powers-that-be not be cowed by financial considerations in giving effect to the schemes and projects proposed by his committee.
Summing up the chapter, ‘The Chairman Speaks’, Mr. Krishna Iyer wrote: “These are not fanciful ideas beyond the budgetary digestion of the State. What we need is the enlightened will to put Kerala on the sports map of India in a big way. Money is secondary and when it comes to actual working out of the financial implications of our report and their implementation by way of phased programmes, the Government may not be inhibited from giving effect to the schemes and projects by financial consideration. Less politics in sports and more sports in politics, we pray, will give a sporting chance for the proposals we have made in this report at the hands of the legislators who ultimately count in a democratic polity.”
It does seem only to be in the fitness of things, that the present government is now engrossed in the establishment of the Kerala Institute of Sports, in collaboration with the Victoria Government, Australia, though over 43 years have been lost in the interim since Mr. Krishna Iyer called for the creation of a similar institution on the lines of the National Institute of Sports.
