Khelo India, Bolo India-ko

Over 10,000 sports-persons, sports organizers and officials from all over the country are currently in Guwahati to take part in the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games, a unique national sports meet that the BJP-led government launched in order to add fresh impetus to the national sports development efforts. A brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Khelo India programme was in fact first introduced in 2018 to revive the sports culture in India at the grassroots level by building a strong framework for all sports played in our country and establish India as a great sporting nation. In the first year, however, the focus was on school students. But from 2019 onwards it was transformed into a youth games – Khelo India Youth Games – with the third annual event being currently held in Guwahati. The first two Games were held in Delhi and Pune respectively, but the Guwahati Games has been already marked as the biggest Khelo India meet so far. Old records are being broken and new records created, with the young sportspersons also creating a network among themselves and thus contributing in their own way towards making India a global sports power in the future. It is a fact that taking part in sports and games is not just about aiming at winning trophies and medals and becong champions. It is also an important means of overall personality development of the country’s youth, and infusing in them an urge and a habit to work with a team spirit. No doubt sports and games also make individuals healthier, and with more and more young people taking to regular sports and games, India only makes one giant leap forward to become a nation of healthier people. As far as Guwahati is concerned, it is fast emerging as the Sports Capital of India. The city has seen the establishment of some of the finest and most modern sports infrastructure in the country in the past few years. The last three years in particular have seen a number of sports events and competitions of national as well as international importance taking place here. With Guwahati’s air and rail connectivity improving significantly in the past four of five years, travelling from any part of India to this city has become comparatively easier than before. There are in fact very few state capitals which have such good air connectivity as Guwahati now has. What is even more important is that the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games are being currently held in Guwahati even as Assam and the Northeastern Region are also witnessing massive protests against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act. But then, contrary to adverse publicity in the rest of India that the law-and-order situation in Assam is bad because of the protest movement against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the reality is that there has been no adverse impact on the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games. The 10,000-plus sportspersons, officials and sports organizers who have come from various corners of India to participate in the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games should in fact carry home this message that Assam is the most peaceful place despite an ongoing agitation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. They should also go back and tell the people in their respective states that the peaceful and democratic agitation in Assam is against the government move to grant Indian citizenship to several lakh infiltrators from Bangladesh, because these infiltrators will reduce the Assamese and other indigenous communities of Assam into a minority in their own state. They should also carry home this message that Assamese identity and culture has nothing to do with religion, and that the Assamese people are only fighting to protect their own identity, culture and language. They should also carry back this message that successive governments have miserably failed to protect the indigenous communities of Assam from the unabated infiltration from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, because the political parties have always used the infiltrators as vote-banks. They should also carry home the message that the Supreme Court of India, had in a landmark judgment on July 12, 2005, described influx as an “external invasion” of India. Khelo India. Bolo India ko.