NEW DELHI: Someplace on a muddy faculty subject in Haryana proper now, a teen is maybe drilling the identical throwing approach time and again, simply as she had watched on tv simply days in the past. Her sole intention is to drag off the one like Sharmila Dhankar, India’s Commonwealth Video games shot put gold medallist.Earlier than the 2026 CWG marketing campaign, she, like many people, had virtually definitely by no means heard the title. And it is not as a result of Dhankar had not gained something earlier than the Glasgow Video games; she had, a gold medal within the Girls’s Shot Put F57 occasion on the 2026 Fazza Worldwide Para Athletics Championship, however as a result of one of many major establishments whose total job was to hold that story again from the medal podium to villages and coaching grounds throughout the state has, for all sensible functions, gone quiet.That is the a part of this story that hardly ever will get informed. India walked away from Glasgow with 39 medals, and for per week, the athletes who gained them have been in all places, garlanded at airports, seated beside ministers, their faces on the night information. However medals do not construct the subsequent technology of athletes by themselves. Any individual has to maintain telling their tales, lengthy after the felicitation photograph is filed away, to the child coaching in a dusty faculty floor who wants proof that this path truly leads someplace.
Medal tally of India’s athletes by beginning state/UT
We wished to know which state sports activities departments are nonetheless doing their job of selling the sports activities and their grassroots on their social media platforms, and which of them appear to have merely logged off. So we scrolled by way of the timelines ourselves. This is what we discovered.
Haryana: Hit on the rostrum, not a lot off it
No state produced extra glory in Glasgow than Haryana. Eleven medallists, together with seven gold, two silver, two bronze, spanning boxing, wrestling, athletics, and para sport, headlined by a Neeraj Chopra silver that can be replayed on sports activities channels for years.Alongside him have been names most of India nonetheless had little information of. The likes of Preeti Pawar, Jaismine Lamboria, Sakshi Chaudhary, Priya Ghanghas, Sachin Siwach, and Ankush Panghal, all of whom educated in authorities amenities, beneath authorities schemes, and who’d most likely respect their very own state division cheering as loudly for them because it does for its live performance lineups.As a result of that is the factor. The Sports activities Division, Authorities of Haryana’s X account has posted precisely as soon as in all of 2026, and it is a flyer for the music acts enjoying on the Chief Minister’s Cup.Fb and Instagram observe an analogous rhythm with a brief cluster of posts round that February occasion, after which not a lot else.Eleven medals, and never one devoted publish to indicate for it. Someplace in Rohtak or Bhiwani, a younger pugilist coaching in Priya Ghanghas’s self-discipline would most likely similar to slightly proof that somebody up high is paying consideration.
Manipur nonetheless speaking about 2023
Manipur’s web page has an odd time-capsule high quality to it. That is the state that gave India Mirabai Chanu, one of many nation’s most beloved Olympic medalists, and this Commonwealth Video games alone produced 4 medalists from Manipur, Chanu’s gold amongst them, alongside Rishikanta Singh, Bindyarani Devi, and Jadumani Singh.And but the Division of Youth Affairs & Sports activities’ X account hasn’t posted since October 2023, a “Run for Unity” occasion, frozen nicely earlier than any of this 12 months’s medals occurred.Though the Fb web page has had a number of sporadic posts right here and there this 12 months, its Instagram account has managed simply two posts since January. It’s the type of hole that makes you surprise if somebody merely forgot the login particulars someplace alongside the best way.
Rajasthan: 14 years and counting
If there’s one quantity on this complete train value sitting with, it is this: the official Sports activities Division, Authorities of Rajasthan hasn’t posted on Fb since April 14, 2012.Fourteen years, by way of Arundhati Choudhary’s Commonwealth gold and every part else that is occurred in Rajasthan sport since.Its X account’s final unique publish predates a retweet from March 2021, and there is not any Instagram in any respect. A parallel deal with, the Rajasthan State Sports activities Council, exists throughout all three platforms and is barely livelier.Someplace behind Choudhary’s medal is a genuinely good story, but it surely simply hasn’t discovered a house on the one web page constructed to inform it.
