India poised to become a superpower

ALMOST unnoticed, a revolution is brewing in Indian sport. India is poised to emerge as one of the world's superpowers in chess. And that won't take long.

No sport in India has made such huge strides as chess. No country promises as much as India in chess. It is not a hollow promise, either.

Figures don't lie. The World champion is an Indian. So is the World junior girls' champion. Five Indian men and as many women have qualified for this year's World championship.

An Indian won the silver medal on the top board of the women's Olympiad last year. India finished eighth in the men's Olympiad, several slots higher than its seeding, without the services of its best player.

India has produced six World champions in the last five years in age-group championships. The country swept all but one of the six medals at stake at the Asian junior championship. Within a space of less than a year and a half, three young Indians became Grandmasters (GM). The country produced two Woman Grandmasters (WGM) in a year. Every other week some Indian is making a norm in some corner of the world.

Indian chess does not begin and end with Viswanathan Anand, the World champion, as it did till a few years ago. And Pendyala Harikrishna, India's youngest GM, and Koneru Humpy, the World junior champion, are not the only exciting Indian prospects.

They may be miles ahead of their peers in talent, but there are many young promising kids across the country. That is precisely why the future looks so exciting for Indian chess.

And the young boys and girls of today are far better equipped than their counterparts of yesterday. "When I started out I used to win a pawn or a piece by the ninth move, now I can't expect that against my rivals even after 25 moves," says Abhijit Kunte, the Pune-based youngster who turned GM last year. "The standard has definitely improved in the last four or five years."

After coming close to a medal in a World age-group championship, tweleve-year-old Rahul Sangma said, "I think it is more difficult to win a National championship than a World title in children's championship." He was making a valid point, for the competition for a National title in any age-group is getting increasingly tougher.

The National `A' championship, the premier domestic tournament in the country, has changed beyond recognition. Says Lanka Ravi, the veteran International Master (IM) from Chennai who has seen it becoming a GM tournament from what was a not-so-strong event when he made his debut 15 years ago. "In those days, even in the late 80's, the National `A' was not even an IM tournament. It was just a category 2 event at the time," he recalls.

Now, with as many as four GMs in the fray, you could even make a GM norm from it. As P. Konguvel did, in New Delhi at this year's championship. He belongs to a generation of chess players who were inspired by the deeds of one man. Anand. The man who authored the Indian revolution.

"Surely Anand is the reason, the only reason," says Ravi. "If Indian chess looks full of promise, the credit goes to him."

Because Anand showed children that an Indian could do wonders on the chess board.He instilled confidence in the parents that their sons and daughters were not wasting their time by playing chess.

Never has an individual shaped the sporting destiny of a nation the way Anand has. It is important to have a role model for young, aspiring athletes. It is great to have a World champion as a role model.

After winning her fourth World title in Delhi last year Xie Jun, the women's World champion, told this writer, how chess became a passion for thousands of young girls in China. "After I won the World championship for the first time in 1991, youngsters in China thought `If this girl can do it, why can't I?"

China today is the world's undisputed leader in women's chess.

Anand's influence on the young Indian minds hasn't been any less. It is greater, in fact. For, unlike Xie Jun, he is a sheer genius, whose rise has been as spectacular as that of Sachin Tendulkar with a cricket bat.

Like the Mumbai maestro, Anand caught the imagination of the country, with unbelievable natural skills. But for Tendulkar, there was a great cricketer living in his own city to look up to for inspiration.

What Anand found before him, however, as he learnt the intricacies of chess, was just a paradox: India, the country which invented the game, could not produce even a single world class player. That is one of the reasons why Anand is India's greatest sportsman.

Of course, we shouldn't forget Sultan Khan when we talk of the history of Indian chess (He had made a mark in Britain for a brief period in the 1920's when he accounted for some famous names in the game, including Capablanca. Vijay Amritraj once beat John McEnroe when the American was the World's best player, but he could not make much progress even in that very tournament. Neither could Sultan Khan make much headway in international chess, despite possessing great talent).

Today's whizkids are blessed not just because they took to the game long after the great man from Chennai did. They are playing at a time which gives them so many opportunities, and so much information.

"The role of information in chess is very important," says Ravi. "Now you have the internet and the latest chess software is available to you at a reasonable cost. It was not so when the players of my generation took part in international competitions. At that time, our only source was the `Informator'. Even it had limited copies in India. After our preparations based on the games in it, we would realise that the information we gathered was outdated by the time we used it in an international tournament."

