PRAVEEN KUMAR

It was the moment of the match: when the non-English speaking 21-year-old Man of the Match in the clincher of the Australian tri-series, Praveen Kumar from Multan Nagar, an obscure adjunct to mofussil Meerut, enlisted the aid of team captain Dhoni, himself from ‘backward’ Jharkhand, to interpret for him as he was being interviewed by a local TV reporter. Found in translation, Praveen spoke for the so-called ‘other India’ as he recounted how he had been inspired to take up cricket by watching his hero, and now his teammate, Sachin, on television.

Witnessing the Hindi-speaking Meerut lad being rendered into English by the Jharkhand captain for the benefit of an Australian audience, Down Under commentators asked themselves in tones of envious wonderment where India got its young, hitherto unsung talent from.

Who were these guys? Where did they come from? Praveen, together with other newcomers like Ishant Sharma and Piyush Chawla, adequately answered the mocking question: with Rahul Dravid, Sourav, Kumble and Sehwag gone, whom did India have left to play for it, anyway?

Having a billion-plus population - the majority of it youthful - helps of course. Statistically, the chances of India producing a Praveen Kumar are some 62 times greater than those of Australia.

But sheer numbers, and the prodigality of latent talent that accrues as a benefit, are by themselves not enough.

Agreeing with Sunil Gavaskar who said that while everyone slammed Indian selectors for their failure to discover new talent, when they did find it in the unlikeliest of places few commended them for it, Wasim Akram implicitly acknowledged the democratisation of Indian cricket which could field a Praveen Kumar, and a Piyush Chawla and an Ishant Sharma, as contrasted with Pakistan whose team reflected that country’s feudal structure and elitist bias towards the privilegentsia of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

The ‘discovery’ of Praveen is the ‘discovery’ of that ‘other India’ that lies beyond the pale of our metros and our English-speaking elites and our 8 per cent-plus growth. And cricket is only the tip of the iceberg, or the surface of the gold mine. The much-lamented ‘other India’, far from being a liability, is a vast, largely untapped source of enormous human potential, of a myriad undiscovered Praveen Kumars, not only in sports but in all other areas of expertise, from IT to engineering, medicine to art.
Locating and utilising this hidden talent would be a far more efficacious and long-lasting way of deleting the ‘other’ from the ‘other India’ than the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers. The write-off in its proposed format has been questioned in many quarters, including from within the Congress itself, not least because it leaves out of its ambit dry-land farmers who are unable to secure bank loans and remain indebted to rapacious moneylenders.

For the sake of not just the national economy but, more importantly, for the sake of our society as a whole, rural uplift is a non-negotiable imperative. But debt relief, in whatever form, can only be one component - essential though it may be as a short-term measure - of such a programme. What is really needed is a massive, exhaustive talent hunt for all the budding Praveen Kumars - and his women counterparts - out there in the 'other India', waiting to be discovered in their various fields of endeavour. It’s a huge task - not just for the HRD ministry but for India Inc as well - which could prove even more hugely rewarding, in its multiplier effect. For every 'discovered' Praveen Kumar would act as an inspirational role model for others in the 'other India'.

Where are the funds, never mind the political will, for all this? That of course remains the Rs 60,000 crore question.
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