Actor Salman Khan being appointed as the goodwill ambassador for the Rio Olympics by the Indian Olympic Association is a national shame and shows how badly sports bodies function in the country. What is Salman’s credentials for such an huge honour as controversies have always dogged the popular actor over the years? A hit-an-run drunkard driving case which resulted into death is still in the courts apart from hunting animals in a Jodhpur court which has still not exonerated him as yet. Can such a personality do justice to an job which should induce sportsmen to be fair apart from inciting them to give off their best for national pride?
Our country does not have dearth of sporting talent or sporting heroes but we are wanting in sports administration which are devoid of ideas as they are run by politicians and bureaucrats who cannot even distinguish between real heroes and reel ones which truly is a shame. Salman Khan is an great actor but by no means a sportsmen. He has done a lot for charity but what good are such deeds after you have broken all rules of ‘humanity’ in the past.
Olympics is about national honors and pride. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should intervene in this matter and see to it that a deserving sportsmen replaces Salman Khan as goodwill ambassador, else it would be embarrassing for our country and demoralize our contingent at the Rio Games even before the Olympics has begun. Nothing against Salman Khan though and I am sure the actor did not press his name for the honour (as he does not even accept awards which he deserves but somebody got over enthused to be in his good books to create this controversy!
S.N. Kabra
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
