This article originally appeared in The Field’s newsletter, Game Points, on September 25, 2024. Sign up here to get the newsletter directly delivered to your inbox every week.
India bagged a historic double gold at the 2024 Chess Olympiad on Sunday, becoming only the second team after China to win top honours in both the men’s and women’s categories since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Having made its Olympiad debut in 1956, it took India 68 years to win its first gold. This success in Budapest has been a long time coming. For more than five years, top players and experts around the world have predicted that India would be the next country to watch out for.
Apart from the two team gold medals, the Indian players also bagged four individual gold medals at the Olympiad. All four of them – Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigaisi, Divya Deshmukh, and Vantika Agrawal – are 21 or under, promising a golden era for Indian chess for the next few years.
These are remarkable times for Indian chess, but the foundation for these achievements was, without doubt, put into place when Viswanathan Anand emerged on the world stage in the late 1980s.
In a recent social media post on X after India’s win, world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura claimed there had been no chess culture in India before the great Anand came along. The American’s comments did not sit well with some Indian fans, but it is hard to disagree.
Before Anand’s breakthrough, the best known Indian player was Manuel Aaron, an International Master.
Anand’s world junior championship win in 1987 made the world sit up and take note. A year later, he would go on to become India’s first Grandmaster, before winning the Candidates in 1995 and becoming the first Asian to become the World Champion in 2000.
Even though he was on his way up, he didn’t exactly become an instantly recognisable celebrity.
In a 2021 podcast with cricketer Ashwin Ravichandran, Anand shared a story about how an elderly man in a train once warned him that sports in India made for an unpredictable livelihood, adding that he should play chess only if he was at the level of Viswanathan Anand.
Anand’s rise stimulated a wave of Grandmasters in India. From one Grandmaster in 1988, the country now has 85, with P Shyam Nikhil the latest to earn the tag in May this year.
Anand not only inspired the next generation of Indian players, but is also actively involved in mentoring them via the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy, which was established in 2020.
Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and Vaishali Rameshbabu from the academy’s first batch of students were part of India’s triumphant team in Budapest.
The trio has enjoyed a rapid rise since the Covid-19 era, with Gukesh winning the Candidates, Praggnanandhaa reaching the final of the Chess World Cup and Vaishali earning the Grandmaster title.
Even the 2024 Olympiad individual gold medallist Vantika Agrawal is a part of the academy.
An Indian chess landscape without Anand is hard to imagine.
“Anand has always been a good friend and an inspiration,” Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, India’s third Grandmaster and one of Anand’s earliest rivals in the country told Scroll. “He led the change in the Indian chess ecosystem and the work they are doing under Anand’s mentorship is one of the reasons behind India’s success.”
Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi and others have reiterated the impact Anand has had on their chess journeys.
At a time when chess culture in India was almost non-existent, Anand walked so that the next generation of players could run.
It was only fitting that Anand handed over the gold medals to the Indian teams on the podium. Even better was the five-time world champion’s smile, as Gujrathi handed Anand the trophy to bear aloft.