The lack of information was not the only hurdle the Indian chess player came across in the 80's. There was lack of air tickets too.

Chess was not a Category A sport for the Central Government, as it is today. "It was Category `C' then," recalls Ravi, "which meant we had to struggle hard in Delhi to get our air tickets cleared before any tournament abroad."

Even for the Olympiad. In 1988 the Indians had to forfeit a round because they arrived a day late. Our men still finished 15th. D. V. Prasad, the Bangalore-based IM who is one of India's most durable internationals, was a member of that team. "When I was a youngster, the only age-group tournament I got to play was the National juniors," he says, fresh from his successful tour of Europe where he made his second GM norm.

Compare that to the number of National championship a youngster gets to play these days, besides various open tournaments. Says Kunte, "The All India Chess Federation (AICF) has done very well in conducting tournaments. There are 24 National championships every year, and it is no joke to hold them properly and on time."

The domestic governing body, though, should do well to have some GM or IM tournaments. If there were three closed GM tournaments last year, there hasn't been even a single one so far this year. Goodricke GM tournament in Kolkata is the only regular event in the country from where our players can attempt norms. That has to change for sure, for not everyone can afford to go overseas to chase norms.

Corporate houses should be persuaded to conduct tournaments and sponsor promising players. As of now, only four youngsters get substantial sponsorships: Harikrishna, Humpy, Aarthie Ramaswamy and Tania Sachdev. Chess has to be marketed better, many players feel.

It was a wise move from the AICF to rope in such outstanding foreign coaches as former World No. 3 Valery Salov and Evgeny Vladimirov, a former trainer of Garry Kasparov, to prepare Indian players before important international meets. Indian players benefited immensely from the sessions with two of the most respected coaches in world chess. "We would continue to bring quality coaches to India, as our aim is to make India the No. 1 nation in world chess," says P. T. Ummer Koya, FIDE vice president and AICF secretary.

GM Maxim Sorokin from Argentina has been coaching the Indian players for the World and Asian age-group championships for the last two years and he gives a reason why India is going to do well: "From my expereince of coaching children from different countries, I have found out that it is the Indians who show a sincere willingness to work. They are very keen to learn the theory of the game, whereas youngsters from other parts of the world do not want to work at all, and prefer just to play." Bhagyashree Thipsay, the seasoned International Woman Master (IWM) from Mumbai, believes chess is the only world sport in which India can be a major power, because "we simply do not have the physique to compete against the Europeans or the Africans in more physical games."

She is however a little disappointed by the sad state of the women's game in the country, despite excellent results at internatoinal competitions. "It is high time we had some WGM tournaments. Mind you, there has only been just one all these years," she says.

The ladies do deserve a better deal, especially after the outstanding efforts of Swati Ghate and S. Vijayalakshmi at the National men's `B' championship in Nagpur recently, when they made history by qualifying for the men's National `A', and the fine show at the Asian championship in Chennai, from where four Indians made the grade for the Moscow World championship.

Vijayalakshmi, who won the sliver at the Olympiad in Instanbul as well as in the Asian event, and Humpy are the only Indian WGMs, but she is confident that the number would go up soon. "Aarthie (Ramaswamy), Bhagyashree and Saheli (Dhar Barua) have already made norms, and there are also players like my own sister Meenakshi and Nisha Mohota, not to mention the highly promising D. Harika," says the Chennai girl.

Kunte thinks in the next couple of years India there will be 10 to 12 GMs. "Already we have six GMs, which is not bad considering we had only three till a year ago. Surya Shekhar Ganguly, R. B. Ramesh, Sandipan Chanda, G.B. Prakash and D.V. Prasad should get their titles in a year or two," he says.

India was the surprise packet at the Istanbul Olympiad, scoring upset victories over more fancied teams. "In four or five years we could start thinking of a medal at the Olympiad," says GM Krishnan Sasikiran, the highest ranked Indian after Anand.

Chess is not an Olympic discipline yet, but it will be one day. When it does, India would be a serious contender, not just for a medal, but the gold.

P. K. AJITH KUMAR

Kozhikode

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Tejas Bakre & Lanka Ravi in joint lead
Next     : Left-arm spinners not wanted