Olympics and identity

As the 10-member refugee Olympic team marched along with contingents from 206 nations at Rio, the crowd got to its feet. The team walked out right ahead of host country Brazil, and the symbolism of the moment was lost on none. For the first time ever in the history of the Olympics was an exception being made; the strongly nationalistic competitive framework that has bound the event since its inception had been bent to accommodate a group of people without a country.

The disparate group of swimmers, athletes and judokas in the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) is not playing for national honour, but as one of them said, to be seen as more than people fleeing their homes. To not be discriminated against, at least on the playing field. And this brings up a question that has been asked since the very beginning of such games: Are tournaments beyond the lines of identity that we draw around ourselves?

Step into the Mahabharata where duels and tournaments were all the rage and this question (among many others) pops up early on. For instance in Adi Parva, at a meet to showcase the talents of the Kaurava and Pandava princes after they had completed their schooling under Dronacharya, Karna comes in uninvited. He challenges Arjuna whose reputation as an archer was such that many, it was said, had travelled long distances just to see the young prince in action. Somewhat like a modern-day Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps, perhaps.

Unfortunately Karna's entry was barred by the rules of the game. All duels were to be between princes and kings. Karna was neither and, besides, his adopted parents were way down in the prevalent caste hierarchy, making him doubly unsuitable for the contest. Like the refugees today, he had no flag to fly under. In stepped Duryodhana (remarkably so, for he was the bad man of the epic) and made him king of Anga and the contest was on. Just as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has done with the team of refugees, by giving them the Olympic flag and anthem.

To put things in perspective, the hand of the IOC was perhaps forced by the fact that the refugee problem had hit too close to home. It was becoming impossible to keep them out of the frame. Perhaps the IOC acted as much out of self-interest as had Duryodhana whose support of Karna was his way of hitting back at his cousins.

However, what both these acts separated by geography and time show is that the Games have always been more than a tally of victories and losses. It is also not only about fair play and the spirit of sportsmanship because, be it the Greek, Roman or Indian epics, stories of violence and cheating are rampant.

To begin with, of course, it was all about religion. In Greek myths, to which modern day Olympics trace their origin, it was about accepting the supremacy of Zeus. David Romano, whose work on the Games forms a large part of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, writes that in ancient Greece there was no such thing as secular athletics (read games). The Games were in honour of Zeus and meant to bring together the people of different states following different gods.

Political alliances were struck during the Games as were sown the seeds of many political conflicts. In fact, one such conflict led the participant states to draw up a treaty that protected athletes and audiences from attacks during the Games.

The first organised Greek athletics, ironically, was born during a war. It is recorded in Homer's Iliad, where Achilles organised funeral games for his friend Patroklos who was killed during the Trojan War. He had eight events many of which find a place in the contests today too: wrestling, boxing and racing, for instance.

Religion was also a source of conflict at the Games and the reason they came to be banned sometime in 393 AD. According to Romano, they were seen as pagan festivals and a Roman emperor put an end to their vulgar display. The Games were revived in 1894 by the founder of the IOC the French baron, Pierre de Coubertin. He wanted to bring back the spirit of amateur competition that had marked the early games and use it as a way to promote peace rather than conflict in the world. If the Olympics Committee does manage to do that, it would have notched up another first in the history of the Games.