India won the bronze medal last week at the Asian Mixed Team Badminton Championship. Also, India won the Thomas Cup for the first time in 2022. Both of these are moments of hair-raising exhilaration! And as we rejoice in these fantastic achievements of the athletes and the women and men in their support ecosystems, I would like to share an experience from the first half of the 1990s, which in my personal opinion is the pivot that created an ecosystem that produces champion badminton players in India.

In the early to the mind 1990s, somewhere between 1993 and 1996, if I recall right, there were two badminton associations in India. One was the old BAI (Badminton Association of India) and the other was the IBF (Indian Badminton Federation), if I recall right. The IBF was an upstart rival that was formed due to the ineffectiveness of the BAI. The IBF was formed by the great Prakash Padukone.

The IBF, as I remember, was formed in protest against the BAI, which by then had become fairly ineffective and was of no use to players. It had a president emeritus at the time. Prakash Padukone formed the IBF as a rival to the BAI and almost all players supported it unanimously. Everyone became a member of the IBF and rejected the BAI.

This was well before the era of social media and though it was widely reported in the print media of the time, it was not big news on television, which had not yet seen a spurt in the number of private channels. There was only the behemoth of the old Doordarshan which I do not remember reporting this issue with any great zeal. Also, this was a time when India was not a sporting nation and had no celebrated sporting heroes. Even the men’s cricket team was having a tough time in this period. So, all this led to this epochal protest in Indian badminton not being remembered much these days, when Indian badminton is a world powerhouse.

At around this time was also formed the PPBA, the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bangalore which was based out of the Canara Union badminton courts. The construction of the KBA stadium was still in progress back then, according to some, at a glacial pace. The PPBA tutored the most promising players from many states among both men and women. This was the foundation of really good and modern training ecosystem for the game in our country. Aparna Popat, Manjusha Kanwar and many other great players who were forerunners of the champions of today were among those who were a part of the PPBA in its early days. Apart from Prakash Padukone, Vimal Kumar, another legend of Indian Badminton was also a leading light of both the PPBA and the IBF.

The success and popularity of the IBF and the PPBA led to the capitulation of the BAI. The old dinosaur went extinct. The president resigned and the post was offered to Prakash Padukone, who, if I recall right again, held the post for some time. Once this change took place, the IBF was dissolved and merged into the BAI to resume the existing continuity from before the revolt.

Also, with this change, the BAI morphed over time into the proactive organization that exists today. Whether or not it is a model sports organization, it is a huge improvement over the old one. The modern sports ecosystem that was created, nurtured and improved over time has produced the crop of champions we all know and love, from the second half of the first decade of the twenty first century. I am penning down these thoughts because as successful revolts go, I can think of no other in the sporting arena. Nor can I think of any rebellion or protest in any area of life that achieved all its objectives and changed the entire ecosystem for the better. Perhaps Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar, in my personal opinion, are far greater heroes of this nation for this monumental institutional reform, even more than for their sporting achievements.

All hail the IBF!