Why should India try to be a sporting nation?

Here is a video from NDTV about sporting culture in India.



These guys were discussing why isn't India a sporting nation. The arguments I heard were like:

1. lack of infrastructure
2. cricket cricket cricket
3. risk of failure, which in absence of govt support can leave you hungry and poor
4. there is simply not enough money in the country to support sportsmen
5. culture(something like shaastra was mentioned in the video) doesn't give sports any place in our lives 

etc etc. While I think these are the tangible reasons why Sports don't flourish in India, but these by themselves aren't the problem. I think all these guys sort of missed the main point. Sports is a tremendous character builder. It teaches one to accept defeat but not be a loser or have a defeatist attitude.

Another thing, on a very basic level, was also missed was that sports keep us much healthier and hence increase the happiness in people! lesser instances of diseases in people, better lifestyle choices etc all come in to make a country healthy, happy and eventually prosperous.

I think most of our leaders were unlucky enough to not see this perspective, which all developed countries( and societies) follow so well! I live in the US and I see people running at any time during the day! they are MUCH more healthier than most of the affluent Indians I know!

It's not about playing sports for the professional value of it, its about playing sports whatever your profession is, so that you are healthy enough to make most of what your body has to offer.

On a different note. The debate by itself was so much of an opinion-based discussion. If experts were called in, why weren't empirical data based examples given? why can't a sound argument be made to support what they say?

In addition to the sporting culture, we also need a good debating culture :)