INDIAN MANDALA Chess Olympics in India: more geopolitics than sport

They started yesterday in Chennai, the “Mecca” of sports fans. Absent the record holders from Russia, China and surprisingly also from Pakistan, due to the dispute over Kashmir. There are more and more young people who want to learn to play and there is even a lack of coaches.

Milan () – The Chess Olympics began yesterday in Mamallapuram, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu, returning to Asia after 30 years. The 44th edition of the games, which will conclude on August 10, was supposed to take place in Russia, but was moved to India due to the war. In addition to the Russian Federation (excluded by order of the International Olympic Committee from sports competitions along with Belarus), another great absentee will be China, which withdrew its team last month without explanation.

But yesterday the news came that Pakistan, for geopolitical reasons, has also decided to withdraw from the competition: “Unfortunately India has chosen to politicize this prestigious international sporting event by passing the torch relay through Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by Indians” said the foreign minister of Pakistan. Islamabad condemned India’s “petty attempt to mix sport and politics” and did not allow its team, already prepared for the event, to fly to India.

The geopolitical competitions, however, do not end there: on August 7, on the sidelines of the tournament, the representatives of the approximately 180 participating countries will have to vote for the next president of the International Chess Federation (Fide). Arkady Dvorkovich, Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister, is seeking a second term. His main opponent is Ukrainian grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets, who along with two other candidates say Russia has controlled the federation for too long. But Dvorkovich has made a smart move to keep his opponents at bay: if he wins, his vice will be five-time Indian world champion Viswanathan Anand, a respected and admired figure internationally and in his country. Thanks to him many Indian children have approached this sport.

On the opposite field, Ukrainian Baryshpolets runs alongside Anand’s former coach Peter Heine Nielsen, who now trains Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen. “It’s great that he promotes the game. But it’s sad that he has allied himself with the Kremlin,” Nielsen said, commenting on his former student’s decision. In fact, Russia’s ten-year control over FIDE is considered increasingly controversialespecially after the invasion of Ukraine.

But competition is also an opportunity that can be exploited for internal propaganda. In recent days, the main leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ultranationalist Hindu party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have complained about the lack of photographs of the prime minister and the new president on the posters and advertising brochures of the event. The Madras High Court (Chennai) ordered yesterday to the State of Tamil Nadu to include them: “The image of the country must be the center of attention of all and naturally that representation would be under the aegis of the honorable president and the prime minister of India, as well as the prime minister of the host state of the tournament ”, ruled the court.

Following defections from highly competitive countries (China had won gold in 2014 and 2018, while Russia won the competitions held online in 2020 and 2021, tied for first place with India in the year of the pandemic) increase the chances of obtaining a medal for the Indian teams, which instead of being two per category (one open to men and women, and another only for women), will be three, due to the fact that the number of participants was odd.

Since the 1990s, the popularity of chess among the young and very young has steadily grown in India. In 2007 there were only 20 grandmasters, while today there are 73, including two women. The 16 year old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, better known by his nickname Pragg, has beaten Carlsen twice this year. Like many of his up-and-coming peers in the sport, he began playing at the age of eight inspired by his champion, Viswanathan Anand, who is now a Fide vice-presidential candidate. Pragg had already caused a stir when he became an international master at age 10, the youngest person in the world to achieve that recognition. Chess titles depend on the score obtained by the player throughout his career, which in turn is calculated based on the statistical probability of winning in each game.

Currently in India there are about 50,000 registered players, but the Indian federation estimates that more than a million people play throughout the country. The demand is so great that there is a lack of coaches. Ramesh, Pragg’s trainer, quit his job at a state oil company to open a school in Chennai that has more than 1,000 students, a third of whom get free lessons because they couldn’t afford them. Above all, it is in Tamil Nadu where the new generations of grandmasters are growing: at least 26 come from that state in southern India where there is even a temple of chess and is considered the land of origin of this sport. During the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Modi recalled that various popular legends claim that the Indian gods played chess with the princesses, and for centuries moving the pieces on the board has been the favorite pastime of local kings and queens.