KOLKATA: External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday urged the sports fraternity here to excel in their respective sporting arenas and recreate the country’s past glory in sports.
Speaking at a function to mark the release of a cricket-based documentary film “Hum Sab Ek Hain” that has been produced by the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Mukherjee said: “We were world leaders in hockey not many years ago. Can we not recreate history as a nation of one billion people…I would like the sports fraternity to think and suggest to us what we need to do towards that end.”
Several well-known sports personalities including cricketers were present.
On the game of cricket and its immense popularity in the country, Mr Mukherjee said that it was more than a game, “It is a national obsession.” He recalled how the former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, had appreciated the Indian team’s World Cup win in 1983.
Mr. Mukherjee said that although as a village boy he was familiar with football, he was invited to become chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India about 28 years ago when he became the Finance Minister for the first time. “I took the shelter of my political mentor, Indira Gandhi, and she drove home the point [to the selectors] that I did not have the time,” he said.
Mr. Mukherjee praised a host of cricketers - starting from Sunil Gavaskar, Lala Amarnath, Kapil Dev, and Ajit Wadekar, to Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and Mahendra Singh Dhoni - for their contribution to the game.
“Today in Dhoni, India has found a young and dynamic captain who has maintained consistency in the team’s performance,” he said.
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