A BIG BOOM IN THE BRAIN GAME
D.K. Bharadwaj *
Chess, the cerebral
game of 64 squares is India’s unique gift to the world. For centuries
this game of mental warfare has been a favourite of countless
people all over the world. People from all walks of life ranging
from the intellectuals to the common peasants have played it,
enjoyed it and adored it fervently. Originated in ancient India,
when the game was known as Chaturanga, it is symbolic of
the four units or divisions of the erstwhile armies comprising
elephants, horses, chariots and soldiers on foot. From India,
it reached Persia (Iran) where Chaturanga became Shatranj.
From there it spread to the Arab countries and Europe and acquired
its present universal name, chess. It is said that chess has been
played in Britain since the thirteenth century. In the West, it
developed on the scientific lines and gradually became a keenly
contested competitive sport.
A Grassroots
Game
Chess is universally
acknowledged as having originated in India. But who invented it
and when remains engulfed in the mists of time. Sseveral interesting
tales, however, are narrated by the knowledgeables, which present
a glimpse of the infinite possibilities this fascinating game
possesses. In India, chess has been truly a grassroots game being
played in the cities, towns, villages – everywhere by ardent fans-
both literates and illiterates alike. Yet, surprisingly it did
not get the status it richly deserved. Rather erroneously, it
was treated as a time-wasting pastime, a recreation meant only
for the idlers.
It is ironical that
although best suited to the Indian psyche, chess remained largely
neglected in the land of its origin. Whatever little support the
players received came from the princes of the erstwhile princely
states and a few benevolent wealthy patrons. The modern rules
of the game were introduced by the British in the 19th century.
Pandit Trivengadacharya of Pune (the author of Vilasamanimanjari,
a Sanskrit book on chess), Ghulam Kassim of Madras and Mahesh
Chandra Banerji of Bengal were some of the leading chess exponents
of that time. Moropant Mehendle, Vinayakrao Khadilkar, Sripad
Vishnu Bodas and Narayanrao Joshi of Maharashtra, Kishan Lal Sharda
of Mathura, Gurbaksh Rai and Gurdasmal of Punjab were some of
the leading chess players in the early years of the last century.
Mir Sultan Khan of
Punjab, however, was the first one to leave the lasting imprint
of his un-questioned genius at the international level. It is
believed that Sultan Khan was uneducated and was an employee of
Sir Umar Hayat Khan, who took him to Britain in the late 1920s,
where he excelled as a chess player of enormous skill. Sultan
Khan not only won the British chess championship in 1929, 1932
and 1933 but also represented Britain in three chess Olympiads
as its leading player. Sultan Khan had the rare distinction of
beating the legendary Jose Raoul Capablanca of Cuba, who was world
chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He also defeated Dr. Savely
Tartakovar, a renowned player in a match of 11 games. The Indian
chess sensation was rated among the world’s top ten chess players
of that era. Sultan Khan’s glorious career ended prematurely,
when he had to return to Indian with his employer in 1933. Otherwise
he would have created many more milestones.
After Independence
If any sport
received the necessary impetus for its growth only after the nation
attained Independence, then undoubtedly it is chess. All the organised
activities and efforts to revive chess in India began after Independence
as if this ancient game was waiting for the end of the foreign
yoke to breathe in the free environment. The All India Chess Federation
was formed in 1953. The first official National Chess Championship
was held at Eluru (Andhra Pradesh) in 1955, which saw the crowning
of R.B. Sapre and D. Venkayya as the first national chess champions
jointly. Initially, the National Chess Championship used to be
held every alternate year but since 1971 it is being held every
year. India first took part in the Chess Olympiad (the world chess
team championship) in 1956 when it was held in Moscow and was
placed 27th among 34 participants. The national champion, Ramdas
Gupta (U.P.), B.P.Mahishkar (Sangli), S. Venkatraman (Chennai)
and Ramchandra Sapre (Mumbai) had represented India in the Moscow
Olympiad. The All-India Council of Sports accorded recognition
to chess as a sport only in 1959. The first National Chess Championship
for women was held in Bangalore in 1974 and was won by the eldest
of the famous Khadilkar sisters, Vasanthie. Since then it has
been held every year except 1980. It may be pointed out that the
National Women’s Chess Championship too has a two-tier system
of National ‘A’ and National ‘B’ Championships just like men’s
National Chess Championship.
Pathfinders
Two players,
one a pioneer and the other a rare genius, deserve special praise
for galvanizing the chess activities in the country and making
India an emerging force at the international level. They are :
Manuel Aaron, the pathfinder, and Viswanathan Anand, the inspiring
megastar. Manuel Aaron dominated the Indian chess scenario from
the mid-fifties till the end of the seventies, a very long period
during which he won the national title nine times-five times in
a row. He became India’s first International Master in 1961, a
rare honour for an Indian chess player at that time. The coveted
Grandmaster title was simply an elusive dream. It was a time when
hardly any worthwhile chess literature was available in the country.
