Controversies seem to be the norm for 2020 and there is another one brewing in the Indian chess scene.
India scripted history by winning the gold medal in the first ever Online Chess Olympiad held by FIDE. The current world situation had compelled the event to be held online and FIDE subsequently changed the format, amalgamating all different disciplines under the umbrella of one single nation, with the Men, Women and both the junior sections all competing together for Team India.
India ended up sharing the gold medal with Russia after server outages caused disruption in the finals.
While Pentala Harikrishna is in Europe and has already received his medal, the medals for other members were finally received by team vice-captain Srinath Narayanan, who will now duly forward it to each member of the winning team.
However, the chess GrandMaster did reveal that he was asked to pay a custom duty of 6300 INR as well as produce a certificate of composition to prove the contents of the medal while explaining the details of why these were being received, much to his frustration.
Bear in mind, a 2017 government directive had declared that all medals won by sportspersons will be exempt from custom duty. This highlights the lack of recognition for chess in India, despite the country boasting of a large number of Grand Masters.
The same was highlighted during the tournament itself when captain Vidit Gujarathi had lamented on a lack of governmental support for the Indian chess team, which suffered a few setbacks related to internet connectivity over the course of the event.
It is disheartening to see that, despite the growing popularity of chess in India in 2020, the Indian chess players are still bereft of proper recognition as sportspersons by the government.