Uttar Pradesh and Delhi carry the identical gloomy image
Gulveer Singh managed each a silver and a bronze for Uttar Pradesh this Video games, a uncommon double that will make an incredible centrepiece for the state’s sporting 12 months. As a substitute, throughout two separate official handles on three platforms, Uttar Pradesh Sports activities has produced little past reposts, whereas its sister account, Sports activities Directorate, Govt of Uttar Pradesh, hasn’t posted in any respect in 2026.Delhi Authorities, for its half, does not run a devoted sports activities account in any respect on any of the favored social media platforms, so gold medalist Harsh Singh and bronze medalist Tejaswin Shankar, each representing India’s capital, do not actually have an institutional cheerleader on-line, their wins quietly absorbed into the final churn of metropolis authorities updates. Each athletes are, in impact, doing their very own promotional legwork.
After which come Tamil Nadu and others
Set towards all that quiet, Tamil Nadu looks like a special sport altogether. Its Sports activities Tamil Nadu handles publish a number of occasions a day, celebrating not simply its personal three medalists, Praveen Chithravel, Selva Prabhu, Muthupandi Raja, however athletes from different states too, weaving in authorities scheme updates with out it ever studying like forms.Each medallist bought a devoted publish. Someplace in Tamil Nadu, a child coaching in lengthy bounce or wrestling does not have to wonder if the game leads anyplace. The state tells them, publicly, virtually every day.Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka’s Fb and Instagram pages, Assam, Bihar, and Tripura all observe a model of that very same behavior, energetic, constant, beneficiant with consideration towards athletes no one outdoors their district would in any other case know existed.Kerala does not run a separate sports activities deal with on X however retains its Fb and Instagram genuinely full of life, ensuring Murali Sreeshankar and Mohammed Basil’s silvers bought their due.Andhra Pradesh mirrors that very same rhythm throughout all three platforms.
Those someplace within the center
Not each state falls neatly into being inactive or staying proactive. Punjab’s account managed simply two posts on X all 12 months, New 12 months’s and Republic Day, although its Fb and Instagram carry a bit extra life round teaching and departmental conferences, even when athletes hardly ever get high billing.Uttarakhand was genuinely energetic final 12 months earlier than cooling off in 2026, leaning extra towards authorities scheme bulletins on Fb, although its Instagram a minimum of carried two posts across the Video games.
How energetic are states/UTs with CWG medallists in selling sport
Maharashtra has devoted posts up for each Sarvesh Kushare and Dilip Gavit, with Instagram staying pretty common, sufficient effort to remain out of the quiet column.Karnataka’s X account hasn’t posted since March 2024, round an unrelated cultural-team occasion, although its Fb and Instagram have stayed heat and energetic towards its CWG medalists.
Does it matter a lot?
It’s value asking why this truly issues, past good manners. Effectively, a state sports activities division’s social media feed is not only a courtesy board for congratulations; it is one of many least expensive, most direct instruments obtainable to construct the subsequent technology of athletes.A teenager in a small city is much extra more likely to decide up a javelin as a result of they noticed a state authorities publish celebrating somebody from their very own district. Even in the case of selling any authorities coverage, social media will be as efficient.Visibility drives aspiration. There is a funding logic too. Sponsors, corporates, and even state finance departments allocate assets partly primarily based on seen public curiosity, and a well-run social account is usually the simplest proof a sport has that curiosity.ALSO READ: Anahat Singh: What is in the name? A word from Guru Nanak’s prayer, now India’s squash sensationSilence, alternatively, sends the message that grassroots sport is not a precedence well worth the effort of a single publish, even when the state has simply produced a medallist on the world stage.It’s value it as a result of typically, step one in the direction of constructing a sporting tradition is solely exhibiting people who their achievements are being seen.