Aaron was the first to realize the importance of learning the
latest strategies in the opening moves as well as in the middle
and the end game. He impressed upon his contemporaries and also
the younger generation to improve their book knowledge as simply
raw talent was not enough to excel at the higher level. It took
India 17 long years to produce its second International Master
(IM), when V. Ravi Kumar, also of Tamil Nadu, earned the IM title
by virtue of winning the second Asian Junior Chess Championship
held in Teheran in 1978. The next two IMs - Raja Ravisekhar and
T.N. Parmeswaran – were also from Tamil Nadu. After that floodgates
were gradually opened and a number of talented players acquired
the IM title.
Inimitable
Anand
The emergence
of Viswanathan Anand completely revolutionised the Indian chess.
Known as the "Lightning Kid" in his younger days, the
Chennai boy, Anand (born: December 11, 1969), has been making
waves since the mid-eighties and is now rated as one of the all-time
greats. Currently hailed as the "Speed King" in international
chess circles, the Indian genius has won almost all the titles
worth their name at the national and international levels. He
won the Asian Junior Chess title twice – first in 1984 at Coimbatore
and then in 1985 in Hong Kong. He calimed the senior national
title three times in a row from 1986 to 1988. He became the first
Asian to claim the World Junior Chess title in 1987 at
Baguio City in the Philippines. He earned the International Master
title in 1985 and the Grandmaster title in 1988. He was the first
Indian to qualify for the prestigious World Candidates
Championship in July 1990.
Anand’s first
major tournament victory was in Reggio Emilia in Italy in category
18 tournament in January 1992 in which he defeated among others
the then world champion, Garry Kasparov. In the PCA World Chess
Championship Candidates Final held at Las Palmas in Spain in March
1995, he defeated Russian – born GM, Gata Kamsky of the USA and
earned the right to challenge Kasparov for the PCA world title.
However, later in the same year Anand lost the final 10.5 – 7.5
in 18 games held in New York. The Indian sueprstar won the final
of the FIDE World Chess Championship held at Groningen in the
Netherlands in December 1997 beating six strong Grandmasters,
but missed the golden chance to win the world title as a tired
Anand was unfairly compelled to face the world champion Anatoly
Karpov of Russia, who was totally fresh in Lausanne, Switzerland,
and lost the 6-game title match in the tie-breaker. However, Anand’s
turn came two years later in the World Chess Championship-2000
held in New Delhi upto semifinals, while Teheran hosted the 6
game final. Easily trouncing the Latvian – born Spanish Grandmaster
Alexie Shirov 3.5-0.5 in only four games, Anand became the 15th
world chess champion, a fantastic achievement indeed. Anand also
won the first two World Cup Chess tournaments held in Shenyang,
China in September 2000 and in Hyderabad in October 2002 beating
GM Evgeny Bareev of Russia and GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan
respectively.
Currently ranked
third in the world behind Russian giants Garry Kasparov and Valdimir
Kramnik with Elo rating of 2764 points, Anand has won a number
of international tournaments in both classical and rapid forms
of chess. In rapid chess none can match him, not even Kasparov.
He has been honoured with several national and international awards
including the Arjun Award, Padmashri, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna
Award, Hero India Sports Award, Soviet Land Nehru Award and Spain’s
highest civilian award "Jameo de Oro". But from the
viewpoint of excellence in chess, the highest honour he received
was the prestigious International Chess Oscar twice, the first
Asian and the only non-Russian apart from the American wizard,
Bobby Fischer, to be thus honoured. Apart from placing Indian
chess firmly on the world map, the inimitable Anand’s biggest
contribution to the game has been to inspire a whole young generation
through his stupendous achievements. Despite being an icon and
a great achiever, he is unassuming, modest and level-headed, the
qualities which made him an ideal role-model for the aspiring
kids. Anand’s amazing deeds have infused a sense of self-belief
in the new generation and the results are already there to see
as a large number of highly talented young stars such as Krishnan
Sasikiran, P. Harikrishna, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, S. Vijayalakshmi,
Aarthie Ramaswamy, Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika have already
made their mark at the international level.
Woman’s Chess
The history of
women’s chess in India is limited to merely three decades. The
women’s senior National Chess Championship which began in 1974
was completely dominated by the Khadilkar sisters – Vasanthie,
Jayshree and Rohini upto 1984. Of the ten championships held during
this period, Rohini, the youngest, won five times, Jayshree won
four titles, while the eldest Vasanthie won the championship in
the inaugural year. It is said that the three sisters, daughters
of a journalist, were so much thrilled by the historic world title
clash between the legendary Bobby Fischer (USA) and defending
champion Boris Spassky (USSR) held in Reykjavik (Iceland) in 1972
that they started playing chess seriously. Jayshree became India’s
first WIM (Woman International Master) in 1979, followed by Rohini
and Vasanthie. Rohini also won the first Asian Women’s Chess Championship
held in Hyderabad in 1981 and retained the title in the second
edition of the Championship staged in Kuala Lumpur in 1983.
