Punjab village beats addiction through sports

Over a decade ago, Jagdev Kalan village, located about 20 km from Amritsar, was grappling with rampant drug use among its youth. However, the community has largely overcome this crisis through sports, particularly volleyball and athletics.

Before turning to sports in 2018, the village had lost more than 30 young men to drug and substance abuse over the previous decade. The issue was so severe that it was often highlighted in speeches delivered during seminars marking the birth and death anniversaries of Hasham Shah, a Sufi poet and writer born in the village.

Determined to bring about change, vigilant residents expanded the village’s sporting infrastructure by building two volleyball stadiums. Later, a mega stadium was added, which included another volleyball ground, a 400-metre athletics track, a basketball court and a football ground. Today, the facility, which is developed on Panchayat land, attracts over 500 young people from Jagdev Kalan and surrounding villages.

This grassroots sports revolution has produced tangible results: 10 youngsters from the village have joined the Indian Army, while two have secured jobs in the railways and forest department, respectively, and two athletes have competed at the national level.

Gurwinder Singh, a retired Army officer and former state-level volleyball player who competed at the Command level, began training local youth in 2018 after retiring and settling in the village. He is supported by fellow villagers Davinder Singh and Gurpreet Singh, both also retired Army personnel.

Gurwinder Singh said the incidence of drug abuse dropped drastically after development of sports culture in the village. He added that young people are most vulnerable during the evening hours, a time when they are now actively engaged in games. Thanks to floodlights, the stadium remains operational even during night hours.

Shabeg Singh, a retired government school teacher and now the unanimously elected Sarpanch, said the Panchayat willingly allocated land for the stadium to wean the youth away from drugs. The combination of dedicated sports coaches and ground facilities has done wonders to transform the lives of rural youth, with players coming from nearly 20 nearby villages.

Pointing to the well-maintained village roads, marked with white lines and lined with streetlights, Shabeg Singh credited Ajnala MLA Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, who is also a native of Jagdev Kalan, for the infrastructure development.

He said while the trend of migration overseas has slowed due to stricter immigration norms, many villagers have already settled abroad. In fact, he is the only member of his family still living in the village; the rest are in the USA.

Another inspiring local figure is Gurdev Singh, a young man who, after surviving throat cancer, has dedicated his life to environmental conservation. So far, he has planted over 75,000 saplings throughout the village and developed a tree-lined path near the stadium, now a popular spot even for visitors from the city. He continues to maintain the green spaces with the help of local players.