Why Rural Villages in India have their development hopes pinned on The Olympics

Indian Wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya made the entire nation proud at the Olympics when he secured a silver medal in the 57 KG Freestyle category.

He is the first Indian wrestler to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics for India and while he has been busy scripting history, back in his village, people are happy about the fact that they might get electricity and roads due to the triumph.

Rakesh Dahiya, the father of Ravi Kumar, recently noted in an interview with Times of India that the medal win of his son might bring development to the village.

 “I hope his medal brings 24x7 electricity supply and proper roads. We would like to believe that my son’s medal will bring development to the village. I am happy for his success. I am confident he will come back home with gold,” Rakesh said.

Nahri, the village in Haryana from which Ravi hails, usually gets around eight hours of electricity only split between morning and evening. In fact, when one of the news channels visited Ravi’s home prior to the final matchup at the Olympics, the family and the villagers were busy arranging an inverter to make sure that they can watch the match without any electricity interruption.

Rakesh used to work in a rented paddy field to support the dreams of his son. There are even stories of Rakesh cycling nearly 40-kilo meters daily to provide milk and fruits to Rakesh who used to train in Delhi. After all these years, the efforts that Rakesh had put in paid dividends.

A similar story of Lovlina Borgohain

Lovlina Borgohain, who secured a Bronze Medal in Boxing for India at the Tokyo Olympics has a similar story pinned to her name. Her native village of Baromukhia in Assam’s Golaghat district got a cemented road after her triumph in Tokyo.

“The government will be compelled to develop the village if she wins a medal. She will win a medal and become famous. Then a lot of people from various parts of the country will visit our village. When they will travel on a road that is full of potholes and kuccha, the government will be ashamed and do its bit,” a villager had said to the New Indian Express.  

Not an only road, but the primary health center of the village is also not up to the standards and most of the villagers are forced to travel more than 100 kilometers.

Sprinter Hima Das, who also hails from Assam, saw her village being transformed after her win in the World Under-20 Championships back in 2018. A new 1.5 KM Road, a village gate, a praying center, a youth club, and a mini-stadium were built by the Government.

The story of the Legendary Indian boxer Mary Kom was no different.

“It has happened with Mary Kom’s village in Manipur. Her village has developed on all fronts after she was shot into the limelight. We hope Lovlina excels at the Olympics. We have waited for a long to see some infrastructure development,” A family friend of Lovlina noted to NIE.

The stories are the same. Beneath the entire social media buzz that we see about the Olympic Medals, are stories like these where the rural areas of the nation pin their hopes on their athletes so that they can have a better life.

For an ordinary spectator, the medals of Ravi Kumar and Lovlina might just be another stat that they can be proud of and boast about. But for the people back in their village, it is a new ray of hope. A hope for development.

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