The announcement of India's national sports awards is usually synonymous with controversy of some sort. With an unprecedented 29 athletes recommended for the Arjuna Award and another five for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, this year is not very different. While the number of recommendations has certainly raised eyebrows, they were unusual for other reasons as well.
Unclear logic behind the high number
The previous highest number of Arjuna award recommendations was in 2012, when 25 athletes received the award. Over the last four years only 20 (in 2018), 14 (2017), 15 (2016) and 16 (2015) Arjuna awards were presented. One possible reason for this increased number is the fact that athletes were allowed to nominate themselves this year (they had to be nominated by the federation or a previous award winner in prior years). Approximately 500 names came up for this years' awards, including over 200 applying for the Arjuna award. This year's number is higher than the sports ministry's own guidelines, which say that no more than 15 awards could be given in a calendar year. "Keeping in view the performance of Indian sportspersons in the Commonwealth, Asian Games and Olympic Games during a particular year ... selection committee may recommend more than 15 sportspersons for Arjuna Award," the guidelines say. The guidelines also recommend just one Khel Ratna per year, barring 'exceptional circumstances'.
It is unclear what the ministry viewed as 'exceptional' in 2019-20, considering none of the aforementioned big events took place during this period.
The question of discretion
The criteria for the awards takes into consideration the athletes' performances over a four-year period. The assessment involves a points system to measure achievements, which gives 80% weightage to medals won at various international events, while the remaining 20% is left to the discretion of the 12-member selection committee. That discretion may as well have been a factor in case of a number of winners, who had an unexceptional 2019-20. For instance, Manika Batra, who won the Khel Ratna, had an excellent 2018, winning medals at Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. She won the Arjuna award in 2018 largely on the basis of her achievements at Gold Coast. Since 2018 though, her performances have somewhat tailed off as her current world ranking of 63 suggests.
Indigenous sports get a shout-out
Arjuna awards have also been handed out to kho kho (Sarika Kale), basketball (Vishesh Bhriguvanshi) and luge (Shiva Keshavan) this year. While indigenous games like kho kho are expected to be included under the awards, it was left to the project officer of the sport to explain why the athlete finally recommended for the award deserved to be named. In contrast to kho kho, while the Indian basketball team had at least participated in tournaments at the Asian level, there have been no results of significance - save a gold medal at the South Asian Games in which a total of four teams participated. Shiva Keshavan too won an Arjuna award after having retired from the sport and with his last performance of note being a gold medal at the 2017 Asian Championships.
Notable omissions
Many deserving candidates from other sports missed out this year. Deepak Punia, the first Indian wrestler to win a gold medal at the junior world championships in nearly two decades, and who subsequently won a silver medal at the 2019 World Championships, was a notable omission. As was his teammate Ravi Dahiya, who won a gold medal at the 2020 Asian Championships and a bronze at the 2019 World championships. Elavenil Valarivan, who won two World Cup gold medals in 2019 and was ranked the No. 1 women's air rifle shooter, also missed the cut as did Abhishek Verma, who is ranked No. 2 in the world in the men's 10m air pistol event, having won two World Cup gold medals in 2019.
According to a member of the committee, these athletes were omitted on the reasoning that since they were quite young (Punia is 19, Dahiya 23, Valarivan 21) or were likely to go to the Olympics (Verma) they would stand a good chance of winning the award in the future as well.
Arjuna after Khel Ratna?
Among the more bizarre nominations was the recommendations of Mirabai Chanu and Sakshi Malik for the Arjuna Award. With both athletes having already won the Khel Ratna - Malik in 2016 for her bronze at the 2016 Olympics and Chanu in 2018 for winning gold at the 2017 World Championships -- an Arjuna award could be considered a bit of a downgrade. This is especially so for Chanu who endured a long layoff due to injury in 2018 and early 2019 and subsequently finished fourth at the 2019 World and Asian Championships. Her nomination for the Arjuna Award is thus largely on the basis of her 2018 World Championships.
However, one of the reasons put forward to the committee was that although two athletes had won the Khel Ratna before, they were not able to avail the benefits of cash awards and land awarded by their respective state government -- which was meant specifically for Arjuna Award and not Khel Ratna winners.