Will hosting Olympics and Asiad be the right move for India?

Indian Olympics Association head, N Ramachandran recently revealed IOA is seeking permission from government to bid for hosting 3032 Olympics, and 2030 Asiad. Well that’s good news and India may even be able to win bid, but is India really ready to bear all that right now?

Here’s the list of games IOA is planning to bid for, 2032 Olympics, 2030 Asiad, 2020 Aisan Beach Games alongside 2020 Olympic Council of Aisa General Assembly meeting and International Olympic Committee session in 2021.

Sure India could gain a lot from hosting the 2032 Olympics and 2030 Asiad. Hosting these games can actually put India on sports map which is pretty much just Cricket right now. Using them as a catalyst to penetrate Olympics sports culture in Indians and an inspiration to the for those who think Olympics as out of their reach, the tourism, foreign currency, jobs, and much more. There are limitless benefit, and possibilities. Being the second most populous nation on face of the earth,  we can take a lot of advantage of the man power we have.

But can India really pull all this off? I am not doubting, but will it be worth?

Let’s take a while and look back, India had the same opportunity which we think about right now when it hosted Commonwealth Games in 2010 and we all remember that fiasco, all the backlash we got from foreign and Indian media, all the corruption involved. The construction went on until after the games started, top head did not see the pride in hosting, instead they saw their personal opportunity. All the money government spent was recovered from our taxes.

People say the government has changed, time has changed, but has it really? Demonetization, single most important decision any government has made in past decade and yet we are not able to put corruption out of equation from our normal life. Can they be trusted again with all the power, faith, money, to use? Government might just impose more and more taxes to recover the money they will spend on the construction and makeover of the Olympics.

I am not saying that India can’t or shouldn’t host Olympics, but there are still more than 60% of Indians deprived of basic human needs, do we really need to host a game right now?