On Saturday the Prime Minister announced that India would be bidding to host the 2036 edition of the summer Olympics along with the Paralympic games. PM Narendra Modi made the announcement during the inauguration of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) session being held in Mumbai. He said that the country’s desire to host the Olympics was an “age-old dream” and if successful, will leave “no stone unturned in preparation for the successful organisation of the Olympics in 2036.”
While it is commendable that the country wants to host the Olympics, times are now changing. Hosting a mega sporting event such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games or the football World Cup, which was once considered an event to showcase to the world one’s national and economic progress is today being shunned by cities across the world, especially cities in the democratic part of the world.
Fewer and fewer countries and cities across the world are enthusiastic about hosting the Olympics. For the hosting of the 2024 Olympics as many as five cities across the world withdrew from the race including Boston, Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome. It meant only Paris (France) and Los Angeles (USA) are in the pool. Rather than go through the rigmarole again, the IOC decided to award the 2024 games to Paris and the 2028 games to Los Angeles.
For the 2036 Games, besides India, Indonesia and Poland have also expressed interest -- a far cry from the dozens of countries that used to once bid to host the games. The prohibitive cost of setting up the infrastructure for the games, the displacement of people to make way for infrastructure, the need to build infrastructure including a metro system and hotels for the athletes for the games city -- infrastructure that will be rendered underutilised or entirely useless once the games are done all weighs in on decisions countries are making against wanting to host the games.
Today, more often than not it is countries that are not democracies which are eager to host games more as a vanity project to showcase themselves to the world. Mature countries across the world have long realised that hosting the games is more of a burden than a benefit despite promises of international prestige that comes with hosting the games.
This isn’t to suggest that India shouldn’t bid to host the games. Instead, it should think long and hard about the costs, the ability to use the built infrastructure after the games are concluded as well as the ability to divert funds that could have otherwise be used for improving civic infrastructure in cities across the country, most of which are bursting at the seams due to lacking public infrastructure, inexistent mass transit systems, chaotic traffic and development that benefits only a certain strata of society while leaving others behind.
The country certainly needs to avoid falling into a debt trap that many cities and countries suffered as they borrowed heavily to build the infrastructure only for it to remain unused after the Games were done. The world is dotted with abandoned games villages built at a huge cost but now unable to be utilised.
India needs a dispassionate discussion on the decision to host the games and not be carried away by jingoism or fanciful dreams for while the costs are real, the benefits of hosting the games are imaginary at best.