After the sudden
fading away of the Khadilkar sisters, Bhagyashree Thipsay (nee
Sathe) and Anupama Gokhale (nee Abhayankar), both from Maharashtra,
dominated the women’s chess in the country. Like Rohini Khadilkar
both of them won the women’s national chess title five times.
Anupama Gokhale emulated Rohini by winning the third and fourth
Asian women’s Chess Championships held in Dhaka in 1985 and in
Hyderabad in 1987 respectively. Bhagyashree Thipsay too won the
fifth Asian Women’s Chess Championship held in 1991 at Bhopal.
Then emerged
a new rising star in Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi, popularly known
as "Vijji" in the chess circles, to end Maharashtra’s
stranglehold on the women’s chess. The Chennai-born girl Vijayalakshmi,
who had won all the national chess titles open for the women from
the under-10 girls title to the National "A" Chess Championship
in 1995, won the five senior national titles in a row from 1998
to 2002. In all, so far she has won the national chess championship
for a record number of six times. Apart from winning the Asian
Zonal women’s chess crown at Teheran, Vijayalakshmi has won the
women’s title in the Commonwealth Chess Championship twice. But
her most creditable performance has been in the two successive
chess Olympiads held respectively at Istanbul (Turkey) in 2000
and at Bled (Slovenia) in 2002, where playing on the first board
she won a silver medal in both Olympiads. She is the first Indian
girl to earn WGM (Woman Grandmaster) title. She also holds the
men’s IM title.
The story of
women’s chess in India will be incomplete if two girl prodigies
from Andhra Pradesh – Koneru Hampy and Dronavalli Harika – are
not mentioned. Born on March 31, 1987 at Gudivada, Koneru Humpy
has amazing deeds to her credit. Sixteen year old Koneru has won
four world titles – under-10, under-12, under-14 and Junior Girls’
World Title. She is the youngest woman player to earn the men’s
GM title at the age of 15 years, one month and 27 days, eclipsing
the earlier record of the legendary GM Judit Polgar of Hungary,
who had accomplished this feat at the age of 15 years, 4 months
and 28 days. In the latest FIDE (Federation Internationale des
Echecs) ratings, Koneru is ranked fifth in the world with Elo
rating of 2496 behind Judit Polgar (Hungary), Antoaneta Stefanova
(Bulgaria), Almira Skripchenko (France) and Maia Chiburdanidze
(Georgia). Like Judit, Koneru prefers to play in men’s tournaments
and was captain of India’s men’s "B" team in the Asian
Team Chess Championship recently held at Jodhpur. The 13-year
old Guntur-girl, Dronavalli Harika, won the gold medal in the
Reserve Category for securing 6 points in 7 games while playing
for India’s women’s "A" team in the same championship
at Jodhpur. Dronavalli has the distinction of being India’s youngest
WIM (Woman International Master) replacing Koneru Humpy as the
youngest WIM in Asia. Dronavalli, who turned 13 on January 12,
2003, had accomplished this feat on December 17, 2002.
Rosy Picture
Chess in India
has undergone a huge transformation in the last two decades or
so. The game which not so long ago seemed neglected and stagnant,
is now thriving and kicking and presenting a rosy picture. The
All India Chess Federation is very active with its dynamic Secretary,
P.T.Umar Koya, also the Vice-President of FIDE, is leaving no
stone unturned to make India a real power in chess. More and more
national and international level various age-group events as well
as big open tournaments are being organised every year in the
country and the results are there for everybody to see. Apart
from various Asian level tournaments and also Commonwealth Championship,
India has hosted a World Cup and the FIDE World Chess Championship-2000
in the recent years. The most welcome development is that more
and more parents are encouraging their wards to play chess. Some
of them are so keen that their children excel in chess and for
that they are ready to make any sacrifice. An example in this
regard is that of Koneru Humpy’s father, Ashok, who gave up his
teaching career to devote fully to the coaching of his daughter.
Not so long ago, it was unthinkable for a person to earn his living
through chess. But now things have changed completely. A number
of small chess academies have sprung up like mushrooms all over
the country, though there are some top class chess academics also.
Many established chess players have taken to coaching . The All
India Chess Federation’s latest plan is to set up an International
Chess Academy at Kozhikode, Kerala which will start functioning
soon.
The chess scenario
has changed so much that while till mid-eighties there were only
a few IMs and no Grandmaster, today there are eight GMs- Viswanathan
Anand, Dibyendu Barua, Pravin Thipsay, Abhijit Kunte, Krishnan
Sasikiran, Pendyla Harikrishna, Koneru Humpy and Surya Sekhar
Ganguly, nearly 33 IMs, two WGMs- Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi and
Aarthie Ramaswamy and 15 WIMs. These figures are bound to rise
further in the coming years as more and more children are creating
waves at a very tender age such as Sahaj Grover, Parimarjan Negi
and N. Srinath-to name a few. The Indian chess is sure to get
further impetus as chess has been included in the 15th Asian Games
to be held in Doha (Qatar) in 2006. Without doubt, a very bright
future awaits the Indian chess.
*
Senior Sports Writer
